Yup, that pretty much confirms the diagnosis. This is the desk of a diseased mind, hugely ambitious, prone to taking insanely dangerous risks. He’s n… - Charles Stross

We’re from the Ministry of Defense: our sense of humor is surgically excised at birth.

Ray is clearly anguished, Persephone realizes; he believes this stuff with all his soul and all his guts. He believes in the viral metaphor of a bronze-age rabble-rouser from the Levant, as interpreted by his syncretist followers scattered throughout the Roman Empire. He believes in heaven and hell as real, literally existing destinations you can book an airline ticket to. He believes salvation is a deterministic, card-punching exercise in holding faith in the right god; believes that there’s a coming End of Time in which his godhead will return to Earth, reading minds and separating the sheep from the goats. No need to ask why his God might prescribe eternal torture for the unbelievers, no need to engage with the problem of free will—Schiller’s eschatology is either brutally truncated or sublimely simple, depending on viewpoint. One thing it isn’t is nuanced.

The programmers have a saying, you know? 'If we understand how we do it, it isn't artificial intelligence anymore.'"