Futurology Quotes

“The only thing we can try to do is to influence the direction scientists are taking. Since we might soon be able to engineer our desires too, perhaps the real questions facing us is not 'What do we want to become?', but "What do we want to want?' Those who are not spooked by this question probably haven't given it enough thought.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, קיצור תולדות האנושות

“Hannah strived for physical catharsis, but she was trapped in an unfamiliar mind without its biological counterparts; gasping without lungs, crying without tears, forgiving without a heart.”
― Jake Vander Ark, The Day I Wore Purple

“Brain-like in function and speed, the internet connected over one-third of the global population. Three million searches every minute; one-hundred-trillion emails every year; more Facebook users than people in North America, all with with personal photos, videos, apps, and chats. There were dozens of dating sites, an immersive universe called 2nd Life that boasted a country-sized GDP, a slew of viruses, obnoxious advertising, more than a billion photos of naked women, and seventy-two hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. This was the environment where the friendship flourished.”
― Jake Vander Ark, The Day I Wore Purple

“What was civilization ever, really, but the attempt by man to talk himself into being good?”
― Stanisław Lem, The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy

“The future is meant to be a secret for those that can't handle life. Premonitions and the ability to see into the future, are only given to those that have the wisdom to make the right decisions, from which, accepting happiness is the most basic one.”
― Robin Sacredfire

“We owe our liberation to chemistry," he went on. "For all perception is but a change in the concentration of hydrogen ions on the surface of the brain cells. Seeing me, you actually experience a disturbance in the sodium-potassium equilibrium across your neuron membranes. So all we have to
do is send a few well-chosen molecules down into those cortical mitochondria, activate the right neurohumoral-synaptic transmission effector sites, and your fondest dreams come true. But you know
all this," he concluded, subdued.”
― Stanisław Lem, The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy