“The noticing of a passing thought and the explosion of an ancient star are not unrelated phenomenon: both the product of a self-creating, self-destroying ubiquitous capability.”
A passing thought
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Tag Archives: Quotable
What’s wrong with trafficking in heroin?
“The smack goes to Europe or America. Some self-obsessed narcissist who otherwise would be causing untold pollution driving to and from work every day, probably in a car without passengers, only to go burning electricity in an overheated office somewhere — thanks to us he stays home in a stupor and gets the sack. His work gets outsourced to Bangladesh, where someone does the same job better for a fifth of the pay, which he uses to feed a family of seven, and to top it all he commutes to work on a bicycle-the whole earth benefits.”
— The Godfather of Kathmandu by John Burdett
Distraction
I’m re-reading Distraction by Bruce Sterling. Published in 1998, it is/was frighteningly prescient. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts (does that first one remind you of anyone?).
“He’s like a not very bright child who can be deceived and managed, but not reasoned with.”
“The American national character realty wasn’t suited for global police duties. It never had been. Tidy and meticulous people such as the Swiss and Swedes were the types who made good cops. America was far better suited to be the World’s Movie Star. The world’s tequila-addled pro-league bowler. The world’s acerbic, bipolar stand-up comedian. Anything but a somber and tedious nation of socially responsible centurions.”
“It always offended him to hear his fellow Americans discussing the vagaries of “white people.” There was simply no such thing as “white people. That stereotype was an artificial construct, like the ridiculous term “Hispanic.” In all the rest of the world, a Peruvian was a Peruvian and a Brazilian was a Brazilian— it was only in America that people somehow became this multilingual, multinational entity called a “Hispanic.”
“Political reality in modern America was the stark fact that electronic networks had eaten the guts out of the old order, while never finding any native order of their own. The horrific speed of digital communication, the consonant flattening of hierarchies, the rise of net-based civil society, and the decline of the industrial base had simply been too much for the American government to cope with and successfully legitimize.”
“Knowledge is inherently precious even if you can’t sell it. Even if you can’t use it. Knowledge is an absolute good. The search for truth is vital. It’s central to civilization. You need knowledge even when your economy and government are absolutely shot to hell.”
“Terrorism is a racist term in the U.S.”
“Terrorism is a racist term in the US. It means white people were harmed by people who aren’t white. If the shooter is white, he’s just crazy.”
— Dave Winer
“It’s just Nazi”
“I also don’t get when they call them neo-Nazis. What does the “neo” part mean? Something innovative and new? It’s just Nazi. They wear 88 pins, they chant German Nazi slogans. If it sounds and looks like a Nazi, assume it’s a Nazi. One more thing — they call Trump a Nazi-sympathizer. Why be so generous. What distinguishes a sympathizer from an actual Nazi?”
— Dave Winer
The Rise of Exotropy
The following passage is from Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants.
Most hydrogen atoms were born at the beginning of time. They are as old as time itself. They were created in the fires of the big bang and dispersed into the universe as a uniform warm mist. Thereafter, each atom has been on a lonely journey. When a hydrogen atom drifts in the unconsciousness of deep space, hundreds of kilometers from another atom, it is hardly much more active than the vacuum surrounding it. Time is meaningless without change, and in the vast reaches of space that fill 99.99 percent of the universe, there is little change.
After billions of years, a hydrogen atom might be swept up by the currents of gravity radiating from a congealing galaxy. With the dimmest hint of time and change it slowly drifts in a steady direction toward other stuff. Another billion years later it bumps into the first bit of matter it has ever encountered, After millions of years it meets the second. In time it meets another of its kind, a hydrogen atom. They drift together in mild attraction until aeons later they meet an oxygen atom. Suddenly something weird happens. In a flash of heat they clump together as one later molecule. Maybe they get sucked into the atmosphere circulation of a planet. Under this marriage, they are caught in great cycles of change. Rapidly the molecule is carried up and then rained down into a crowded pool of other jostling atoms. In the company of uncountable numbers of other water molecules it travels this circuit around and around for millions of years, from crammed pools to expansive clouds and back. One day, in a stroke of luck, the water molecule is captured by a chain of unusually active carbons in one pool. Its path is once again accelerated. It spins around in a simple loop, assisting the travel of carbon chains. It enjoys speed, movement, and change such as would not be possible in the comatose recesses of space. The carbon chain is stolen by another chain and reassembled many times until the hydrogen finds itself in a cell constantly rearranging its relations and bonds with other molecules. Now it hardly ever stops changing, never stops interacting.
An unfunny Woody Allen
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan calls Donald Trump “Woody Allen without humor.” Ouch.
“The president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling. It is that he undermines himself almost daily by ignoring traditional norms and forms of American masculinity. Continue reading
Why Dave Winer won’t point to Facebook posts
He has two other reasons with which I agree, but this is my favorite:
“It’s supporting their downgrading and killing the web. Your post sucks because it doesn’t contain links, styling, and you can’t enclose a podcast if you want. The more people post there, the more the web dies. I’m sorry no matter how good your idea is, fuck you I won’t help you and Facebook kill the open web.”
I’ll have a blog till the day I die or I’m too far gone to maintain it. God willing, I’ll have an AI to take over at that point.
Normal
“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for – in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.”
― Ellen Goodman
Dave Winer’s Comment Guidelines
I forgot how often Dave Winer says things I think but can’t find the words for. Below are a few excerpts from his comment guidelines on Scripting News.
They should always take into account what is said in the post. If you haven’t read the post in full, reasonably carefully, don’t comment. If it is obvious that you have not read the post, your comment will be deleted.
It’s not a free speech zone. It’s not a place for you to be heard.
It’s not a place for you to promote your products, services, blog, initiatives, political causes. Don’t post spam.
I’m not interested in debates here on my blog. If you want a debate, host it somewhere else, and if I’m interested in participating I will.
Absolutely no personal comments about me or anyone else.