Dennis E. Taylor Quotes

Was I alive? Hmm, since no one had yet managed to define life rigorously, that was going to be a fun one. As the speaker at that long-ago panel in Vegas had pointed out, fire has most of the qualities of life but is not alive. According to Dr. Landers, I would be able to reproduce via printer-based autofactories. I certainly responded to stimuli, and acted with self-interest. The claim that life would have to be carbon-based was chauvinistic and narrow-minded, so yeah, I could consider myself alive.

In 2036, the USA elected an over-the-top, unapologetic fundamentalist president named Andrew Handel. Yes, that Handel. During his term, he tried to ban election of non-Christians to any public post, and tried to remove the constitutional separation between church and state. He was nominated, supported, and elected based on his religious views, rather than on his political or fiscal expertise. And of course, he appointed persons of similar persuasion to every post he could manage, in some cases blatantly ignoring laws and procedures. He and his cronies rammed through far-right policies with no thought for consequences. In a number of cases, when challenged on the results, he declared that God would not allow their just cause to fail. He eventually brought the USA to its knees in an economic collapse that made the 2008 recession look like a picnic in the park.

I nodded, impressed. “Jeez, Howard, you’re turning into a real mogul.” Howard grinned. “You know what moguls are, right?” “Uh …” “The buried bodies of forty-something men who took up snowboarding.

We will deliver unacceptable levels of damage to any aggressor.

Fire has most of the characteristics of life. It eats, it grows, it reproduces. But fire retains no information. It doesn’t learn; it doesn’t adapt. The five millionth fire started by lightning will behave just like the first. But the five hundredth bacterial division will not be like the first one, especially if there is environmental pressure.

By most estimates, most cities only have three days’ worth of food and supplies,” Erin replied. “There’s also a common truism that people are nine meals away from anarchy.

Some problems simply do not yield to reductionist techniques, particularly those that are dependent on emergent phenomena.

At one time, we thought that the way life came together was almost completely random, only needing an energy gradient to get going. But as we’ve moved into the information age, we’ve come to realize that life is more about information than energy. Fire has most of the characteristics of life. It eats, it grows, it reproduces. But fire retains no information. It doesn’t learn; it doesn’t adapt. The five millionth fire started by lightning will behave just like the first. But the five hundredth bacterial division will not be like the first one, especially if there is environmental pressure. That’s DNA. And RNA. That’s life. … Dr. Steven Carlisle, from the Convention panel Exploring the Galaxy

God exists, and he’s not only a nasty SOB, he’s also a B-movie director with a warped sense of humor. And I don’t want to be his next sight gag.

Their lives were now less than a footnote in history. As gone, as utterly forgotten as any random individual from the Middle Ages. No longer even a ripple in time, except to the extent that I could keep their memories alive.

In fact,” Theresa continued, “I believe that it is only possible to acquire true morality without input from a deity. It is only when you do something because you believe it is the right thing to do, instead of because of any moral desserts, that you are acting morally. Likewise, it is only when you refuse to do something because of the Golden Rule, rather than because of a threat of punishment, that you are behaving in a moral manner.

That one is approaching puberty. He might’ve been checking out your wife.” “That’s it. He’s sushi.

And anyway, far-left and far-right extremists can be hard to tell apart. Once you reach the point where you believe that you have the right to enforce your stance by lies, intimidation, and violence, it really doesn’t matter that much what label you apply.

Seven billion people on Earth in the early twenty-first century, and FAITH decided to replicate a nerd-slash-engineer with a Star Trek fixation.

grabbed my hand to drag me off. Clothes shopping. Even death apparently wasn’t an escape.