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DOOMIFICATION

An approach for converting text to
doomfile format:

  Reformat with tight right margin.

  Split paragraphs into smaller units
  (one rectpara per sentence, i.e. idea?)

  Chop unnecesary words.                      It's amazing how hard
                                              it can be to read text
  Turn parenthetic comments into              stripped of the apparently
  side bars.                                  "unnecesary" words.

  Reorganize "train" of thought into                The doomification
  "tree" of thought.                                process has interesting
                                                    biases: short Hemingway
                                                    style sentences are
Plan on obsolescence:                               favored.  Fewer words
try not to work on things                           are usually best, but
that can't be finished                              large words are awkward:
before they're irrelevant.                          they make it harder to
                                                    format into rectangles.
For example: some worry about                       E.g.: above, "Hemingway
the human gene pool being                           style" was originally
contaminated by poor traits                         "hemingwayesque".
that civilization protects,
such as poor eyesight.  This                            Even better though,
is dumb, because in a few                               would be to drop
decades the genes of the                                the Hemingway ref.
children will be under direct                           It's not even
control of the parents... and                           obscure enough to
*that* may cause some                                   be pretentious.
problems worth worrying         HEMINGWAY
about.
                                                Speaking of pretentiousness,
                               NANOTECH         this is another problem with
                                                doomification: "excess"
       Eric Drexler was initally                words are often there to
       very interested in large                 soften statements, to
       scale space technology such              provide a sense of modesty.
       as photosails, but after                 "In my opinion"; "I think
       thinking about the potential             that"; "But then I could be
       for "nanotechnology", he                 wrong"...  many such phrases
       decided it was far more                  can be choped without
       likely a nanotech revolution             changing the idea being
       would happen first, long                 stated, and yet this can
       before the industrial                    make the statement sound
       revolution in space.                     much more egocentric.






Which is better: write about
the entirety of an author's
work under one subject heading
(e.g. the author's name), or
split up the writing, filing
each piece under some more specific
subject?  Answer: The Latter.

(Example: Maybe the stuff under the
Delany heading would work better split up            I eventually did 
according to subject, with subheadings about         spin off material from 
different works by Delany, like Babel-17, say.)                   
                                                     DELANY
                                                      
                                                     To:
                                                        
                                                     BABEL-17



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