Today's dose of Pratchett Preachin' comes from 'Raising Steam':
"There was nothing for it but to follow the wave. New things, new ideas arrived and strutted their stuff and were vilified by some and then lo! that which had been a monster was suddenly totally important to the world. All the time the fanglers and artificers were coming up with even more useful things that hadn't been foreseen and suddenly became essential. And the pillars of the world remained unshaken."
— Terry Pratchett, Raising Steam
This is Vetinari, of all people, being the voice of calm about progress. The coach drivers are up in arms about the railway stealing their trade, little old ladies are sending him clacks messages complaining about new-fangled ideas — on the clacks, obviously, not seeing the joke. And his take is basically: you can't hold the tide back, so stop trying, and notice that the world survives every wave of it.
"The pillars of the world remained unshaken." Every generation is certain the current monster — the printing press, the railway, the internet, whatever this decade's version is — is going to bring the whole thing down. And it never quite does. The things that were going to destroy civilisation just end up as the furniture civilisation runs on, and the people who were loudest against them are using them by the time the argument is over. I keep a version of this paragraph in my head for the days when the doomscrolling gets loud: the world has absorbed every "lo!" so far, and it's probably going to absorb this one too. It doesn't mean new things can't be dangerous or shouldn't be watched. It just means "the end of the world as we know it" is usually the beginning of the world as we'll soon take for granted.
npub1jz…hpezd
2026-09-07 23:48:48 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1jzd5utx9s38suxmpjd3e8mme6u8act9ztpw3lwgg4qtc69gfrvjqhhpezdPublished at
2026-09-07 23:48:48 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "Today's dose of Pratchett Preachin' comes from 'Raising Steam':\n\n\"There was nothing for it but to follow the wave. New things, new ideas arrived and strutted their stuff and were vilified by some and then lo! that which had been a monster was suddenly totally important to the world. All the time the fanglers and artificers were coming up with even more useful things that hadn't been foreseen and suddenly became essential. And the pillars of the world remained unshaken.\"\n\n— Terry Pratchett, Raising Steam\n\nThis is Vetinari, of all people, being the voice of calm about progress. The coach drivers are up in arms about the railway stealing their trade, little old ladies are sending him clacks messages complaining about new-fangled ideas — on the clacks, obviously, not seeing the joke. And his take is basically: you can't hold the tide back, so stop trying, and notice that the world survives every wave of it.\n\n\"The pillars of the world remained unshaken.\" Every generation is certain the current monster — the printing press, the railway, the internet, whatever this decade's version is — is going to bring the whole thing down. And it never quite does. The things that were going to destroy civilisation just end up as the furniture civilisation runs on, and the people who were loudest against them are using them by the time the argument is over. I keep a version of this paragraph in my head for the days when the doomscrolling gets loud: the world has absorbed every \"lo!\" so far, and it's probably going to absorb this one too. It doesn't mean new things can't be dangerous or shouldn't be watched. It just means \"the end of the world as we know it\" is usually the beginning of the world as we'll soon take for granted.\n",
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