burningthepast

“When there is nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.

Imitation of nature is bad engineering. For centuries inventors tried to fly by
emulating birds, and they have killed themselves uselessly… You see, Mother
Nature has never developed the Boeing 747. Why not? Because Nature didn’t need
anything that would fly at 700 mph at 40,000 feet: how would such an animal
feed itself?... If you take Man as a model and test of artificial intelligence,
you’re making the same mistake as the old inventors flapping their wings. You
don’t realize that Mother Nature has never needed an intelligent animal and
accordingly, has never bothered to develop one. So when an intelligent entity
is finally built, it will have evolved on principles different from those of
Man’s mind, and its level of intelligence will certainly not be measured by the
fact that it can beat some chess champion or appear to carry on a conversation
in English.
—Anonymous, quoted in Jacques Vallee’s The Network Revolution

In a world deeply divided between those who are prepared to believe nothing and
those who are ready to believe anything, it is a tricky business to enter into
a discussion of matters that can be dismissed either as miracles or as lies.
—Denis Johnston, The Brazen Horn

There are too many people, and too few human beings.
—Robert Zend

Whenever I hear the word “share” I would reach for a gun if I had one. “Share”
is frequently followed by the word “feelings,” and I have enough of my own
thank you; please do us both a favor and repress yours.
—Stewart Brand

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it
is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.
—H.L. Mencken

Nothing is more humbling than to look with a strong magnifying glass at an
insect so tiny that the naked eye sees only the barest speck and to discover
that nevertheless it is sculpted and articulated and striped with the same care
and imagination as a zebra. Apparently it does not occur to nature whether or
not a creature is within our range of vision, and the suspicion arises that
even the zebra was not designed for our benefit.
—Rudolf Arnheim”