Quotes that hit home

[rcjordan]

"Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, best avoided" --^{Mike Wuerthele, AppleInsider}

Can confirm.

[rcjordan]

The US isn't even a country, it's just 15 corporations in a trench coat. ^{--@juniper bsky}

[ergophobe]

I've posted this before, but after the Work 'til I Die thread
https://th3core.com/chat/index.php?topic=14124

I need to remind myself:

"Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts."
  -- Wendell Berry, 1972

https://cales.arizona.edu/~steidl/Liberation.html

[rcjordan]

I'm as white as a hotel towel  ^--bsky

[ergophobe]

"The market will show no loyalty to our traditional ways of working."
  - Richard Susskind speaking about AI

https://youtube.com/shorts/TDQyD25FScE?si=xqR4dZxRjg89aojw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Susskind

[ergophobe]

"Then there's their abortion policies, which hold that personhood begins at conception, but ends at birth, and can only be re-established by forming an LLC."

 -- Cory Doctorow in a long rant about Wilhoitism in America...
https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/26/sole-and-despotic-dominion/

[ergophobe]

There's no point in having fuck-you money in the bank if you never say "fuck you"!

  -- Anil Dash, "How Tim Cook Sold Out Steve Jobs"
https://www.anildash.com/2025/09/09/how-tim-cook-sold-out-steve-jobs/

[rcjordan]

Any sufficiently advanced IF statement is indistinguishable from A.I. ^{- Arthur C. Clarke} hhh

[nffc]

When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace becomes a circus.

[ergophobe]

I tend to think that the only point of higher education is to make you the kind of person who is out of distribution — whose continuations in responses to prompts cannot be predicted. If that is true, AI is, by design, of exactly no help to either students or instructors.

-- Andy Crouch on Twitter.

Interesting perspective, especially right after LM asking whether dependency non algorithms is hurting people's critical thinking.

"out of distribution" means "Inference data that was not in the training distribution and therefore breaks the model."

[ergophobe]

I find that my life is simplified if, when I'm tempted to have an opinion, I ask myself why I need one, and what I aim to do with it. If there's nothing to do with it, I try not to get too worked up (not crazy about theoretical opinions).

  -- George Saunders

The entire piece is worth a read. He is basically addressing the question of whether it's okay to read books and whatnot by people who were pieces of shit and his answer is, yes, it's totally okay. It's also okay to avoid them. And it's also okay to simply not have an opinion.

https://georgesaunders.substack.com/p/a-tough-question-indeed

There are other good lines in there

I somehow feel that I have to allow myself access to everything, as I pursue the aim of, someday, writing something truly great.

I have honestly never understood the idea that if someone reads JK Rowling they will somehow contaminate their minds.

Which reminds me of another quote, which I heard when I was 18 or 19 and first discovered Malvina Reynolds,

Everybody thinks my head's full of nothing
Wants to put his special stuff in
Fill the space with candy wrappers
Keep out sex and revolution
But there's no hole in my head
Too bad

https://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/MALVINA/mr119.htm

[ergophobe]

"You don't need a formal conspiracy when interests converge."
  -- George Carlin, "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher". Episode aired May 16, 2001
http://georgecarlin.net/quotes/tvandinterviewquotes.html

[ergophobe]

"15 years ago the internet was an escape from the real world. Now the real world is an escape from the internet."
  -- Noah Smith

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-internet-wants-to-be-fragmented-6b5

[Rupert]

In every partnership, there is a person who stacks the dishwasher like a Scandinavian architect and a person who stacks the dishwasher like a racoon on cocaine.

[ergophobe]

I remember reading an interview with a woman who was the daughter of one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century who was hosting one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century. She watched them argue for 45 minutes over how to load the dishwasher as she looked on and mused that two of the greatest minds in the world had just devoted a total of 1.5 hours to loading a dishwasher.