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I say, let's learn more and then speculate.

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
Speculate
Learn

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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Even the largest avalanche is triggered by small things.
Vernor Vinge
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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.
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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Once upon a time I was such a good liar I could talk the fish right into my mouths.
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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Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
Vernor Vinge
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It was not called the Net of a Million Lies for nothing.
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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The physical extinction of the human race is one possibility.
Vernor Vinge
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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.
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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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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If there be only hours, at least learn what there is time to learn.
Vernor Vinge
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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.
Vernor Vinge
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Pham Nuwen plunked himself down, stretching indolently.
Vernor Vinge
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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.
Vernor Vinge
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How to explain? How to describe? Even the omniscient viewpoint quails.
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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Little fish risking everything for a piece of godhood...and not knowing heaven from hell, even when they find it.
Vernor Vinge