“While the Left hates Britain’s history, large parts of the Right hate Britain’s future.”
– Tim Montgomerie.

(to which I’d add that the old live in the past while the young live in the future. Actually is that true? Do the young live in the present more than the future?)

Actually it’s an equation.

Despair = Suffering – Meaning.

(Chip Conley).

The book arrived and I found that quote.

“In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby talk, when , in short, people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”

Neil Postman – Amusing Ourselves to Death

Well, if you liked the last one how about these two…?

“There is a connection waiting to be made between the decline in democratic participation and the explosion of new ways of communicating. We need not accept the paradox that gives us more ways than ever to speak, and leaves the public with a wider feeling that their voices are not being heard. The new technologies can strengthen our democracy, by giving us greater opportunities than ever before for better transparency and a more responsive relationship between government and leaders.” – Robin Cook.

“The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it.” – Bill Gates

I’m up to my eyes at the moment so I apologize about using another quote.
Life returns to something vaguely resembling normal in about a month.

“At it’s best, the Internet can educate more people faster than any other media tool. At it’s worst, it can make people dumber faster than any media tool. Because the Internet has an aura of “technology” surrounding it, the uneducated believe information from it even more. They don’t realize that the Internet, at its ugliest, is just an open sewer: an electronic conduit for untreated, unfiltered information. Just when you might have thought you were all alone with your extreme views, the Internet puts you together with a community of people from around the world who hate all the things that you do. You scrap the BBC and just get your news from those websites that reinforce your own stereotypes.”

– Thomas Freedman, New York Times.

“If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run — and often in the short one — the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.”
– Arthur C. Clarke

Still trying to bend my head around some new thinking. Basically I have to write 50 700-800 word essays by Christmas. Yikes. Today it’s medical simulations and gerentology. Still, I’m learning lots and unearthing some great statistics and fantastic quotes. Here’s one from Freeman Dyson (Is he Esther Dyson’s dad or is that George?).

“More than 90 per cent of the technology that will affect our daily lives at the beginning of the 21st century has not been invented. This means that more innovations will be introduced in the next ten years than were produced throughout previous human history.”

Freeman Dyson, physicist and principal architect of the theory of quantum electrodynamics

“Children are one third of our population and all of our future.”  Select Panel for the Promotion of Child Health, 1981