skopia
Seven numbered propositions draw the limits of what can be said. Language pictures facts, Wittgenstein argues, so ethics and God fall outside it, and the final proposition tells you to stop talking.
Chiang treats theology, linguistics and free will with the rigor of proofs. A linguist learns an alien script written all at once, and it changes how she experiences her whole life.
Ngugi's schoolmasters caned children for speaking Gikuyu, or hung a plate around their necks reading I AM STUPID. Empire takes the mind through language, he argues, and he abandoned English for his fiction.
Stephenson coined the word Metaverse in these pages, and Facebook renamed itself after the idea. His sword-carrying hacker delivers pizza for the Mafia and fights a virus that infects minds through language.