Kurt Vonnegut's House Is Not Haunted | Hacker News Reader

Kurt Vonnegut's House Is Not Haunted

theparisreview.org

46 pointsprismatic17 comments

Article mentions Player Piano!!! Completely underrated Vonnegut work, it is a great depiction of what a fully-automated dystopia might look like. The unemployed living on a UBI dole, engaging in undignified menial labor "reclaiming" scrap infrastructure. (Though at least they all have free healthcare in the book, something that seems too good to be true in real life.) The creative arts are both strictly licensed and all content must adhere to the calculated tests determined by the machines. Even for the elites, a sort of corrosive credentialism runs amok has taken over, with everyone having multiple secondary degrees. Also he somehow predicts the over-commercialism and optimization of college football.

Quite prescient. Realistically I expect the dominant activity to be consumption, and creating/selling useless artisanal crafts to one another. Notwithstanding cheap energy, the red tape could definitely be heavy to build anything of material consequence, particularly if we charge the responsibility of dolling out resources and capital to the government.

While Kurt Vonnegut's house may not be haunted, I'm certain that if you spent the night there, you'd wake up refreshed and hungry for a Breakfast of Champions.

Interesting how this title remains perfectly true if you replace “Kurt Vonnegut” with literally any other, potentially less interesting, human’s name.

Even better, just drop the person name entirely.

Something tells me one would have to read the article to understand why the headline is like that, as opposed to take it as a literal statement. But this is HN, and we neither read past the headline nor allow for non-literal interpretation of things, so I will just sit here and nod in agreement.

As if I was going to read an entire book about a cradle, whether or not it belonged to a cat...

But I kid, of course. I read that, and this rather cute article about an author I adored as a teenager. The house isn't haunted, but... well, I won't spoil it.

I would pity the poor ghost of Kurt Vonnegut as I'm sure he would get absolutely no rest what with all his fans asking to be possessed or to have books dropped on their head.

Guys, it’s not Kurt! It’s Billy, Billy Pilgrim. So it goes.

But is Kurt Honnegut's house vaunted? Sources say yes.

Sometime jaunted too.

But regularly flaunted. Owners say of course.

reddit comments..

Oh noes, BAN! Didn't you know it's against this site's policy to compare it to Reddit?

And if you point this policy out, you'll get flagged for THAT!

Let's see if I'll get flagged for pointing out that you'll get flagged. We have some real insecure infants here.

Of course not. Kurt is up in Heaven now.

So it goes.

Vonnegutian catch-phrases always get an upvote from me. :)

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