James

“For Baudrillard, phenomena such as fly on the wall documentaries and political opinion polls - both of which claimed to present reality in an unmediated way - would always pose an insoluble dilemma. Did the presence of the cameras affect the behavior of those being filmed? Would the publication of poll results affect the future behavior of voters? Such questions were undecidable, and therefore 'reality' would always be elusive: at the very moment when it seemed that it was being grasped into the raw, reality transformed into what Baudrillard, in a much misunderstood neologism, called 'hyperreality'.”
― Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?

“That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“Here we see that models, despite their reputation for impartiality, reflect goals and ideology. When I removed the possibility of eating Pop-Tarts at every meal, I was imposing my ideology on the meals model. It’s something we do without a second thought. Our own values and desires influence our choices, from the data we choose to collect to the questions we ask. Models are opinions embedded in mathematics.”
― Cathy O'Neil, Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

“It is not he who makes no mistakes that is intelligent. There are no such men, nor can there be. It is he whose errors are not very grave and who is able to rectify them easily and quickly that is intelligent.”
― Vladimir Lenin, Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder: A Popular Essay in Marxian Strategy and Tactics