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Comment by sdsd | Hacker News Reader

Not related to TFA but the word "semiotics" to me is very evocative of this set of academic subjects in the 70s that were just kind of shelved. Right along with cybernetics or women's lib. Here in Guatemala there was a used book fair and in the English section they had a book for 80 cents about cybernetics, which I've neglected to read, but now think I ought to read soon :)

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Also networks, Bucky Fullerism, Eastern philosophy, mind maps, UNIX and chaos theory gaining momentum, etc. They seem somewhat dated now, but in a way they've diffused through our culture so extensively that they're just part of the background and nobody raises an eyebrow at them anymore. The 70s had a zeal for cool ideas that we just don't have anymore.

After the USSR went down, the Stanford bookstore had a sign: "All communism 70% off".

In the early 00s I lived in the Washington DC suburbs, and saw first hand how all the old Kremlinologists and Russia specialists were being pensioned off and retired. I'd attend yard sales and there'd be stacks of books about Russian culture, politics, literature, everything. Pashto was hot, and Pushkin was not.

Today, they need Kremlinologists and Russian speakers all over again.

What goes around, comes around...

This is the most amused I have been in days. Thank you!

> or women's lib

Unlike certain jurisdictions we didn't shelve that one; we actually put it into our constitution (if slightly after the 70s).

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