“Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.”

“Let go of the past and go for the future. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined."

Did all outcasts come to this realization at a certain point in life? That being outcast from a bogus and pornographic society actually was a good thing? I hoped so. I hoped there was an army of us out there, smiling about it that very moment.

I'm a little skeptical about this book, because I'm uneasy with any attempts to define fourth-wave feminism, or any feminism.
I am pro-choice, but, like others who study the historiography of third-wave feminism, I know that reproductive rights are not the only issues facing feminism, and, when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1972, not all feminists were united in thinking reproductive rights were the most important issue for which to campaign.
That doesn't mean that they are not important at all. But many women of colour, including women in African-American communities in the 1960s and 70s, were focused as much on equal rights based on race as much as they were on equal rights based on gender. The fusion between race and gender, for women of colour, meant that many of them had to be focused on their treatment by the state: segregation, racial discrimination in the workplace, for example, were just some of the other struggles, including women's rights, that women of colour had to face.

But I am a product of third-wave feminism and a member of fourth-wave feminism, (or, at least, of post-third wave feminism), but I think that fourth-wave feminism, as it emerges with this Millenial Generation, is one that is and should be multicultural. Contemporary feminism, indeed, has grown from the unilateral thoughts of the mostly white middle-class (as was the target audience of Betty Friedan's groundbreaking The Feminine Mystique) and has now become (or should be) the place in which all women voice their rights and freedoms. Issues like FGM, the hijab and veiling, and other international issues should be points in which feminists respect other feminists' cultural viewpoints.

Ergo, defining fourth-wave feminism as "Generation Roe"; in essence, saying that we fourth-wave feminists are living in an America defined by the rights of Roe v. Wade is not one I fully embrace. Don't get me wrong, it is both historically and sociologically true: I definitely see the point and impact of measuring women and young women in society's views as they grow in a country that protects their reproductive rights (well, on the whole), compared to the 1970s, when women's reproductive rights were truly under assault.

SO! I have no problem with this book at all; it seems interesting; I might read it, but I don't know if I need to. I might read it to find out how Roe has affected our lives, but not on how to define fourth-wave feminism.

The idea of machines making machines is a recurring theme in both science fiction stories and serious academic studies. There are probably two reasons for this fascination: One is a practical view of scalability. Creating a machine that can create more machines leverages technology to it's maximum capacity:With no humans in the loop, production is limited only by availability of material, power, and time. The second reason for fascination with this topic may be rooted in a deeper psychological need - one that some might call hubris - our need to create. The natural distinguishes itself from the artificial in that natural creatures can make more creatures but machines cannot. At its core, self-reproduction is the ultimate hallmark of biology. If you can create a machine that can make other machines, you will have attained a new level of creation.