Word: absurdity
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Winning at chess, of course, is much harder than adding numbers. But when you think about it carefully, the idea that Deep Blue has a mind is absurd. How can an object that wants nothing, fears nothing, enjoys nothing, needs nothing and cares about nothing have a mind? It can win at chess, but not because it wants to. It isn't happy when it wins or sad when it loses. What are its apres-match plans if it beats Kasparov? Is it hoping to take Deep Pink out for a night on the town? It doesn't care about...
...story says "all the moons lacked was the heat needed to get biological chemistry going." Life is much more complex than this. The statement made by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that "we have organic chemicals mixed into a bath of water. That's a recipe for life" is absurd. The idea that a chemical cocktail stimulated by heat will produce biological life is an insult to science and those who work in the various fields of biology. I suggest that intelligent and fully ordered life such as we have on Earth is not the result of mere chance...
...Western civilization was no match for an unadulterated reading period. No classes, no sections, no unit tests; just me and my books. It was glorious. In the morning, I'd tackle the Industrial Revolution. In the afternoon, World War I. And in the evening, that memoir by Orwell. Sounds absurd--but by the time my exams rolled around, I was thoroughly steeped in the coursework, spouting facts out every orifice, composing essays on the way to breakfast...
Blair saw it differently. He said at the time that "it was absurd that the one guiding value the Labour Party has in its constitution is wholesale nationalization, when, in fact, the party no longer believes in it." He traveled the country selling his view and was again vigorously opposed by the unions. "We didn't like the idea that Blair was hijacking the party by changing Clause IV," says John Cogger, president of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. "It's our party, created by my union in 1899." It took two tries, but Blair finally...
Herzog became particularly well known as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations when, in 1975, he tore up a resolution equating Zionism with racism in front of the UN General Assembly, calling the body a "theater of the absurd...