It is early in November of 1942 and a simply unbelievable amount of shit is going on, all at once, everywhere. - Neal Stephenson

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.

— after that it's just a chase scene.

Human nature doesn’t change, Randy. Education is hopeless. The most educated people in the world can turn into Aztecs or Nazis just like that.” He snaps his fingers.