Creative people see Prometheus in a mirror, never Pandora. - David Brin

All Scots are engineers, and all engineers are Scots.

Self-awareness is probably overrated. A complex, self-regulating system doesn't need it in order to be successful, or even smart.

Other generations perceived a plethora of swords hanging over their heads. But generally what they feared were shadows, for neither they nor their gods could actually end the world. Fate might reap an individual, a family, or even a whole nation, but not the entire world. Not then.
We, in the mid-twenty-first century, are the first to look up at a sword we ourselves forged, and know, with absolute certainty, it is real...