We are [...] becoming to the animal kingdom exactly what
the ruling machines are to the factory-farmed humans in
*The Matrix*. - Steve Talbott, NetFuture
%
Our response to being bored and rich is not to discard
our possessions and live more simply, but to buy more stuff
to reduce the space in which we might contemplate our shame.
 - Stuart Jeffries
%
The limitation of a technocratic society is always a limitation
of imagination. - Steve Talbott, NetFuture
%
There are, in the end, no worthwhile "things" in the world;
there are only worthwhile doings. - Steve Talbott, NetFuture
%
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having
a peeing section in a swimming pool. - Edward Burr
%
Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good.
Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you
fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed. - Paul Graham
%
Unchecked police and military power undermine personal security,
and increase the risk of terrorism attacks. Unchecked terrorism only
increases the risk of terrorism attacks. Statistically, if both are
possible, I am more at risk from the first, and am likely to lose more.
 - Daniel Staal, August 2004
%
Like, we have all we need to make the world a better place for
everyone, and yet here we are, screwing up, day after day. Too slow.
Let's pick up the pace here, shall we? - Kirby Urner, December 2004
%
...this particular abuse of the rules of procedure will make a great
textbook example for the lack of democracy in the EU. While the
Luxembourg Presidency quoted some vague "institutional reasons" for
their position, their reasoning actually serves to discredit the
institution of the Council, and the whole EU project with it.
 - Karl-Friedrich Lenz, http://k.lenz.name/wordpress/index.php?p=26
%
I feel like we are losing our creativity and imagination. Give a 3 year
old a box of crayons and you have no idea what he will come up with.
Give a 10 year old a Playstation2 and about the best that might happen
is he'll find a way to cheat.
 - Lee Harr, April 2005
%
The computer, especially connected to the Internet, is the paradigm power
tool of our age. The sin would be to bring up a generation of passive
consumers who complain and whine because "it won't do what I want."
The mark of a successful civilization is it gives its people power over
its most powerful tools, and not vice versa. - Kirby Urner, April 2005
%
When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, "Tom, finish your
dinner - people in China are starving." But after sailing to the edges
of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, "Girls,
finish your homework - people in China and India are starving for your
jobs." - Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, April 2005
%
What's exciting to me about computers is it's an area where humans,
notorious for not getting along, especially politically and religiously,
have co-created some awesomely complicated yet working technology. It's
a metaphor for civilization itself. - Kirby Urner, May 2005
%
One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it's in the news,
don't worry about it. By definition, "news" means that it hardly ever
happens. If a risk is in the news, then it's probably not worth
worrying about. When something is no longer reported - automobile
deaths, domestic violence - when it's so common that it's not news,
then you should start worrying. - Bruce Schneier, May 2005
%
A lot of the folks here are extraordinarily intelligent and capable of
extreme levels of dedicated effort. ... If one of them set his mind on
evil, he could take over the world. (On the other hand, he couldn't be
as evil as the people who *are* taking over the world.)
 - Andy Oram about the Ottawa Linux Symposium 2005
%
When people with lots of weapons and training in violence feel cornered,
it tends to not be a pretty picture. - Kirby Urner, August 2005
%
It's ironic because it's lawyers and accountants who run this stuff.
They can't keep it together. The music industry is crumbling.
A lot of people notice how shitty and disposable music is
and it's infesting the whole world. - Shannon McNally, 2005
%
How wonderful the world would be if his behaviour and attitude was the
default among rich people - using his money with a vision to improve the
world, instead of getting 8 sportcars and a larger penis.
 - barkholt on Slashdot, October 2005, referring to Mark Shuttleworth
%
They will have to legislate away BitTorrent if they want it gone.
If that successully happens, we have a lot more to worry about than
how to get free porn. - digitalunity on Slashdot, November 2005
%
Beware the Four Horsemen of the Information Apocalypse: terrorists, drug
dealers, kidnappers, and child pornographers. Seems like you can scare
the public into allowing the government to do anything with those four.
 - Bruce Schneier, January 2006
%
I've already written about the security risks of what I call "wholesale
surveillance." [...] The problems and insecurities that come from living
in a surveillance society more than outweigh any crimefighting (and
terrorist-fighting) advantages. - Bruce Schneier, January 2006
%
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to
govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would
be necessary. - James Madison
%
You asked about my "path to world domination". Well, I guess I want
the whole world to be like the Oberlin CS Lab was: a sharing community
where people assume that improving the system is within anyone's reach.
 - Karl Fogel, November 2005
%
How do we "make poverty history"? We make naivety history.
We make ignorance of the forces manipulating the world history.
We make ignorance of their agenda history. Without that,
nothing can change. - David Icke, November 2005
%
This is why I don't own a TiVo or satellite TV; they'd make
the time-munching TV monster stronger, and as an added insult
we'd get to pay for it. - Andrew Kuchling, November 2005
%
Any country or state that allows capital punishment is neither mature
or civilised. It is barbaric. - David Icke, December 2005
%
How ironic. Doctors are often not used [in capital punishment] because
the very act of killing breaches their professional oath, but the State
can still do it without breaking any code whatsoever, except the code of
human decency. But then those involved have long lost contact with that.
 - David Icke, December 2005
%
We are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. We are human beings
- and our reach exceeds your grasp: deal with it. - Chris Locke, Cluetrain
%
The first markets were markets. Not bulls, bears, or invisible hands.
Not battlefields, targets, or arenas. Not demographics, eyeballs,
or seats. Most of all, not consumers. - Cluetrain
%
Christmas is an ancient Pagan/Babylonian mid-winter festival, which the
Christian religion tagged onto. The beliefs surrounding this period may
be bollocks, but in a free society we must have the freedom to follow
and celebrate bollocks or we cannot claim to be free, except to agree,
and that's no freedom at all. - David Icke, December 2005
%
Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are
the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how
we know we're in one. When all the words in our public conversation are
fair, good, and true, it's time to make a run for the fence.
 - Daniel Gilbert, December 2005
%
It is not only that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It is also that power attracts the corruptible. - David Icke, January 2006
%
Our society definitely needs a serious conversation about the fundamental
freedoms we are sacrificing in a misguided attempt to keep us safe from
terrorism. It feels both surreal and sickening to have to defend our
fundamental freedoms against those who want to stop people from sharing
music. How is it possible that we can contemplate so much damage to our
society simply to protect the business model of a handful of companies?
 - Bruce Schneier, December 2005
%
The police and the military have fundamentally different missions.
The police protect citizens. The military attacks the enemy. When
you start giving police powers to the military, citizens start
looking like the enemy. - Bruce Schneier, December 2005
%
Most people are doomed in childhood by accepting the axiom that work equals
pain. Those who escape this are nearly all lured onto the rocks by prestige
or money. How many even discover something they love to work on? A few
hundred thousand, perhaps, out of billions. - Paul Graham, January 2006
%
As for the music factories--a.k.a. the major record companies--what they
want is power. They will never accept P2P sharing as long as it remains
a way to escape from their power. For their abuses against the people,
they deserve to be abolished, and that should be everyone's goal.
 - Richard Stallman, February 2006
%
Users know the business better than you do, whoever you are.
If you are willing to learn, you can change the world.
 - Dratz, February 2006
%
People Should Not Be Afraid Of Their Governments.
Governments Should Be Afraid Of Their People.
 - "V for Vendetta" movie, 2006
%
But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own
strength, would have no reason to conspire. They needed only to rise up
and shake themselves, like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose, they
could blow the party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely, sooner or later,
it must occur to them to do it. And yet... - George Orwell, "1984"
%
[Cannabis] should be totally free to grow and use, but the DEA-mob-cabal
has made it into a black market item, and extracts huge untaxed profits
from it. That money buys more lobbyists and payoffs, to keep the game
going. Freedom and the average citizen suffer. - zentara, March 2006
%
The meteor that ended the Mass Marketing period and the Industrial Era
was the Internet. But instead of setting the old world on fire and
killing off species, the Net gave every living thing a better world
in which to do business and make culture. - Doc Searls, March 2006
%
The Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, said that "Fascism should more
properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and
corporate power". Under that definition, most of the world has been
under fascism for centuries. - David Icke, March 2006
%
The war in Iraq is bad enough. But the war on drugs has lasted longer
and cost more money and more American lives. - David Boaz, April 2006
%
Investors are often urged to be "contrarian". [...] It's pretty good
advice for leadership too. Whatever seems to be the current fashion
or orthodoxy, be ready to take a serious look at doing pretty much
the opposite. - Carmine Coyote, April 2006
%
To claim that a massive conspiracy couldn't work is just ludicrous. It's
all about getting people to play along, while compartmentalizing knowledge.
It's possible nobody really knows all the big secrets out there. So then
is it really even a conspiracy? Sounds more like it's just our fucked up
world, where everyone thinks he knows everything. - Tim O'Regan, May 2006
%
When the environmentalists speak of conservation, frugality, and
conscientious consumption, they are right. They believe we have a duty
to give more back to the world than we take; you aren't clever when
you trick the system and take more than you give: you are repugnant.
 - Ian Bicking, May 2006
%
Business, left to itself, would rape the earth we live on, fill food
with poisons, theatres with stupidity, streets with gas-guzzlers,
and legislatures with puppets. All as an organic consequence of
the competitive marketplace. - Tim Bray, January 2005
%
Looking good on paper is the first resort of those who want to appear to
acknowledge some public concern without making any significant change.
That's usually politicians, command-and-control business leaders and PR
flacks. Real leaders know that looking good on paper means nothing unless
it's the result of determined actions, not a replacement for them.
 - Carmine Coyote, May 2006
%
Samuel Johnson famously said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a
scoundrel." "That's classified, it's a matter of National Security"
is the first and permanent refuge of incompetence.
 - Larry Beinhart, April 2006
%
Law enforcement so often attracts the wrong people because of the power
that goes with it. If you are imbalanced enough to seek power over others
then law enforcement must look very attractive. You don't have to be int-
elligent, nor honest, nor fair. You just need to wear the right clothes.
 - David Icke, May 2006
%
Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy."
The real choice is liberty versus control. [...] Liberty requires security
without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance
is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion
privacy even when we have nothing to hide. - Bruce Schneier, June 2006
%
Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that
for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be
observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create
a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt.
-- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957
%
Cannavaro Cannavaro Cannavaro, what else is there to say? [...] He stopped
Klose and he stopped Ballack and he stopped Podolski and he stopped Odonkor
and he stopped Schneider and he stopped Schweinsteiger, most of them more
than once. [...] Cannavaro was the knife in Germany’s heart.
 - Tim Bray, July 2006
%
Dogs are wild animals and shouldn't be kept as a pet. It's as simple as
that. A fish is a safe pet. A dog isn't. How many children get injured -
often in the face - by dogs each year? It's just not worth it. - Mattijs
%
Legally or otherwise, domestically or from overseas, flawless copies can
and will be obtained. And the modern European pirates who retrieve and
share our cultural gold - gold that the owners had forsaken - are not
scoundrels who defy the law but heroes who advance its ultimate aim.
 - Peter Guttman, July 2006
%
Every man who has committed a rape, every man who has thought of committing
a rape, every man who commits sexual abuse, every man who sexually harass-
es, every man who tells stupid woman bashing jokes, every man who laughs
at those damn jokes, every man who breathes should have to go through a
rape kit exam, and have a nurse slam a couple of fingers up his ass with
no foreplay. THEN, they should have to sit and try to console their mother,
their sister, their wife, their DAUGHTER, while going through a rape kit
exam. - Lisa, July 2006
%
The learned helplessness that has us to believe we're incapable of knowing
how to treat our bodies properly without the advice of some 'professional'
or 'expert' who's being pumped with gifts, biased 'research' and free
samples by Big Pharma, sickens me. - Dave Pollard, May 2006
%
Please remember this, anyone who is thinking of joining the military:
They don't give a shit about you. They couldn't care less. You are a
statistic, just body fodder in a uniform. When you're dead or maimed
for life they'll just get some other poor sod to replace you.
A cross becomes a tick and off we go again. - David Icke, October 2006
%
We need to hug authority into surrender. [...] The edifice of power is
only the illusion of power once we realise that the power lies with us.
 - David Icke, November 2006
%
We need to refuse to vote on electronic voting machines without a voter-
verifiable paper ballot, and to continue to pressure our legislatures to
implement voting technology that works. - Bruce Schneier, November 2006
%
Without legal privacy protections, the world becomes one giant airport
security area, where the slightest joke - or comment made years before -
lands you in hot water. The world becomes one giant market-research study,
where we are all life-long subjects. The world becomes a police state,
where we all are assumed to be [...] terrorists in the eyes of the
government. - Bruce Schneier, November 2006
%
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room.
 - Dave Pollard, April 2006
%
There are encouraging signs that more and more of us are choosing to wean
ourselves off our addiction to consumption, debt, and being too busy
and too tired for our own good. Out at the Edge, it's getting more
comfortable, more fun, and even a bit more crowded all the time.
 - Dave Pollard, September 2006
%
A Salem (USA), nel 1692, diverse donne furono impiccate perché alcuni
bambini (che vennero creduti) dissero di averle viste volare.
In Italia, trecentoquindici anni dopo, siamo davvero ancora convinti
che le maestre possano volare?
 - http://www.falsiabusi.it/archivio/notizie/dossier_scuole_materne.html
%
Le pubblicità sono al 45% di telefonini e al 45% di macchine di
grossa cilindrata. Il rimanente 10% di finanziarie. Uno si indebita.
Compra macchina e cellulare. E si schianta mentre parla al cellulare
a 200 all'ora. Le rate rimangono agli eredi.
 - Beppe Grillo, Febbraio 2007
%
Microsoft went berserk; tried unsuccessfully to get me fired as co-editor,
and then launched a vicious, deeply personal extended attack in which
they tried to destroy my career and took lethal action against a small
struggling company because my wife worked there. It was a sideshow of
a sideshow of the great campaign to bury Netscape and I’m sure the
executives have forgotten; but I haven’t. - Tim Bray, January 2007
%
Anyone who says their ambition is "to be famous" is a fragile ego desperate
for external recognition and for these people the Big Brother show can be a
devastating experience, not least with the constant fear of public "reject-
ion". Being voted out means "they don't love me" when the real problem is
that the celebs don't love themselves. - David Icke, January 2007
%
L'informazione italiana è di regime, dei partiti. Tra Mediaset e Rai non
c'è differenza. E tra i vari giornali sovvenzionati dallo Stato anche.
Liberalizziamo le frequenze televisive e eliminiamo l'editoria assistita.
Ci tassano per raccontarci balle. RESET! - Beppe Grillo, Febbraio 2007
%
I accuse you, Mr. Bush, [...] of fomenting fear among your own people,
of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.
 - Keith Olbermann, July 2007
%
Considero la televisione il più potente strumento (dopo le armi) di
repressione di massa. Se la nostra tv smetterà di essere un luogo
autoreferenziale della politica (di governo e non), un'immensa rivendita
di merci varie, una fabbrica di brutti modelli e falsi bisogni, allora
sarò ben felice di tornare a frequentarla. - Teresa De Sio, Marzo 2006
%
Is it really irresponsible to refuse to work and consume and live in debt
in a culture that is destroying our world? [...] If our lives are movies
we script ourselves, who is producing and directing them?
 - Dave Pollard, April 2007
%
Courage, self-confidence, and trust in each other. If we had these things
we could live without money, and without wage slavery. Is it any wonder
that the politicians, big businesses, the elites of the rich and powerful,
work so hard to make us fearful, full of self-doubt, distrustful, and
"just like everybody else"? - Dave Pollack, August 2005
%
Most of our learned helplessness is illusory, and plays right into the
hands of politicians, preachers, fearmongers, marketers and corporatists.
 - Dave Pollard, May 2007
%
Come in Italia i media si gonfiano di "bambini di satana", accuse assurde
a scuole ed insegnanti su chissà che sevizie, e simili, così pure in USA;
e qui come lì si impara a fare lo sconto su questi continui allarmismi.
 - Alex Martelli, Maggio 2007
%
La porcata, si chiami Val di Susa, indulto o bavaglio alle intercettazioni,
si santifica con il contatto della gente. Sempre a debita distanza si
intende. Il politico che ha il coraggio delle sue castronate è ammirabile,
copertinabile, molto leccabile. - Beppe Grillo, Giugno 2007
%
I grew up with the colonialist propaganda, the "occupier's narrative",
and it took me half my life to realize it was all a lie. [...] If I
were among those directly afflicted by the genocide, paternalism,
exploitation, theft and abuse committed every day by colonial invaders,
in almost every nation on the planet, I would be consumed by rage. [...]
We should be ashamed of ourselves. - Dave Pollard, July 2007
%
We already treat different drugs differently; alcohol is treated dif-
ferently from tobacco is treated differently from heroin. [...] As for
cannabis, just give up. [...] Legalize it, regulate it, collect the
tax dollars, and free up the cops to go after the real problem drugs.
 - Tim Bray, April 2003
%
Those who don't move don't feel their chains.
 - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
%
Somewhere in the "primitive" world, there must be a tribe that encourages
the civilized custom of teenagers, of both sexes, being initiated by an
older partner, as a matter of course, for the psychological health of the
whole community. Why not? - Joe Jackson, A Cure for Gravity, 1999
%
A person with a solid inner world won't obsess over buying things or
forsake the objects she owns. Instead she can view it as a person playing
a game would look at the tokens on the board. Seeing past the ownership
illusion, she can put all her effort into experiencing the game.
 - Scott H. Young, September 2007
%
Non è vero che la classe politica è tutta uguale. Ma i pochi galantuomini
che ne fanno parte la legittimano. Non si può votare il meno peggio.
Non si deve perdere la speranza di un meglio. Chi vota il meno peggio
legittima il peggio. - Beppe Grillo, Febbraio 2008
%
Da circa quindici anni ad oggi i leader che si sono susseguiti a sinistra
non hanno fatto altro che [...] aiutare Silvio con decreti ad personam,
indebolire la cognizione di una questione morale tra gli elettori,
gettare il confronto politico sulla perniciosa affermazione "rivolete
Berlusconi?". - Duccio, citato da Piero Ricca, ottobre 2007
%
La presenza di una persona come Franco Frattini in una posizione di pote-
re, come quella di Commissario Europeo per la Sicurezza, rappresenta una
evidente minaccia per la Democrazia, per la Libertà e per la Sicurezza
Personale dei cittadini europei. - Alessandro Bottoni, November 2007
%
Che differenza c'è tra la democrazia cinese e la nostra? Una sola,
da loro la pena di morte è esplicita, ti sparano. Da noi ti isolano,
ti diffamano, ti trasferiscono. Solo se è necessario ti ammazzano.
E` una dittatura buona. L’omicidio è solo l'ultima risorsa.
 - Beppe Grillo, Dicembre 2007
%
Il Governo dovrebbe indire un Consiglio dei Ministri straordinario per
misure urgenti sulla sicurezza sul lavoro, ma il Governo non ha neppure
il coraggio di ricevere il Dalai Lama. [...] Un Governo di centro
sinistra, con due sindacalisti alla presidenza di Camera e Senato
e un sindacalista ministro del Lavoro, fa rimpiangere Berlusconi.
 - Beppe Grillo, Dicembre 2007
%
Se io parlo del sostegno immondo di Ferrara alla guerra criminale di
Bush, Blair e Berlusconi in Iraq, e voi vi scandalizzate dei toni
satirici invece che di Abu Grahib o del napalm a Falluja, la vostra
scala di valori è corrotta. - Daniele Luttazzi, Dicembre 2007
%
The Chinese built the Great Wall early in our civilization not to
keep the Mongol hordes out, but to keep the newly enslaved and
dubious peasants, the pawns of the new civilization, in. To keep
them from Just Walking Away. - Dave Pollard, December 2007
%
The reason to study history is to learn from it. I think you get
a lot more precise and comprehensive look at history through
simulations rather than through books. And, unfortunately, in
some cases a very disturbing look at history. - Clark Aldrich
%
My dream is that in 500 years (or less) humanity will look back at what
passes for psychology today in the same way that we now look back on the
dark ages, when they were drilling holes in people's heads to drain out
the crazy. Oh wait, we were still doing that in the twentieth century
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy). - Phillip J. Eby, February 2008