"There are two Great Events in one's life.

One is being born

and the other

is knowing why."

"Mass production is profitable only if its rhythm can be maintained—that is if it can continue to sell its product in steady or increasing quantity.… Today supply must actively seek to create its corresponding demand … [and] cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda … to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable."

"Every single one of us, every single day, make some impact on the planet. And we have a choice as to what impact we make. What we buy, what we wear, where did it come from. And if enough of us make ethical choices and start thinking in a new way then business will have to change because of consumer pressure and governments will just have to obey the will of the people if there's enough of us willing."

"The difference between the mathematical mind (esprit de geometrie) and the perceptive mind (esprit de finesse): the reason that mathematicians are not perceptive is that they do not see what is before them, and that, accustomed to the exact and plain principles of mathematics, and not reasoning till they have well inspected and arranged their principles, they are lost in matters of perception where the principles do not allow for such arrangement. /.../

These principles are so fine and so numerous that a very delicate and very clear sense is needed to perceive them, and to judge rightly and justly when they are perceived, without for the most part being able to demonstrate them in order as in mathematics; because the principles are not known to us in the same way, and because it would be an endless matter to undertake it. We must see the matter at once, at one glance, and not by a process of reasoning, at least to a certain degree. /.../

Mathematicians wish to treat matters of perception mathematically, and make themselves ridiculous /.../ the mind /.../ does it tacitly, naturally, and without technical rules."

"When we use generative AI, we consent to the appropriation of our intellectual property by data scrapers. We stuff the pockets of oligarchs with even more money. We abet the acceleration of a social media gyre that everyone admits is making life worse. We accept the further degradation of an already degraded educational system. We agree that we would rather deplete our natural resources than make our own art or think our own thoughts. We dig ourselves deeper into crises that have been made worse by technology, from the erosion of electoral democracy to the intensification of climate change. We condone platforms that not only urge children to commit suicide, they instruct them on how to tie the noose. We hand over our autonomy, at the very moment of emerging American fascism."

"It's a giant feedback loop. The media watches kids and then sells them an image of themselves. Then kids watch those images and aspire to be that mook or midriff in the TV set. And the media is there watching them do that in order to craft new images for them and so on..."

"The full power of the computer is not available to an individual who owns one until he or she can program it. This opinion is rapidly becoming a heresy. The trend is [towards] more and more packages that do specific tasks. This trend is not to be deplored, as software packages fulfill a useful role. Another trend is toward fill-in-the-form or pick-an-item-on-the-menu customizing of programs. This trend, too, is to be encouraged. Nonetheless, unless extended far beyond what is now being done (say, to the point where the menu consists of all possible program statements) it does not give the user the full power of a computer.

This is not the place to discuss techniques for easing the average user into programming (and it certainly will not be done with BASIC, Pascal or FORTRAN), but it can and must be done. If not, the computer will become a mere appliance--at best performing a small number of possibly related tasks. What is desired is for the computer to become an appliance, but not a mere appliance. Its presence must be taken for granted by its user, but in the long run, the act of programming itself must be taken for granted as well.

In the short run it will be, if successful, an information appliance."

"Anarchy is democracy without the beuraucracy."

"Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption.… We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate."