Deep understanding of causality sometimes requires the understanding of very large patterns and their abstract relationships and interactions, not just the understanding of microscopic objects interacting in microscopic time intervals.

— Douglas R. Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop

JUST CALLING IT “FEEDBACK” DOESN’T MEAN THAT IT HAS ACTUALLY FED BACK To speak precisely: IT HASN’T FED BACK UNTIL THE SYSTEM CHANGES COURSE Up to that point, it’s merely Sensory Input.

— John Gall and D.H. Gall, Systemantics. The Systems Bible

Suffering builds character and impels you to penetrate life’s secrets. It’s the path of great artists, great religious leaders, great social reformers. The problem is not suffering per se, but rather our identification with our own ego: our divided, dualistic, cramped view of things. ‘We are too ego-centered,’ Suzuki tells Cage.’ The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow. We seem to carry it all the time from childhood up to the time we finally pass away.

— Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats

Knowledge work is a domain for which Taylorism was never intended. Knowledge work is just not very like factory work.

— Tom DeMarco, Slack

The supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!’… This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do.

— Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens