If we rely on cosmic blasts of cleverness to solve our problems, we’ll be waiting for eons. To get anything done, we need to convert the mystical into the mechanical, the fluid into the fixed, the ineffable into the plainly effable.

— Ben Orlin, Change Is the Only Constant

…if you ever you find yourself thinking, “But you can’t prove me wrong.” If you’re going to ignore a probabilistic counterargument, why not ignore a proof, too?

— Eliezer Yudkowsky, How to Actually Change Your Mind

What is man? A bridge between the ape and the Superman — a bridge over an abyss.

— F.W. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

‘The Soviet Union had remarkably little street crime when they were at their worst of their totalitarian, authoritarian controls. But, my God, at what price?’

— Hannah Fry, Hello World

Thanks to technology, we are probably as productive in two days as we previously were in five. But thanks to greed and some busy-bee syndrome of productivity, we are still asked to slave away for the profit of others ahead of our own nonremunerated ambitions.

— David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs