Rawls, Vienna Circle

[Martin Browning]

I just started reading, and mention two things: Lotteryland sounds nicely Rawlsian (the lottery of talents he discusses) -- plus of course PKD's Solar Lottery (and the woman reading Lotteryland is thinking of her neighbor as coming out of Bladerunner, based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep); and it's Vienna Circle, not Viennese Circle, on p. 22 (because really if Helen DeWitt won't take kindly to pedantry, who will?)

[Ryan Mooney]

Hello Martin, apologies for my ignorance, but who is Rawls?

[Martin Browning]

Hello Ryan -- I just answered this below, to a second comment.

[Mary Abiyad]

Hi! I also do not know who Rawls is. I tried to look her/him up, but there were many people with that last name. Whenever Lotteryland was first mentioned, I thought of the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. The society in that story was fun to keep and mind and compare to the one in Lotteryland.

[Martin Browning]

Hello Ryan and Mary -- the Rawls I meant is the philosopher John Rawls. In his great book A Theory of Justice he talks about a natural lottery of talents, here, for example.