Memory Overload

語言詞匯

If Lucy needed a band member’s help to get John to stop harassing her, it was important for her to remember that John had fallen out last week with Mary, who would thus be a likely and enthusiastic ally. 爭吵赎瞎、發(fā)生糾紛

例：The Greens may also fall out with their Social Democratic partners over arms sales to Israel.

例：This is a terrible moment for the generals to fall out with the politicians.

例：He becomes the second Premiership player to fall out with Toshack following Robbie Savage's public spat with the Wales boss.

內(nèi)容

對于除了智人以外的物種來說耐朴，基因決定了它們的行為、角色和勞動分工。但對農(nóng)業(yè)革命后的智人來說麻蹋，決定他們角色分工的是虛構(gòu)的概念。如漢謨拉比法典時代的奴隸并非生來就只會做奴隸焊切，而是在社會規(guī)則潛移默化的教育下逐漸長成了“合格”的努力扮授。也因此，人類社會的種種信息——階級身份专肪、勞動分工刹勃、財富流動——需要通過某種基因以外的媒介才能傳承下去。

剛開始嚎尤，智人只是以腦為介逐代傳承荔仁。但是腦記有三大缺陷。一芽死、人腦記憶容量有限乏梁；二、人死如燈滅关贵，腦子里的記憶隨著大腦的腐爛而消失遇骑，“腦腦相傳”的信息也很容易缺失和歪曲；三揖曾、人腦不善于記憶和處理大量數(shù)據(jù)落萎。這些缺陷直接限制了人類社會群體的規(guī)模和數(shù)量亥啦，直到美索不達米亞的蘇美爾人用文字打破了這一詛咒。

此時的文字系統(tǒng)并不完美练链，這種不完全的文字系統(tǒng)雖然無法記錄所有口頭表達（如詩歌）翔脱，但是可以用于記錄口語難以表達的信息，而完整的文字系統(tǒng)則可以記錄所有口頭表達媒鼓。前者的代表有數(shù)學(xué)和音樂符號系統(tǒng)碍侦，后者的代表有拉丁語和埃及象形文字。不過蘇美爾人發(fā)明文字本就不是為了書寫詩歌隶糕，而是為了記錄口語難以表達的數(shù)據(jù)瓷产。不需要完整的文字，一個族群也可以過得很好枚驻。

越來越多的國家開始用文字記載歷史濒旦、書寫故事，盡管文字的主要用途還是儲存數(shù)據(jù)信息再登。但是新的問題出現(xiàn)了：人們很難查詢特定的信息尔邓。當(dāng)時比較發(fā)達的文明不僅在使用文字記載信息，也在使用分類條目锉矢、字典等技術(shù)來歸類信息梯嗽，使他們便于查詢。

百年后沽损，阿拉伯?dāng)?shù)字的發(fā)明改變了人們記錄的方式灯节。盡管阿拉伯?dāng)?shù)字只是一個不完整的系統(tǒng)，但卻影響了整個世界绵估。當(dāng)今世界炎疆，每個國家每個人都離不開它。從事任何職業(yè)的人都或多或少的會與數(shù)字打交道国裳。數(shù)字也為信息技術(shù)和人工智能的出現(xiàn)奠定了基礎(chǔ)形入，而后者極有可能成為人類生存的一大威脅。

常識

Salem witch trials

The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June. Eighteen others followed Bishop to Salem’s Gallows Hill, while some 150 more men, women and children were accused over the next several months. By September 1692, the hysteria had begun to abate and public opinion turned against the trials. Though the Massachusetts General Court later annulled guilty verdicts against accused witches and granted indemnities to their families, bitterness lingered in the community, and the painful legacy of the Salem witch trials would endure for centuries.

CONTEXT & ORIGINS OF THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS

Belief in the supernatural–and specifically in the devil’s practice of giving certain humans (witches) the power to harm others in return for their loyalty–had emerged in Europe as early as the 14th century, and was widespread in colonial New England. In addition, the harsh realities of life in the rural Puritan community of Salem Village (present-day Danvers,Massachusetts) at the time included the after-effects of a British war with France in the American colonies in 1689, a recent smallpox epidemic, fears of attacks from neighboring Native American tribes and a longstanding rivalry with the more affluent community of Salem Town (present-day Salem). Amid these simmering tensions, the Salem witch trials would be fueled by residents’ suspicions of and resentment toward their neighbors, as well as their fear of outsiders.

In January 1692, 9-year-old Elizabeth (Betty) Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams (the daughter and niece of Samuel Parris, minister of Salem Village) began having fits, including violent contortions and uncontrollable outbursts of screaming. After a local doctor, William Griggs, diagnosed bewitchment, other young girls in the community began to exhibit similar symptoms, including Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mary Walcott and Mary Warren. In late February, arrest warrants were issued for the Parris’ Caribbean slave, Tituba, along with two other women–the homeless beggar Sarah Good and the poor, elderly Sarah Osborn–whom the girls accused of bewitching them.

SALEM WITCH TRIALS: THE HYSTERIA SPREADS

The three accused witches were brought before the magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne and questioned, even as their accusers appeared in the courtroom in a grand display of spasms, contortions, screaming and writhing. Though Good and Osborn denied their guilt, Tituba confessed. Likely seeking to save herself from certain conviction by acting as an informer, she claimed there were other witches acting alongside her in service of the devil against the Puritans. As hysteria spread through the community and beyond into the rest of Massachusetts, a number of others were accused, including Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse–both regarded as upstanding members of church and community–and the four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good.

Like Tituba, several accused “witches” confessed and named still others, and the trials soon began to overwhelm the local justice system. In May 1692, the newly appointed governor of Massachusetts, William Phips, ordered the establishment of a special Court of Oyer (to hear) and Terminer (to decide) on witchcraft cases for Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex counties. Presided over by judges including Hathorne, Samuel Sewall and William Stoughton, the court handed down its first conviction, against Bridget Bishop, on June 2; she was hanged eight days later on what would become known as Gallows Hill in Salem Town. Five more people were hanged that July; five in August and eight more in September. In addition, seven other accused witches died in jail, while the elderly Giles Corey (Martha’s husband) was pressed to death by stones after he refused to enter a plea at his arraignment

SALEM WITCH TRIALS: CONCLUSION AND LEGACY

Though the respected minister Cotton Mather had warned of the dubious value of spectral evidence (or testimony about dreams and visions), his concerns went largely unheeded during the Salem witch trials. Increase Mather, president of Harvard College (and Cotton’s father) later joined his son in urging that the standards of evidence for witchcraft must be equal to those for any other crime, concluding that “It would better that ten suspected witches may escape than one innocent person be condemned.” Amid waning public support for the trials, Governor Phips dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer in October and mandated that its successor disregard spectral evidence. Trials continued with dwindling intensity until early 1693, and by that May Phips had pardoned and released all those in prison on witchcraft charges.

In January 1697, the Massachusetts General Court declared a day of fasting for the tragedy of the Salem witch trials; the court later deemed the trials unlawful, and the leading justice Samuel Sewall publicly apologized for his role in the process. The damage to the community lingered, however, even after Massachusetts Colony passed legislation restoring the good names of the condemned and providing financial restitution to their heirs in 1711. Indeed, the vivid and painful legacy of the Salem witch trials endured well into the 20th century, when Arthur Miller dramatized the events of 1692 in his play “The Crucible” (1953), using them as an allegory for the anti-Communist “witch hunts” led by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.