“Madness is rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule,” Nietzsche wrote (before he went mad).”
― Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future
― Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked
― I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked
“The largest, and most provocative, sense in which a technological singularity might be an existential opportunity can only be grasped by stepping outside the human perspective altogether and adopting a more cosmological point of view. It is surely the height of anthropocentric thinking to suppose that the story of matter in this corner of the universe climaxes with human society and the myriad living brains embedded in it, marvelous as they are. Perhaps matter still has a long way to go on the scale of complexity. Perhaps there are forms of consciousness yet to arise that are, in some sense, superior to our own. Should we recoil from this prospect, or rejoice in it? Can we even make sense of such an idea? Whether or not the singularity is near, these are questions worth asking, not least because in attempting to answer them we shed new light on ourselves and our place in the order of things.
Murray Shanahan”
― The Technological Singularity
Murray Shanahan”
― The Technological Singularity
“from one thing, know ten thousand things”
― The Book of Five Rings: Miyamoto Musashi
― The Book of Five Rings: Miyamoto Musashi
“In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.”
― Ethics of Belief and Other Essays
― Ethics of Belief and Other Essays
Petre’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Petre’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by Petre
Lists liked by Petre
























































