Steve Walker

“The universe is indifferent to our fates. This was the crushing burden that the character took with him as he struggled through the surf toward survival or extinction. The universe just does not give a shit.”
― Dan Simmons, Endymion

“If dark energy is a cosmological constant, the equation of state parameter w equals -1 exactly, and we get a Heat Death. If w is at all lower than -1, even one part in a billion billions, dark energy is phantom dark energy, capable of tearing the universe apart. Because it’s impossible to ever measure anything with complete, uncertainty-free precision, the best we may ever be able to do is say that if the Big Rip does occur, it will be so far in the future that all structure in the cosmos will have decayed already by the time it happens.”
― Katie Mack, The End of Everything

“The nationalist is by definition an ignoramus,” wrote Danilo Kiš, the Yugoslav writer. “Nationalism is the line of least resistance, the easy way. The nationalist is untroubled, he knows or thinks he knows what his values are, his, that’s to say national, that’s to say the values of the nations he belongs to, ethical and political; he is not interested in others, they are of no concern of his, hell—it’s other people (other nations, another tribe). They don’t even need investigating. The nationalist sees other people in his own image—as nationalists.”1”
― Chris Hedges, War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning

“The nationalist myth often implodes with a startling ferocity. It does so after the lies and absurdities that surround it become too hard to sustain. They collapse under their own weight. The contradictions and torturous refusal to acknowledge the obvious becomes more than a society is able to bear. The collapse is usually followed by a blanket refusal, caused by shame and discomfort, to examine or acknowledge the crimes carried out in the name of nationalist cause.”
― Chris Hedges, War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning