“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
―
―
“One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.”
― The Picture of Dorian Gray
― The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Each one of us was harmed by being brought into existence. That harm is not negligible, because the quality of even the best lives is very bad—and considerably worse than most people recognize it to be. Although it is obviously too late to prevent our own existence, it is not too late to prevent the existence of future possible people.”
― Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence
― Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence
“The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground.”
― Essays
― Essays
“Monogamy is a way of getting the versions of ourselves down to the minimum.”
― Monogamy
― Monogamy
John’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at John’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by John
Lists liked by John


















