John Twelve Hawks Quotes

Artificial intelligence is a concept that obscures accountability. Our problem is not machines acting like humans -- it’s humans acting like machines.

Any monitoring system that is invisible, pervasive, automatic, and permanent gives those in power the means to create a modern surveillance state. And these new states will have an authority that has detached itself from ethics and ideology. Politicians and dictators will continue to make speeches, but their words will become meaningless. This new system will see and know us. It will even predict our future behavior.

You don't need to watch everyone if everyone believes they're being watched.

No machine can daydream. When they’re not switched on, they’re as cold as a toaster in a midnight kitchen.

Many physicists these days sound like the Delphic oracle - with equations.

Children defer to adults because they’re older, bigger and stronger. But it’s also because children believe that adults have reasons for what they do. There was nothing magical about the Pied Piper of Hamelin’s flute. The Piper acted like he knew where he was going and the children followed him into the dark mountains where they were never seen again.

Modern authority is based on a system of lies that are accepted by the general population. If you pull away the curtain and show the reality of power, people are motivated to question the fictions that govern their own lives.

Half the things you've been taught in school are just convenient fictions. History is a puppet show for childish minds.

It's all just fear and distraction. Fear will get people into our Virtual Panopticon and then we'll keep them happy. People will be free to take antidepressant drugs, go into debt, and stare at their television sets. Society might seem disorganized, but it will be very stable. Every few years we'll pick a different mannequin to give speeches from the White House Rose Garden.

Almost every important choice in our lives is really just an expression of hope.

Peace and prosperity were possible only if people stopped asking new questions and accepted the available answers.

Freedom is the biggest myth ever created. It's a destructive, unachievable goal that has caused a great deal of pain. Very few people can handle freedom. A society is healthy and productive when it's under control.

In reality, the universe is neutral about our existence. Only dogs care.

The first icon of the 21st Century is the closed-circuit surveillance camera, slowly panning back and forth as we move beneath its gaze.

In Orwell’s 1984, all Party members must assemble for a “Two Minutes Hate” session where they watch a propaganda film showing the Party’s enemies. The establishment of the Virtual Panopticon insures that these group meetings aren’t necessary. Those in power now have the resources to deliver a political message tailored to the specific fears of the individual citizen. Yes, we’ll still have political rallies and conventions, but these will be empty gestures retained from the past.