This is one of the two great labyrinths into which human minds are drawn: the question of free will versus predestination. - Neal Stephenson

“There’s been all kinds of confusion about the Leviticans. Some kind of imagined link to the Ku Klux Klan.”
“Maybe it’s because of the burning crosses,” Phil suggested, deadpan.
“Supposedly the KKK burned crosses,” Ted said with a roll of the eyes.
“There’s no ‘supposedly’ about it,” Anne-Solenne started in. “What are you even—” But Sophia silenced her with a hand on the arm. There was no point.
“If that is even true, it has no connection to our burning crosses, which have a completely different significance,” Ted announced.

I can never get past the structural similarities between the Singularity prediction and the apocalypse of St. John the Divine. The key thing they have in common is the idea of a rapture, in which some chosen humans will be taken up and made one with the infinite while others will be left behind...[loosely paraphrasing Jaron Lanier] while hardware might be getting faster all the time, software is shit. And without software to do something useful with all that hardware, the hardware's nothing more than a really complicated space heater.

If history was any guide, those best at violence might end up ruling over everyone else.