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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

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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
Smaller
Productive
Truly
Fraction
Humanity
Fractions
Work
Steadily
Elite
Domain
Elites

More quotes by 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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The dilemma felt by science fiction writers will be perceived in other creative endeavors.
Vernor Vinge
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I never guessed I could cry so hard my face hurt.
Vernor Vinge
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We’re long on high principles and short on simple human understanding.
Vernor Vinge
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The physical extinction of the human race is one possibility.
Vernor Vinge
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Hexapodia as the key insight...I haven't had a chance to see the famous video from Straumli Realm, except as an evocation. (My only gateway onto the Net is very expensive.) Is it true that humans have six legs?
Vernor Vinge
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What we have is a data glut.
Vernor Vinge
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It was not called the Net of a Million Lies for nothing.
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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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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But every time our ability to access information and to communicate it to others is improved, in some sense we have achieved an increase over natural intelligence.
Vernor Vinge
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How to explain? How to describe? Even the omniscient viewpoint quails.
Vernor Vinge
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Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change.
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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He claimed that nearby gun thunder cleared the mind - but most everybody else agreed it made you daft.
Vernor Vinge
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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.
Vernor Vinge
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Even the largest avalanche is triggered by small things.
Vernor Vinge
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The voice was gentle, like a scalpel petting the short hairs of your throat.
Vernor Vinge
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If there be only hours, at least learn what there is time to learn.
Vernor Vinge