Ohh man, this is too good! While I vehemently disagree with you (without much emotional connection though. Don't mind losing this one), this is STRAIGHT out of

Ohh man, this is too good! While I vehemently disagree with you (without much emotional connection though. Don't mind losing this one), this is STRAIGHT out of 19th century Russian novels. In particular, I'm thinking Turgenev's 'Fathers And Sons'[1]. In it, the university-educated, 'modern' characters, the nihilistic scientific men present very similar views. 'Science can explain away everything, that is what reality is', they proclaim, dismissing any sort of philosophical arguments (rather arrogantly, IMHO, but we can argue over that). It's kind of longwinded (aren't they all, with the exception of Chekov?), but HIGHLY recommended. You get the same sense of change and revolution, and 'waiting for great things to happen' in the novel as I often see in futurists these days. I don't want to cheapen the experience, but this high-school-level summary sums it up reasonably well[2]: >The main character of Fathers and Sons, Bazarov, does not want to occupy a philosophical position. Yet nihilism, whether he likes it or not, is a philosophy, a philosophy of destruction and renunciation. Bazarov is such an intellectual character that throughout the novel we see him struggle to understand each new situation in which he is put. Yet, from his intellectual point of view, he renounces romance and many other human values that make life worth living. Part of the drama of the novel is watching how Bazarov can go on living with his philosophy. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_and_Sons_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_and_Sons_(novel) 2. http://www.shmoop.com/fathers-and-sons/philosophical-viewpoints-theme.html http://www.shmoop.com/fathers-and-sons/philosophical-viewpoi...