Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson) - Book Review

A book that had a huge impact at its inception is still gaining cultural relevance 2 decades later.

'Snow Crash' by Neal Stephenson depicts a dystopian USA where technology is way more advanced but life is significantly more dangerous. Hiro Protagonist and YT have to save the world from a biological-cum-digital virus that is enslaving people. Notable for it's futuristic ideas that are appearing in real life (such as VR and the Metaverse), the book also dives deeply into linguistics and the core characteristics of language.

I summarised the book as follows. "If you like Sci-Fi & dystopian tales this is a solid read. I wanted to read it for its cultural relevance but was pleasantly surprised by the linguistics information and whether language is universalistic or relativistic. In many ways it's a rather simple story with one dimensional characters but I found this a great casing for the cooler futuristic technology and ideas about how language/communication operates.

I hope you have a fantastic day wherever you are in the world. Kyrin out!

Timeline:
(0:00) - Intro
(0:40) - Synopsis
(4:23) - The Metaverse: Better than reality?
(10:46) - Language: The core of communication
(18:04) - Observations/Takeaways
(23:05) - Summary


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