John Twelve Hawks Quotes

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

If privacy had a gravestone it might read: “Don't Worry. This Was for Your Own Good.”

True freedom is tolerant. It gives people the right to live and think in new ways.

Love is just another means of manipulation. We can use that emotion like we use hatred and fear.

Every new experience is unusual. The rest of life is just sleep and committee meetings.

All the news stories were telling me to be frightened. All the commercials were telling me to buy things I didn´t need. The message was that people could only be passive victims or consumers.

Human beings have an almost unlimited capacity for self-delusion. We can justify any amount of sadness if it fits our own particular standard of reality.

You need to study history, Doctor. All great changes are based on pain and destruction.

I hate zoos," she told Gabriel. "They remind me of prisons."
"People like to see animals."
"Citizens want to kill wild creatures or put them into cages. It helps them forget that they're also prisoners.

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

Most people go through life never knowing the truth about the major events of their time. They're watching a farce performed at the edge of the stage while the real drama is going on behind the curtain.

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.

Even the most casual student of history realizes that human beings are greedy, impulsive, and cruel. But Bentham's prison showed us that societal control was possible with the right sort of technology. There was no need to have a policemen standing on every corner. All you need is a Virtual Panopticon that monitors your population. You aren't required to literally watch them all the time, but the masses have to accept the possibility and the inevitability of punishment. You need the structure, the system, the implicit threat that becomes a fact of life. When people discard their notions of privacy, they permit a peaceful society.

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.

The Grid still exists even if you don't see the lines.