Why Knot? a personal quest, Table of Contents

Richard Seltzer
3 min readOct 24, 2021

Excerpts from “Why Knot?” Buy the book at Amazon

Our Time

The Abraham Effect: The Future of Humanity Depends on You

Highly Unlikely

Listening to Life with a Tin Ear

Where There’s a Will

Getting Personal

There Is Everything That We Can Do

Foreword from the book Why Knot?

Our Time

Time Dilation

The Time Between Time

Hemingway and e. e. cummings

Is Reality Discontinuous?

Moving Beyond the Limits of Science

An Ultimate Unit of Space and the Need for a New Calculus

Does Dark Matter?

Defining Action

The End-Game Generation Seeks Meaning

The Stages of Human History

Truth and Consequences

Scared to Life

The Procrastination Index

Exemplary People: the Machinist and the Postal Clerk

Names and Naming

In the Beginning Was the Need to Eat and Drink

Evolutionary Quirks

Bird Color

The Future of War

Million-Dollar Opportunities

Is Entropy an Illusion?

Memory and Sex

Random Thoughts About Thought

Anti-Reason

What’s the It?

Philosophic Insight from the Blind

William James and Laura Bridgman

The Niche Theory of Evolution

Worm

Promised Land

Slavery and Industrialization

Context, Meaning, and Language

How to Save the Bahamas and Maybe the World as Well

Perhaps The Iliad and The Odyssey Commemorate a Loss Rather than a Victory.

Why Didn’t God Make Little Green Mammals?

Rolling Boycott — a blueprint for turning public outrage into effective action

Did Large Dinosaurs Have Two Brains?

Alternate ‘War of the Worlds’ Plots

A PRISM Solution

Long-Overdue Constitutional Amendment

How to fix Congress? Eliminate Seniority

How to Fix Congress? Limit the Powers of the Leaders

Delay, Rumination, and Compromise in Government

The Role of Vice President

Tax Credits for National Service?

Selling Money — An Alternative to Taxes

Make It Easy to Make Charitable Contributions at Tax Time

Certification for Panhandlers

Cultural citizenship — an alternative form of government made possible by the Internet

How to Deal with Dictators

How to Make the US Postal Service Competitive

Longevity and Governance

Binge Reading Shakespeare

Reading and the Zerg

Literary Periods and Man’s Changing Image of Himself

The Importance of Taking the Easier Path

The Curse of Moore’s Law

Homer and the Myth of the Author

Odysseus and the Centaurs

Neverending Story

Infocard — a business idea for the taking

Time for Reflection

Wild Speculation — Multiple Edens and Hominin Marsupials

Trust your instinct when faced with a pressing moral dilemma

The Internet and The Human Spirit

Trigonometry and American Independence

Thoughts on the Significance of Ebooks

Timeless Scams

World War II Legacy

Yes-terday

Grandmother Bear

Engineering Question — Windmills and Walls

Do-It-Yourself Alphabet Book

Pee Pill

The Myth of Future Shock

Why Not Save a Hair?

Tangible Goods vs. Experiences

Intelligence Test Wish List

Advice for Rental Car Companies

Customer Service 101

Programmable Mattresses

How to Expand Time

Taking a fresh look at Will and Ariel Durant’s Story of Civilization

Creative Procrastination

Cigarettes — why not put a filter on the other end?

How to Cope With Reduced Weight on the Moon

Independent Agencies for Bank Business?

How to Facilitate Car Recalls

Pain Simulator

Outdated School Reunions

Print Obituaries in Large Type

Predictable and Disastrous Belief in Magic

The Slavery that Was Rome, in Plautus, Terence, and Petronius

Excerpts from “Why Knot?” Buy the book at Amazon

List of Richard’s other jokes, stories, poems and essays.

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Richard Seltzer

His recent books include Echoes from the Attic, Grandad Jokes, Lizard of Oz, Shakespeare'sTwin Sister, To Gether Tales. and Parallel Lives, seltzerbooks.com