33,202 books
—
125,738 voters
Discover new books on Goodreads
Meet your next favorite book
progress:
(page 0 of 565)
"....re-reading....over and over...obsessively.....S" — Oct 10, 2021 04:10PM
"....re-reading....over and over...obsessively.....S" — Oct 10, 2021 04:10PM
“Exoteric machines - esoteric machines.
They say the computer is an improved form of typewriter. Not a bit of it. I collude with my typewriter, but the relationship is otherwise clear and distant. I know it is a machine; it knows it is a machine. There is nothing here of the interface, verging on biological confusion, between a computer thinking it is a brain and me thinking I am a computer.
The same familiarity with good old television, where I was and remained a spectator. It was an esoteric machine, whose status as machine I respected. Nothing there of all these screens and interactive devices, including the 'smart' car of the future and the 'smart' house. Even the mobile phone, that incrustation of the network in your head, even the skateboard and rollerblades - mobility aids - are of a quite different generation from the good old static telephone or the velocipedic machine. New manners and a new morality are emerging as a result of this organic confusion between man and his prostheses - a confusion which puts an end to the instrumental pact and the integrity of the machine itself.”
― Cool Memories IV, 1995-2000
They say the computer is an improved form of typewriter. Not a bit of it. I collude with my typewriter, but the relationship is otherwise clear and distant. I know it is a machine; it knows it is a machine. There is nothing here of the interface, verging on biological confusion, between a computer thinking it is a brain and me thinking I am a computer.
The same familiarity with good old television, where I was and remained a spectator. It was an esoteric machine, whose status as machine I respected. Nothing there of all these screens and interactive devices, including the 'smart' car of the future and the 'smart' house. Even the mobile phone, that incrustation of the network in your head, even the skateboard and rollerblades - mobility aids - are of a quite different generation from the good old static telephone or the velocipedic machine. New manners and a new morality are emerging as a result of this organic confusion between man and his prostheses - a confusion which puts an end to the instrumental pact and the integrity of the machine itself.”
― Cool Memories IV, 1995-2000
“Intelligence is analysing things as they are.
Imagination is conceiving them as they could be.
Morality is conceiving them as they should be.
Magic is making them occur the way you conceive them.
There is no longer any interest in the mental hygiene of killers. Today we have only the mental hygiene of the victim, and the art of using one's own misfortune as a credit card.”
― Cool Memories V: 2000 - 2004
Imagination is conceiving them as they could be.
Morality is conceiving them as they should be.
Magic is making them occur the way you conceive them.
There is no longer any interest in the mental hygiene of killers. Today we have only the mental hygiene of the victim, and the art of using one's own misfortune as a credit card.”
― Cool Memories V: 2000 - 2004
“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.”
―
―
“Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.”
―
―
“The pharaonic era of the country-house technocrats. The dream of an electronic control of things runs up against the traditional stupidity of the masses. Collective demand has never been so elicited, forced or violated as it has in the field of computing. The clash between a philosophical and metaphysical exigency and a present which is no longer in the least philosophical and metaphysical.
The clash between a system of representation and a system of simulation. The clash between a thinking of difference and a thinking of indifference. What is the power of indifference? What would an analytics of indifference be like? Torn between a radical indifference and a radical seduction.
Postmodemity is the simultaneity of the destruction of earlier values and their reconstruction. It is renovation within ruination. In terms of periods, it is the end of final evaluations and the movement of transcendence, which are replaced by 'teleonomic' evaluation, in terms of retroaction. Everything is always retroactive, including - and, indeed, particularly including - information. The rest is left to the acceleration of values by technology (sex, body, freedom, knowledge).”
― Cool Memories
The clash between a system of representation and a system of simulation. The clash between a thinking of difference and a thinking of indifference. What is the power of indifference? What would an analytics of indifference be like? Torn between a radical indifference and a radical seduction.
Postmodemity is the simultaneity of the destruction of earlier values and their reconstruction. It is renovation within ruination. In terms of periods, it is the end of final evaluations and the movement of transcendence, which are replaced by 'teleonomic' evaluation, in terms of retroaction. Everything is always retroactive, including - and, indeed, particularly including - information. The rest is left to the acceleration of values by technology (sex, body, freedom, knowledge).”
― Cool Memories
Stefan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Stefan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
299 books
|
127 friends
1,276 books
|
680 friends
360 books
|
175 friends
77 books
|
66 friends
1,429 books
|
106 friends
495 books
|
417 friends
808 books
|
346 friends
679 books
|
209 friends
More friends…
Polls voted on by Stefan
Lists liked by Stefan