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78e8024 Much earlier than Richardson, before World War I, in fact, Norman Angell had shown that the idea of fighting a war for profit was obsolete. The victors would pay a heavier cost than the losers. He was right, and that First World War proved the fact. The second one hammered it home with everything up to and including nuclear weapons. In an individual one would regard it as evidence of insanity to see someone repeatedly undertaking enterprise.. John Brunner
87c1ad8 COINCIDENCE You weren't playing attention to the other half of what was going on. John Brunner
0e33aff But the habit patterns, inevitably, had survived. To the air, with a wry grin, he murmured, "How long, O Lord? How long?" In his private estimation: not long now." John Brunner
02761cc The gray-haired growser, who proved to be a lawyer, had made it clear how much he loathed the people who were, in his view, attempting to undermine the American Constitution by imposing a state religion--or possibly it was "religion state by state," for his argument grew more confused with each Martini he sank. At any rate he was noisily predicting that the result would be world domination by the Communist bloc because they would wind up wi.. science-vs-religion prediction John Brunner
2dd8030 the plight of being old: clearly recalling what it was like to act voluntarily and enjoy life as it came, now trapped in a frame that forbade anything except slow cautious movements John Brunner
1e90fc6 our threshold of survival-prone behavior is so high it takes the prospect of total extermination to activate modes of placation and compromise, may there not be other processes, equally life-preserving, which can similarly be triggered off only at a far higher level of stimulus John Brunner
c144cd1 We cannot afford the luxury known as conscience. The enemy we are up against certainly doesn't have one, so we are obliged to be absolutely rational. Cruel, if you like. People of good will, tolerant, liberal, whatever term you care to use, have always labored under a disadvantage. Those in power, those who want to hold on to power whatever the cost, have one ultimate recourse. If all else fails, they are prepared to kill. This is not avail.. tyrannicide pacifism John Brunner
f290543 I am I." "Tat tvam asi." John Brunner
544e6eb You know, that's what's wrong with us on the public level. We fret about how to keep going the same old way when we should be casting around for another way that's better. Our society is hurtling in free fall toward heaven knows where, John Brunner
274b9d3 I put it to you that no rule consciously invented by mankind since we acquired speech has force equivalent to those inherited from perhaps fifty, perhaps a hundred thousand generations of evolution in the wild state. I further suggest that the chief reason why modern society is in turmoil is that for too long we claimed that our special human talents could exempt us from the heritage written in our genes. John Brunner
6d56456 I find no evidence for believing that I matter any more than any other human being who ever existed or who ever will exist. Nor does any of them matter more than I do. We're elements in a process that began in the dim past and will develop through who knows what kind of future. John Brunner
94a92f6 when you think about the history of liberty. It's the story of how principle has gradually been elevated above the whim of tyrants. When the law was defined as more powerful than the king, that was one great breakthrough. John Brunner
6864d83 He had many names, but one nature, and this unique nature made him subject to certain laws not binding upon ordinary persons. In a compensatory fashion, he was also free from certain other laws more commonly in force. John Brunner
6c752e4 And how do men call you?" "I have many names, but one nature. You may call me Mazda, or anything you please." John Brunner
5934c71 a sneaking feeling that people are wrong when they say human beings can't keep track of the world any more, we have to leave it up to the machines. John Brunner
9500b70 There's an ingrained distrust in our society of highly intelligent, highly trained, highly competent persons. One need only look at the last presidential election for proof of that. John Brunner
8a94e90 I'm proud of it. Apart from marking the first occasion when I used my talent on behalf of other people without being asked and without caring whether I was rewarded--which was a major breakthrough in itself--the job was a pure masterpiece. Working on it, I realized in my guts how an artist or an author can get high on the creative act. The poker who wrote Precipice's original tapeworm was pretty good, but you could theoretically have killed.. computers first-hacktivist hacker-folklore hackers hacking hacktivism John Brunner
ffd1458 How right you are." She shivered. "Some of my colleagues at G2S, you know, live at Trianon, where they test new life-styles. And they boast about how their actions are monitored night and day, compare the advantages of various ultramodern bugs ... I don't know how they can stand it." John Brunner
5a1108d You can't blame the people who can't hear the warnings; you have to blame the ones who can, and who ignore them. John Brunner
1707a5e Time entails memory, memory entails conscience, conscience entails thought for the future, which is itself implied by the existence of time. John Brunner
0830a07 Is our society on the right lines when of of its most gifted people can find no better career than crime unless literally millions per year of public money are lavished on him?" " John Brunner
414e5cc is this an unforgivable invasion of privacy? Invasion of privacy it is; unforgivable ...Well, do you believe that justice shall not only be done, but shall be seen to be done? The privacy my worm is designed to invade is that privacy under whose cover justice is not than and injustice is not seen. It doesn't care whether the poker who leeched his tax-free payoff spent it on seducing little girls; it cares only thata he was rewared for commi.. John Brunner
e9a413d is this an unforgivable invasion of privacy? Invasion of privacy it is; unforgivable ...Well, do you believe that justice shall not only be done, but shall be seen to be done? The privacy my worm is designed to invade is that privacy under whose cover justice is not than and injustice is not seen. It doesn't care whether the poker who leeched his tax-free payoff spent it on seducing little girls; it cares only thata he was rewared for commi.. John Brunner
7f7e543 There was exactly one power base available to sustain the old style of government," Nick grunted. "Organized crime." " John Brunner
fca6fb4 I always wondered what democracy might smell like. John Brunner
6d4a76b Take it for granted that the government will disregard long-term dangers-such as those affecting the environment-in order to cling to power; that the citizenry will do the same because thinking is too much like hard work; and then the handful of Cassandras are proved right, they will be held to blame and very likely stoned or shot. John Brunner
3fa50a0 What a wise man can do, that can't be done by someone who's merely clever, is make a right judgement in an unprecedented situation. John Brunner
2906546 And how many problems have been solved to date? John Brunner
2a5e95f Men, embryonically speaking, are imperfect women, as you know. John Brunner
484c7f8 The book has one of the scariest mise-en-scenes in all of science fiction: a world that is a smothering, riotous tangle of human arms and limbs. Stand on Zanzibar is an information overload on topics that sensible people would never want to learn about. Even the characters fear what the book's world is direly telling them: as the brightest among them rather pitifully remarks, "Whatever happens in present circumstances there's going to be tr.. John Brunner
e2248e4 They sought security by piling up more and more irrelevant weapons. John Brunner
d55a6cd I like you very much as a person," he said [...] "I think I'm going to like you just as much as a woman." "I hope so," she answered with equal formality. "We may have to go a lot of places together." John Brunner
d50c4fa It started with population. Not having a fixed breeding season was among the reasons why mankind achieved dominance; it kept our numbers topped up at an explosive rate. Past certain stage restrictive process set in: male libido is reduced or diverted into nonfertile channels, female ovulation is irregularized and sometimes fails completely. But long before we reach that point we find the company of our fellow creatures so unbearable we reso.. John Brunner
96cdd89 only delusible idiots like our current chief executive can be persuaded to don the robes of high office. Nice guys don't crave power.) John Brunner
97feb27 The nation was tightly webbed in a net of interlocking data-channels, and a time-traveler from a century ago would have been horrified by the degree to which confidential information had been rendered accessible to total strangers capable of adding two plus two. John Brunner
d016069 Governments rely on threat and trauma to survive. The easiest populace to rule is weak, poor, superstitious, preferably terrified of what tomorrow may bring, John Brunner
c88bf66 My degrees are scholarates, not mere doctorates. I've always been very proud of that. Like surgeons over in Britain, taking offense at being called Dr. So-and -so. ... But it's irrelevant, it's superfluous, it's silly! John Brunner
38e27ec Out of all the calls taken, nearly half--I think they say forty-five percent--are from people who are afraid someone else knows data that they don't and is gaining an unfair advantage by it. For all the claims one hears about the liberating impact of the data-net, the truth is that it's wished on most of us a brand-new reason for paranoia. John Brunner
480ab0a All right for someone earning a hundred thousand a year. For most of us even contract rates are crippling; I should know. John Brunner
7424043 there's an ingrained distrust in our society of highly intelligent, highly trained, highly competent persons. One need only look at the last presidential election for proof of that. The public obviously wanted a figurehead, who'd look good and make comforting noises-- John Brunner
480f042 Eight or nine men were present John Brunner
052d36d we've always predicated our quotations on the assumption that life expectancy in the United States would continue to rise. But during the past three years it has in fact started to go down. John Brunner
b9a6072 Nickie Haflinger John Brunner
b7cb430 and that person might be Nickie Haflinger! John Brunner
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