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We humans have millions of years of evolutionary baggage that makes us regard competition in a deadly light.

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
Humans
Baggage
Years
Evolutionary
Deadly
Competition
Regard
Millions
Makes
Light

More quotes by Vernor Vinge

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Well, what do you know, Pham said. Butterflies in jackboots.
Vernor Vinge
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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.
Vernor Vinge
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We will soon create intelligences greater than our own ... When this happens, human history will have reached a kind of singularity, an intellectual transition as impenetrable as the knotted space-time at the center of a black hole, and the world will pass far beyond our understanding.
Vernor Vinge
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Technical people don't make good slaves. Without their wholehearted cooperation, things fall apart.
Vernor Vinge
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I have argued above that we cannot prevent the Singularity, that its coming is an inevitable consequence of the humans natural competitiveness and the possibilities inherent in technology.
Vernor Vinge
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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.
Vernor Vinge
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Peregrine Wickwrackrum was of two minds about evil: when enough rules get broken, sometimes there is good amid the carnage.
Vernor Vinge
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Even the largest avalanche is triggered by small things.
Vernor Vinge
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Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.
Vernor Vinge
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What we have is a data glut.
Vernor Vinge
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So much technology, so little talent.
Vernor Vinge
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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!
Vernor Vinge
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He was guided by what he saw rather than by what he wanted to believe.
Vernor Vinge
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If there be only hours, at least learn what there is time to learn.
Vernor Vinge
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How will the approach of the Singularity spread across the human world view?
Vernor Vinge
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The illusion of self-awareness. Happy automatons, running on trivial programs. I'll bet you never guess. From the inside, how can you?
Vernor Vinge
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In fact, there was general agreement that minds can exist on nonbiological substrates and that algorithms are of central importance to the existence of minds.
Vernor Vinge
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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
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I never guessed I could cry so hard my face hurt.
Vernor Vinge
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The work that is truly productive is the domain of a steadily smaller and more elite fraction of humanity.
Vernor Vinge