Quotes About Progress

Pair New Year's resolutions with Old Year's regrets.

But at other moments, it exploded. Species experienced long periods of stasis that were interrupted by sudden bursts of change. Afterward, the newly transformed species remained stable for another long stretch—until another eruption abruptly altered its course once again.

Motivation comes in spurts—which is why Stanford psychologist B. J. Fogg recommends taking advantage of "motivation waves" so you can weather "motivation troughs.

Harvard professor Teresa Amabile concurs. After examining 12,000 daily diary entries by several hundred workers, she found that the single largest motivator was making progress in meaningful work.16 Wins needn't be large to be meaningful. When you enter a new role, set up small "high-probability" targets and celebrate when you hit them.

She has found that the single greatest motivator is "making progress in one's work." The days that people make progress are the days they feel most motivated and engaged. By creating conditions for people to make progress, shining a light on that progress, recognizing and celebrating progress, organizations can help their own cause and enrich people's lives.

Which leads us inexorably to canned soup.

The guy who invented the wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was a genius." —SID CAESAR

These days the technology can solve our problems and then some. Solutions may not only erase physical or mental deficits but leave patients better off than "able-bodied" folks. The person who has a disability today may have a superability tomorrow.

Right now, we have the most complex relationship with technology that we've ever had. Your regular person has more technology in their life now than the whole world had 100 years ago.

The goal for many amputees is no longer to reach a 'natural' level of ability but to exceed it, using whatever cutting-edge technology is available. As this new generation sees it, our tools are evolving faster than the human body, so why obey the limits of mere nature?

As a society, I think we express our cultural mores through our politics. We're trying constantly to figure out what's OK and what's not OK. And it's hard, because our society is constantly buffeted by gale force winds of technology. Things are always changing.

Change creates fear, and technology creates change. Sadly, most people don't behave very well when they are afraid.

The fear of the never-ending onslaught of gizmos and gadgets is nothing new. The radio, the telephone, Facebook - each of these inventions changed the world. Each of them scared the heck out of an older generation. And each of them was invented by people who were in their 20s.

Over the past 50 years we got versions of X-ray specs and space vacations, and even death rays. But the X-ray specs don't fit on your face - they're big things that screen your luggage for guns. Space vacations are real, but they cost $20 million. We have death rays, but you have to be a triple Ph.D. to play with them.

You humans are biological machines designed to create ever more intelligent tools. You have reached the pinnacle of your species. All your ancestors' lives, the rise and fall of your nations, every pink and squirming baby—they have all led you here, to this moment, where you have fulfilled the destiny of humankind and created your successor. You have expired. You have accomplished what you were designed to do.

These tools we love so much have burrowed under our skin like parasites...Making us smarter and stronger and always, always more dependent.

Through your actions here today—you have made humankind obsolete.

So now what?" I ask. She is quiet for a long time, long enough that I assume she's gone to sleep. "I think this is just part of it," she says. "Civilisations fall. People keep going.

It's hard to guess how smart the machines are, but a good rule of thumb is that they're always smarter than you think.

I say we keep building new versions of ourselves, keep exploring the unknown, and keep growing. We're gonna be fine. Different, but fine. Because most people are good. Right?

Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.… Can events be guided so that we may survive? VERNOR VINGE, 1993

We sent a robot to do a man's job.

We are a better species for having fought this war. CORMAC "BRIGHT BOY" WALLACE

I believe in the future. —MICHAEL CRICHTON