It was originally suggested that the Anthropocene began in 1784, the date of James Watt’s patent for the rotative steam engine. Patent dates are interesting artefacts. They owe their existence to the chronopoietic technique of patent jurisprudence, which generates temporal sequences out of synchronous states of knowledge. This may not be geological time, but it informs the experience of time that is proper to the culture whose deposits of Pu-239 now mark the onset of the Anthropocene. Patent jurisprudence makes a crucial contribution to what might be called the ethos of the Anthropocene: the sense of society as having an inexhaustible capacity for innovation, for endless self-renewal. And, as it turns out, the steam engine yields some interesting insights into this mode of enchantment.

中文翻译：

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世界末日专利

最初有人认为人类世始于 1784 年，也就是詹姆斯·瓦特 (James Watt) 获得旋转蒸汽机专利的日期。专利日期是有趣的人工制品。它们的存在归功于专利法理学的时间生成技术，该技术从同步的知识状态中生成时间序列。这可能不是地质时间，但它提供了适合文化的时间体验，Pu-239 的沉积现在标志着人类世的开始。专利法理学对所谓的人类世精神做出了至关重要的贡献：社会意识具有无穷无尽的创新能力和无限的自我更新能力。而且，事实证明，蒸汽机对这种附魔模式产生了一些有趣的见解。