You're doing it wrong. I bumped into this 'Short Guide to Russian literature':
"Russian literature consists of suffering. Either writer suffers, or protagonist, or reader. If all three suffer simultaneously--then it is a masterpiece. In every difficult situation always read Russian classic literature--it is even worse in there."
For example, an adder's total delay depends on a carry chain. If you have N 4-bit slices, the last slice has to wait for the carry to propagate through all N-1 previous slices.
But if you duplicate all your slices, you can have the results for both carry = 0 and carry = 1 inputs. Then just switch which one is correct - total time 1 add plus N-1 switches.
> "Human dignity does not depend on a person's abilities"
That should be a hard line no one is allowed to cross. If you do, no logic will keep you from ending up in a very bad place.
For instance, I'm a big fan of Terry Pratchett's Discworld stories, where his humorous and compassionate tales comment on much of human experience. It's a fantasy world with wizards, trolls, dwarfs, vampires, etc.
In one book he goes into ghouls - obscure, despised and persecuted almost to extinction, but in the story it is found they secretly make beautiful ethereal music. So a concert is arranged to present the music, and all is well, the end. Except for my doubts - I mean, if they didn't make nice music, then it would be alright to dispose of them?
Benthamite utility has a particularly ugly underside to it, and it is easily converted into "disposal of negative value" of the nastiest kind. Which can only be stopped by a moral hard line, as stated.
That's an anachronism, from the 19th to mid-20th century there were just "great powers", not perfectly matched but considered to be in the same class. The Ottoman empire falling off the league ("sick old man") was a bit of a shocker.
Well spotted. India is apparently going through that, and they have a joke - older people complain that new generations are lost: "They dine outside and shit inside!"
I remember one business class anecdote, where the conclusion of changing workplace conditions (light, music, etc. both ways) was that productivity studies increase productivity ...
Totally unrelated to the "Yes Minister" documentary. Totally.