Bruce Sterling Quotes

Science has radically changed the conditions of human life on earth. It has expanded our knowledge and our power, but not our capacity to use them with wisdom.

I went from rotary phone to Twitter. And was appalled at the notion.

Disruption is a critical element of the evolution of technology - from the positive and negative aspects of disruption a typical pattern emerges, as new technologies come to market and subsequently take hold.

Technology is neutral and sterile. Now, technology is the nature of modern man; it is our environment and our horizon. Of course, every work of man is a negation of nature, but at the same time, it is a bridge between nature and us. Technology changes nature in a more radical and decisive manner: it throws it out.

When we assess the impact of technological changes, we tend to downplay things that happened a while ago.

Every time a new technology comes along, we feel we're about to break through to a place where we will not be able to recover. The advent of broadcast radio confused people. It delighted people, of course, but it also changed the world.

This is an anxiety driven world - the whole world is driven by anxiety. It is anxiety about the aftermath of the global financial crisis; it's anxiety about inequality and about computers replacing jobs.

Technology always has unforeseen consequences, and it is not always clear, at the beginning, who or what will win, and who or what will lose.

We are all such accidents. We do not make up history and culture. We simply appear, not by our own choice. We make what we can of our condition with the means available. We must accept the mixture as we find it - the impurity of it, the tragedy of it, the hope of it.

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live.

The years after 2000 will be a monumental change in the way life is lived here. It will be harder and harder to relate to our children. I don't know what it's going to be. I don't plan to be around in the year 2000. I'll be taken away by the Sufi God.

Our shared world is humanly unquantifiable and ideologically confused. Which one of them is capable of implementing the most recognizable harm or good?

In the lifetime of one person, we went from figuring out where we came from to figuring out how to get rid of ourselves.

I spend most of my time assuming the world is not ready for the technology revolution that will be happening to them soon.

There are so many things happening nowadays that you've seen in films from years ago, like cloning and all of those things are actually happening now, so we can kind of visualize it a lot more, and I think our generation particularly know that we're going to be a big part of that, we we're kind of fascinated with how human beings will fare in the world.

Modern Man is the victim of the very instruments he values most. Every gain in power, every mastery of natural forces, every scientific addition to knowledge, has proved potentially dangerous, because it has not been accompanied by equal gains in self-understanding and self-discipline.

Genetic engineering is a result of science advancement, so I don't think that in itself is bad.

People invent new machines and improve existing ones almost unconsciously, rather as a Somnambulist will go walking in his sleep. The interesting puzzle in our times is that we so willingly sleepwalk through the process of reconstituting the conditions of human existence.

When you find out there is no ultimate good and evil in which you can place your faith, the world does not fall apart at the seams. It simply means that every decision is more difficult, more critical, because you are creating the good and evil yourself and they are very real.

Simon, would you still care for me if you discovered I was not who I say I am?" What do you mean?" I mean would you still care for me, no matter what you came to know?" What a thing to ponder. I don't know what to say." The answer is no. He does not need to say it. With a sigh, Simon digs at the fire with the iron poker. Bits of the charred log fall away, revealing the angry insides. they flare orange for a moment, then quiet down again. After three tries, he gives up. I'm afraid this fire's had it." I can see a few embers remaining. "No, I think not. If..." He sighs, and it says everything.

Some people are just afraid of what's different. It doesn't mean different is bad. It just means different is different.

I do think it is very important that the religious communities do try to bring their teachings and their insights to bear on the stem cell debate and on the debate about genetic engineering.

I saw some women had written that the cloning of Dolly was wonderful since it showed that women could have children without men. They didn’t even understand that this was the ultimate ownership of women—of embryos, of eggs, of bodies—by a few men with capital and control techniques, that it wasn’t freedom from men but total control by men.

The globe is shrinking, the information age is bringing a lot of changes. People are anxious about their future and their children's futures.

I mean only that I hope they find darkness or paradise without fear of it, if they can.