Quote

Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all.

Vernor Vinge

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Vernor Vinge
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: October 2
Computer Scientist
Mathematician
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Waukesha
Wisconsin
Vernor Steffen Vinge
Works
Least
Pain
Levers
Best
Manipulation
Sometimes
Elegant
Deception
Expensive
Terror

More quotes by Vernor Vinge

Image
He claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind - but most everybody else agreed it made you daft.
Vernor Vinge
Image
How to explain? How to describe? Even the omniscient viewpoint quails.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Life is a green madness just now, trying to squeeze the last bit of warmth from the season.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Politics may come and go, but Greed goes on forever.
Vernor Vinge
Image
The heart of manipulation is to empathize without being touched.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Sometimes the biggest disasters aren't noticed at all – no one's around to write horror stories.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Little fish risking everything for a piece of godhood...and not knowing heaven from hell, even when they find it.
Vernor Vinge
Image
The physical extinction of the human race is one possibility.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
Vernor Vinge
Image
The problem is not simply that the Singularity represents the passing of humankind from center stage, but that it contradicts our most deeply held notions of being.
Vernor Vinge
Image
One of his greatest talents was empathy no sadist can aspire to perfection without that diagnostic ability.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Even the largest avalanche is triggered by small things.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Technical people don't make good slaves. Without their wholehearted cooperation, things fall apart.
Vernor Vinge
Image
When people speak of creating superhumanly intelligent beings, they are usually imagining an AI project.
Vernor Vinge
Image
The voice was gentle, like a scalpel petting the short hairs of your throat.
Vernor Vinge
Image
All his life he had lived by the law. Often his job had been to stop acts of revenge....And now revenge was all that life had left for him.
Vernor Vinge
Image
Poor humans they will all die.Poor us we will not.
Vernor Vinge
Image
The dilemma felt by science fiction writers will be perceived in other creative endeavors.
Vernor Vinge