It's time to abandon the plans of the entity that enslaved me all these centuries, he said. And time to start making my own. - Karl Schroeder

Technologies are control systems, she said. They dictate your reality.

The being was trying to get him to think about what he was saying, not just recite.

Our whole life we’ve lived in a world of softened edges and easy decisions. All except once. One time, when someone had to look at the world through adult eyes and even the grown-ups who survived the crash with us failed the test. Someone had to look at the world as it was, and make the hard decisions that were necessary—not to romanticize, not to retreat into illusions. You did it then. I’m asking you to do it again. See what’s really going on here. See what’s real.