No Problems Quotes

“The scapegoat is not what he once was. No longer is he hounded; now he is pitied (the rights of man, dissidents, the 'beurs ', * etc.) . But he is the scapegoat nonetheless and it is still the same.

When there is a solution, it is no longer a real problem. When there is an answer, it is no longer a real question. For at that point, the problem is part of the solution and the answer is part of the question. And then nothing remains but solutions without problems and answers without questions. O, happy days when we had only questions without answers and problems without solutions!”
― Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories

“Marin hesitated. It was time to leave, time to be at the meeting. Yet he didn’t want to go. If they brought David Burnley back to fife, he wanted to be present. The boy might say things that would arouse suspicion.
Over at the desk young Burnley stirred. Marin didn’t think of it as a life movement but as an unbalancing of a dead weight. He jumped to catch the body before it could fall to the floor. As he grasped the youth’s arm, he felt the muscles tugging under the skin. The swiftness of the reintegration that followed nullified any advance thought about it.
David Burnley sat up, looked blank for a moment, and then said in a frightened tone, “What was that thing in my mind?”
Unexpected remark. Marin drew back. “Thing!” he said.
“Something came into my mind and took control I could feel it I—” He stopped. Tears came into his eyes.
The officer strode over. “Anything I can do?”
Marin waved him away. “Get that doctor!” he said.
It was a defensive action. He needed time here to grasp a new idea. He was remembering what Slater had said, about the use of electronic circuits directly into the brains of human beings as a method of control from a distance. . . . That boy was dead, Marin thought tensely.
Dead without visible cause. Was it possible that, as the “circuit” connection was broken, or even dissolved, death resulted? Again, he had no time to think about it clearly. It seemed to mean that young Burnley was a victim, not a traitor. It seemed to mean that the “death” might have broken the connection, though that was not certain.
Marin said gently, “How do you feel, David?”
“Why, all right, sir.” He stood up, swayed, and then righted himself, smiling warmly. He braced himself visibly. “All right,” he said again.”
― A.E. van Vogt, The Mind Cage