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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
Competition
Regard
Millions
Makes
Light
Humans
Baggage
Years
Evolutionary
Deadly

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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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Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program.
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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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I never guessed I could cry so hard my face hurt.
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If there be only hours, at least learn what there is time to learn.
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Technical people don't make good slaves. Without their wholehearted cooperation, things fall apart.
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Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
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When I began writing science fiction in the middle 60s, it seemed very easy to find ideas that took decades to percolate into the cultural consciousness now the lead time seems more like eighteen months.
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Well, what do you know, Pham said. Butterflies in jackboots.
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The work that is truly productive is the domain of a steadily smaller and more elite fraction of humanity.
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I have come to kill you.The death's heads shrugged. You have come to try.
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One of his greatest talents was empathy no sadist can aspire to perfection without that diagnostic ability.
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How will the approach of the Singularity spread across the human world view?
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Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change.
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He was guided by what he saw rather than by what he wanted to believe.
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How to explain? How to describe? Even the omniscient viewpoint quails.
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He claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind - but most everybody else agreed it made you daft.
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Sometimes terror and pain are not the best levers deception, when it works, is the most elegant and the least expensive manipulation of all.
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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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Even the largest avalanche is triggered by small things.
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