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Even the largest avalanche is triggered by small things.

Vernor Vinge

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Vernor Vinge
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: October 2
Computer Scientist
Mathematician
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Waukesha
Wisconsin
Vernor Steffen Vinge
Things
Avalanche
Triggered
Avalanches
Largest
Small
Even

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Politics may come and go, but Greed goes on forever.
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Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change.
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Another symptom of progress toward the Singularity: ideas themselves should spread ever faster, and even the most radical will quickly become commonplace.
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If there be only hours, at least learn what there is time to learn.
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He was guided by what he saw rather than by what he wanted to believe.
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And for all my rampant technological optimism, sometimes I think I'd be more comfortable if I were regarding these transcendental events from one thousand years remove... instead of twenty.
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The physical extinction of the human race is one possibility.
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I argue in this paper that we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.
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All evil and good is petty before Nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that cannot be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is.
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Once upon a time I was such a good liar I could talk the fish right into my mouths.
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Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.
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Politics is good when it works properly, disagreements get solved without people beating each other up. But when a regime knows its days are numbered, there's always the chance it may use its position to change the rules and make the debate it is losing irrelevant.
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The dilemma felt by science fiction writers will be perceived in other creative endeavors.
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Technical people don't make good slaves. Without their wholehearted cooperation, things fall apart.
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I am suggesting that we recognize that in network and interface research there is something as profound (and potential wild) as Artificial Intelligence.
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Pham Nuwen plunked himself down, stretching indolently.
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Peregrine Wickwrackscar was flying. A pilgrim with legends that went back almost a thousand years-and not one of them could come near to this!
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The voice was gentle, like a scalpel petting the short hairs of your throat.
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Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster than natural selection can do its work - the world acts as its own simulator in the case of natural selection.
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We humans have millions of years of evolutionary baggage that makes us regard competition in a deadly light.
Vernor Vinge