Cory Doctorow Quotes

When in problem, or in doubt, run in cirles, scream and shout

Internet Explorer, Microsoft’s crashware turd that no one under the age of forty used voluntarily.

Making other people feel like assholes was a terrible way to get them to stop acting like assholes.

"The fact was, there wasn't room on earth for a couple million gold-farmers to turn into high-paid video-game executives. The fact was, if you had to slice the pie into enough pieces to give one to everyone, you'd end up slicing them so thin you could see through them. "When 30,000 people share an apple, no one benefits — especially not the apple." It was a quote one of his economics profs had kept written in the corner of his white-board, and any time a student started droning on about compassion for the poor, the old prof would just tap the board and say, "Are you willing to share your lunch with 30,000 people?

"The Bill of Rights was written before data-mining," he said. He was awesomely serene, convinced of his rightness. "The right to freedom of association is fine, but why shouldn't the cops be allowed to mine your social network to figure out if you're hanging out with gangbangers and terrorists?"

Somewhere, in a distant land he barely knew the name of, people had stopped buying washing machines, and so his city had died.

This sounds like you’re saying that national security is more important than the Constitution.

The best way to be superhuman is to do things that you love with other people who love them, too. The only way to do that is to admit you’re doing it because you love it and if you do more than everyone, you’re still only doing that because that’s what you choose.

The law didn’t care if you were actually doing anything bad; they were willing to put you under the microscope just for being statistically abnormal.

Complaining about the universe’s unfairness is never part of a successful strategy.

Every telecomm company is as big a corporate welfare bum as you could ask for. Try to imagine what it would cost at market rates to go around to every house in every town in every country and pay for the right to block traffic and dig up roads and erect poles and string wires and pierce every home with cabling. The regulatory fiat that allows these companies to get their networks up and running is worth hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars.

If phone companies want to operate in the “free market,” then let them: the FCC could give them 60 days to get all their rotten copper out of our dirt, or we’ll buy it from them at the going scrappage rates. Then, let’s hold an auction for the right to be the next big telecomm company, on one condition: in exchange for using the public’s rights-of-way, you have to agree to connect us to the people we want to talk to, and vice-versa, as quickly and efficiently as you can.

What if I got hit by lightning while walking with an umbrella? Ban umbrellas! Fight the menace of lightning!

It's good versus evil, Dan. You don't want to be a post-person. You want to stay human. The rides are human. We each mediate them through our own experience. We're physically inside of them, and they talk to us through our senses. What Debra's people are building — it's hive-mind [stuff:]. Directly implanting thoughts! Jesus! It's not an experience, it's brainwashing!

The important thing about security systems isn’t how they work, it’s how they fail.

I mean, you can't be a revolutionary after the revolution, can you? Didn't we all struggle so that kids like Lil wouldn't have to?