We, Robots: Staying Human in the Age of Big Data
Curtis White
Top 10 Best Quotes
“… Communities repeat their central myths, the stories that make them a “cult” and give them an identity, in order to provide them a sense of social continuity. And so Americans tell themselves their “founding” stories over and over again, even though some of them are quite deranged and self-destructive: how the Founding Fathers were the homogenous embodiment of wisdom (when in fact the hated one another, mostly along Federalist and Republican lines); how these wise fathers created a Christian nation “under god” (when in fact many of them - Jefferson, Paine, Franklin - were Deistic skeptics) ; how the Second Amendment means that we all have the right to carry assault rifles; how everyone should strive for the American Dream understood as “success,” that “American bitch goddess” (William James), and so on. Deranged though they may be, these stories are comforting for many Americans, and so to challenge them is to invite vigorous debate if not a fistfight.”
“Western Buddhism’s association with the sixties counterculture is being replaced not only by science but by corporations that deploy it in order to enhance their brand, promote “wellness,” reduce sick days and other inefficiencies among their employees, and, of course, create profitable, Buddhist-themed products. This corporate adoption of Buddhism was made safe by science. The business world’s understanding of meditation - and especially the practice of “mindfulness” - is driven not by traditional Buddhist ideas and ethics, but by neuroscience.”
“Usually, the embrace of deviance comes not because of some innate perversity but because of a preexisting dissatisfaction with the world as it stands acquired through alienating experiences of one sort or another.”
“United States has become essentially two economies: a first-world economy driven by technicians and their various entourages, and a third-world economy driven by immigrants and, increasingly, the forlorn folks who were formerly our pride, the salt of the earth, the hearty denizens of the American heartland. Americans in name, they have been priced out of the American economy. But from the perspective of techno-economists like”
“Through intellectuals like Cowen and Brooks, capitalism is enjoying its sweetest dream. It has dreamed a place where the wealthy consort only with their mechanical creations and servants. It is a place where industry makes mostly those things needed by the rich. It is a place without suffering and the complaints of workers and the poor, most of whom have now “rationally chosen” to live in poverty colonies in unfortunate climes. Perhaps it is only a dream, a piece of economic whimsy, but labor statistic and anecdotes about les miserables suggest that it is real enough. These intellectuals are also making a wager: they are betting that the poor and low-paid half of the population will not know how to organize and will not revolt, especially if there is TV to watch and social programs that consist of not much more than free Hulu for the poor. Social isolation and anomie - the impotence of the canaille - is capitalism’s first line of defence against those it has dispossessed. They’re also betting that the poor will be mostly clueless about the reasons for and the meaning of their condition, so much so that they will be fervent supporters of the “freedoms” offered by their oppressors, especially the freedom to oppress. Capitalism’s cyborg dreams only confirm that it is the enemy of all dreams. If we wish to reclaim our right to be the dreamers, rather than the dreamt, we need to take the first step and sat, as e. e. cummings wrote, “there is some shit I will not eat.”
“The scientists that present at TED confabs needn’t affirm free-market capitalism directly… so long as the implication of their thinking have free-market “consilience”… In fact, TED has become a spectacularly influential force in part through its conciliation of science and libertarian economics, which it then sells to us as entertainment.”
“The most intensely value-laden artifacts of human creativity - works of art - are now the purist examples of that old capitalist alchemy: turning human value into exchange value. At a certain point, and that point has been passed, the art market will only be a mathematical exchange. Art is worth money, but what’s money worth? Money is the ultimate numbers game. What the furor over the art market brings tantalizingly close to the surface is the fact that it is not just the value of art that is dependant on a shared fantasy, it is also money itself. Warhol is not the name of an artist, it is the name of a currency. “Warhol” is a big number because its denomination (soup cans, Brillo box simulacrums, etc.) is presumed to be stable and growing. But it can inflate or deflate like any stock or bond or national currency. Jeff Koons is also a currency but less stable. The only thing that really changes hands are the numbers that are for some reason associated with these opaque talismans called “artworks.” The billionaire buyers of these works have been reduced to South sea natives who insist on the magical properties of certain queer objects - a cornhusk doll with pearls for eyes and a colourful ribbon about its head - but are unable to say why they are so important or why their world would collapse without them. Investors in the art market need to fear bot only the economic boogies of bubbles and ponzi schemes but also that dreaded moment when they look at one another in panic and say, “What were we thinking? What is this stuff? What could have possessed us to say that a glass balloon dog is worth thens of millions? Sell! Sell!”
“The jungle or the prairie, parrots or bobolinks—none of them ever has the opportunity to argue its own value as being, as things that deserve respect simply because they are. This reveals a grave spiritual flaw in their masters: the governors, developers, and agribusiness kings of the world. The ruling order has no moral right to rule because it makes its daily purpose the defeat of the future. The accountant’s logic that concludes that our “interest” is in “profit” assures a future defined by cruelty, but in the long run it will be understood as self-defeat. National”
“The dissonant irony here is that the affluence that gives the Western Buddhist their privilege, and gave them the opportunity to engage Buddhism in the first place, is part of what the Buddha meant by samsara, the world of attachment and consequent suffering. In a sense, Buddhist practice in the West is dependant upon continued delusion, especially those delusion that cause us to identify with class-appropriate roles.”
“The charming sobriquets that we give our cities - the Big Apple, City of Angels, Baghdad-by-the-Bay, Windy City - are nothing more than picture-book thinking for the benefit of tourists and the child-minded. The terse reality is that the city as we know it and live it is a profit scheme, and future dominated by charter cities built on digital operating systems created by giant corporations will only make the scheme more insulting and inexorable. The charter city is not a home; it is a corporate mandate.”
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Book Keywords:
humans, ponzi, buddhism, ted, art, bubble, capitalism, anti-social-behaviour, mindfulness, economics, bastardization, philosophy, meditation, science, isolation
