Quotes About Adaptation

So we have transitioned from bugger off to philosophy now?

Fucking supercilious Polity minds. They could be so super intelligent, but they had no real idea about her. About the alliances, responsibilities, commitments and the sheer difficulty involved in relinquishing something she'd fought so hard to build, and it had no appreciation of just how vulnerable she'd be if she let it go. They never went through anything like this—just adjusted themselves either physically or mentally to suit current circumstances.

Stone Age men broke flint and found it cut things better than their own teeth did. We've created methods of transportation that work better than legs, and often do things we could only dream of, like flying. A hydraulic grip clamps on things better than a human hand. They're all tools and nobody objects to them, so why should anyone object to creating minds that are better at thinking than our own, and rulers that are better at their job than those humans who would aspire to rule?

What I have found over and over is that, once we have made short-term changes, they tend to change our long-term habits.

Because people develop ADT in an effort to cope with the stresses in their lives, and because the symptoms actually help them in the short term, the symptoms are "sticky" and may solidify into firm habits, even when life slows and becomes less stressful.

Life can't be cured, but it can be managed.

You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it.

One of the nice things about time, Crowley always said, was that it was steadily taking him further away from the fourteenth century.

"Life will be much more exciting when we stop creating applications for mobile phones and we start creating applications for our own body.

The formal operational thinker has the ability to consider many different solutions to a problem before acting. This greatly increases efficiency, because the individual can avoid potentially unsuccessful attempts at solving a problem. The formal operational person considers past experiences, present demands, and future consequences in attempting to maximize the success of his or her adaptation to the world.

In the four years I had spent in Southeast Asia, I had changed, and so had the people back home. And I could not communicate effectively about these differences in perception.

see, we been doing things wrong for so long now that it all starts to feel okay after a while, you know, like this is how it oughta be.

Remember: in order for a perception to change one must be frustrated in one's actions or change one's purpose.

technological change is not additive; it is ecological. A new technology does not merely add something; it changes everything".

What's wrong with turning back the clock if the clock is wrong? We need not be slaves to our technologies

How does a culture change when new technologies are introduced to it? And is it always desirable for a culture to accommodate itself to the demands of new technologies?

Technological change is neither additive nor subtractive. It is ecological. I mean "ecological" in the same sense as the word is used by environmental scientists. One significant change generates total change.

But the telegraph demands that we burn its contents.

America is engaged in the world's most ambitious experiment to accommodate itself to the technological distractions made possible by the electric plug.

What did we do before we were so tethered? I

Digo a meus alunos que isto é uma metáfora para a vida: seguimos pensando que nada será diferente, até o dia em que tudo muda repentinamente de uma vez.

From my first day inside, I recognized that this odd coupling-housing leprosy patients with federal convicts- would make a great story

One new feature or fresh take can change everything.

And as an afterthought, this too must be told: Some people have taken pure bullshit and turned it into gold.