20 quotes
As every secret policeman knows, there is no such thing as a coincidence; the state has too many enemies.
Singularity Sky (2003)
Never underestimate the intrinsic, as opposed to ideological, conservatism of an idea like revolution once it’s got some momentum behind it.
Singularity Sky (2003)
Any job I do—if it doesn’t work, somebody pays. Possibly hundreds or thousands of somebodies. That’s the price of good engineering; nobody notices you did your job right.
Singularity Sky (2003)
You got overdraft at the mythology bank.
Singularity Sky (2003)
“Hello, Martin. What can I do for you?”
“Got a problem.”
“A big one?”
“Female human-sized.”
Singularity Sky (2003)
True revolutionary doctrine teaches that the only law is rationalism and dynamic optimism.
Singularity Sky (2003)
Intelligence and infinite knowledge were not, it seemed, compatible with stable human existence.
Singularity Sky (2003)
The Cold War was all about who could build the biggest refrigerator, wasn’t it?
Singularity Sky (2003)
Ultimately, it was easier to change the subject than think the unthinkable.
Singularity Sky (2003)
It was a lousy plan, the only thing to commend it being the fact that all the alternatives were worse.
Singularity Sky (2003)
“We have a problem, sir.”
“What do you mean, a problem?” demanded the Admiral. “We’re not supposed to have problems—that’s the enemy’s job!”
Singularity Sky (2003)
Unfortunately, it appeared that she was going to be around when they learned the hard way that interstellar wars of aggression were much easier to lose than to win.
Singularity Sky (2003)
The first rule of space travel...is that mistakes are fatal. Space isn’t friendly; it kills you. And there are no second chances.”
Singularity Sky (2003)
The sheer waste of human potential that was the New Republic’s raison d’être offended her sensibilities as badly as a public book-burning, or a massacre of innocents.
Singularity Sky (2003)
“Didn’t I have you executed last week?”
“I very much doubt. It.”
Singularity Sky (2003)
I am the Eschaton. I am not your God.
I am descended from you, and exist in your future.
Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else.
Singularity Sky (2003)
Before the singularity, human beings living on Earth had looked at the stars and consoled themselves in their isolation with the comforting belief that the universe didn’t care.
Unfortunately, they were mistaken.
Singularity Sky (2003)
Time travel destabilizes history.
History is a child of contingency; so many events depend on critical misunderstandings or transient encounters that even the apocryphal butterfly’s wing is apt to stir up a storm in short order.
Singularity Sky (2003)
A curious horror overtook him, then. His skin crawled; the back of his neck turned damp and cold. I can’t go yet, he thought. It’s not fair! He shuddered. The void seemed to speak to him. Fairness has nothing to do with it. This will happen, and your wishes are meaningless.
Singularity Sky (2003)
Quote, the viability of a postsingularity economy of scarcity is indicated by the transition from an indirection-layer-based economy using markers of exchange of goods and services to a tree-structured economy characterized by optimal allocation of productivity systems in accordance with iterated tit-for-tat prisoner’s dilemma. Money is a symptom of poverty and inefficiency. Unquote.
Singularity Sky (2003)