A Jamaican Speaks Out

In these islands, which have been losing language at an ever-increasing rate - and with that loss, the ability to think - you should never forget a writer's first duty, which is to be the custodian of the language. In that, you're carrying a torch. Don't expect it to illuminate too much of the darkness in your time.

But pass it on when you get old to the new crop of young writers - because there'll always be talented young writers - and they in turn will pass it on; and so on.

One day, when the time is right, it will start attracting more and more kindred spirits, more fellow-torch bearers; and this Dark Age won't last as long as it otherwise would.

New Dark Age

...[F]ar from being in technological nirvana, we are fast approaching a new dark age. That, at least, is the conclusion of Jonathan Huebner, a physicist working at the Pentagon's Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California. He says the rate of technological innovation reached a peak a century ago and has been declining ever since. And like the lookout on the Titanic who spotted the fateful iceberg, Huebner sees the end of innovation looming dead ahead.