In Convivium I warn that AI threatens our humanity almost as much if it does work as it threatens humanity if it runs amok.
“How come dumb stuff seems so smart while you’re doing it?”
Dennis the Menace, quoted in NCC Overview Winter 2002
“The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.”
G.K. Chesterton in the introduction to The Defendant
“The general rule which we have now pretty well established among them is that in all experiences which can make them happier or better only the physical facts are ‘Real’ while the spiritual elements are ‘subjective’; in all experiences which can discourage or corrupt them the spiritual elements are the main reality and to ignore them is to be an escapist.”
C.S. Lewis The Screwtape Letters.
“One sword keeps another in the sheath.”
George Herbert on Brainy Quote (www.brainyquote.com/quotes/george_herbert_152910)
“‘Optimism is cowardice.’”
Oswald Spengler, quoted by Modris Eksteins in Globe & Mail June 3, 2000
“The dark night of the soul was not discovered by Freud; it was at the heart of the experience of faith.”
Charles J. Sykes, A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character
“Start every day with a smile and get it over with.”
W.C. Fields, quoted in the features on a DVD of six classic W.C. Fields shorts I acquired years ago