Techno Short Quotes

To be honest, my life has exhibited many strange and sometimes troubling characteristics, but shortness is not one of them. It feels like an eternity since I started school and a techno-social epoch since I moved to San Francisco. My phone couldn't even connect to the internet back then.

Ken MacLeod, a Scottish science fiction author, describes the Singularity as “the Rapture for nerds” and in the same way Christians are divided into preterist, premillennialist, and postmillennialist camps regarding the timing of the Parousia,39 Apocalyptic Techno-Heretics can be divided into three sects, renunciationist, apotheosan, and posthumanist. Whereas renunciationists foresee a dark future wherein humanity is enslaved or even eliminated by its machine masters and await the Singularity with the same sort of resignation that Christians who don’t buy into Rapture doctrine anticipate the Tribulation and the Antichrist, apotheosans anticipate a happy and peaceful amalgamation into a glorious, godlike hive mind of the sort envisioned by Isaac Asimov in his Foundation novels. Posthumanists, meanwhile, envision a detente between Man and Machine, wherein artificial intelligence will be wedded to intelligence amplification and other forms of technobiological modification to transform humanity and allow it to survive and perhaps even thrive in the Posthuman Era .40 Although it is rooted entirely in science and technology,41 there are some undeniable religious parallels between the more optimistic visions of the Singularity and conventional religious faith. Not only is there a strong orthogenetic element inherent in the concept itself, but the transhuman dream of achieving immortality through uploading one’s consciousness into machine storage and interacting with the world through electronic avatars sounds suspiciously like shedding one’s physical body in order to walk the streets of gold with a halo and a harp. Furthermore, the predictions of when this watershed event is expected to occur rather remind one of Sir Isaac Newton’s tireless attempts to determine the precise date of the Eschaton, which he finally concluded would take place sometime after 2065, only thirty years after Kurzweil expects the Singularity. So, if they’re both correct, at least Mankind can console itself that the Machine Age will be a short one.

On clear days we trudged through White Forest, a man-made woods of metal trees and plastic leaves constructed in the boon years of Brezhnev when the party boss’s wife had grown nostalgic for the birches of her youth. By the time we trudged beneath them, however, the years had ravaged both the forest and the party boss’s wife, and the plastic leaves above were as sagging and liver-spotted as her face. We went on. The mud was a mustard we plodded through. On the forest’s far side we looked across the expanse of sulfurous waste stretching to the horizon. We shouted. We proclaimed. We didn’t need to whisper out here. For a few short weeks in July, red wildflowers pushed through the oxidized waste and the whole earth simmered with apocalyptic beauty.

Albert Mohler Jr. for the Christian Post. “In short, [this] God is something like a combination Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist: he is always on call, takes care of any problems that arise, professionally helps his people to feel better about themselves, and does not become too personally involved in the process.” In continuing his troubling dissertation,

In a perfect world, of course, no one person, much less a thirty-three-year-old computer programmer in soccer shoes, would have the power to manipulate a presidential election. And yet this is the world we live in. For too long, the gatekeepers who ran the most powerful information-spreading systems in human history were able to pretend that they weren’t gatekeepers at all. Information wants to be free; besides, people who take offense should blame the author, not the messenger; anyway, the ultimate responsibility lies with each consumer. Now, instead of imagining that we occupy a postgatekeeper utopia, it might make more sense—in the short term, at least—to demand better, more thoughtful gatekeepers.

With one minute to spare, Madison arrived at the Space Needle. Her rose was hastily clipped into her short dark hair. Her cheeks were red from all of the mad rushing around. But she had made it on time. So had Jeremy. Once again he was waiting by the elevator that rode up to the top of the Space Needle. A somewhat faded blue carnation was pinned to the lapel of his jacket. Madison, who usually overplanned everything, hadn’t taken one second to plan what she would say when she finally met “Blue” face-to-face. A man with a bouquet of balloons passed by, and she ducked out of sight behind them. As she ran alongside the vendor, she hastily tried to collect her thoughts. So much was riding on this meeting, and she didn’t want to blow it. When the balloon man got close to the elevator tower, Madison jumped out from behind the balloons and hid by a corner of the tower. Her mind was still a complete blank. But she couldn’t leave Jeremy standing there for another minute. So she inched her way along the wall until she was safely hidden behind the post he was leaning against. Madison checked the TechnoMarine watch she’d borrowed from Piper. It was nearly five minutes after four. Time was running out! She had to say something. But what? Barely a foot away, she heard Jeremy exhale in frustration, and her heart sank. When he made a move to leave, her hand shot out from behind the pillar and caught hold of his. “Blue?” she whispered. “Please don’t turn around.” Jeremy didn’t move. “Okay,” he said warily. “I’m trying to find the words to tell you what our letters have meant to me,” she whispered. “And how much your friendship means to me.” Jeremy nodded. “It’s been important to me, too.” He started to turn around, but Madison tugged his arm, hard. “Don’t look, yet. Please!” Jeremy quickly turned his head away. “All right, but--” Madison didn’t let him finish. She squeezed her eyes shut and started babbling. “I didn’t know who you were until last Friday--which, incidentally, turned out to be about the most important day of my life. And when I knew it was you, I just didn’t know how to tell you that I was me. You once told me I was cold and heartless, and I just couldn’t bear it if you said it again. Everything has been so perfect, I just don’t want to blow it, and now that we’re standing here holding hands, I don’t want to let go--” “So don’t,” a voice whispered, very close to her cheek.

I walked the short distance to Nogizaka, then strolled up and down Gaienhigashi-dori. It took awhile, but I finally spotted it. There was no sign, only a small red rose on a black awning. The entrance was flanked by two black men, each of sufficient bulk to have been at home in the sumo pit. Their suits were well tailored and, given the size of the men wearing them, must have been custom-made. Nigerians, I assumed, whose size, managerial acumen, and relative facility with the language had made them a rare foreign success story, in this case as both middle management and muscle for many of the area’s entertainment establishments. The mizu shobai, or “water trade” of entertainment and pleasure, is one of the few areas in which Japan can legitimately claim a degree of internationalization. They bowed and opened the club’s double glass doors for me, each issuing a baritone irasshaimase as they did so. Welcome. One of them murmured something into a microphone set discreetly into his lapel. I walked down a short flight of stairs. A ruddy-faced, prosperous-looking Japanese man whom I put at about forty greeted me in a small foyer. Interchangeable J-Pop techno music was playing from the room beyond. “Nanmeisama desho ka?” Mr. Ruddy asked. How many? “Just one,” I said in English, holding up a finger. “Of course.” He motioned that I should follow him. The room was rectangular, flanked by dance stages on either end. The stages were simple, distinguished only by mirrored walls behind them and identical brass poles at their centers. One stage was occupied by a tall, long-haired blonde wearing high heels and a green g-string and nothing more. She was dancing somewhat desultorily, I thought, but seemed to have the attention of the majority of the club’s clientele regardless. Russian, I guessed. Large-boned and large-breasted. A delicacy in Japan. Harry hadn’t mentioned floorshows. Probably he was embarrassed. My sense that something was amiss deepened.

From the #1 bestselling War/Action Adventure/Men's Adventure/Techno-thriller author, Carolyn McCray comes the blockbuster, ultimate Betrayed Omnibus collection. Containing all of the Betrayed series from the first prequel short story to the post-Shiva exclusive short story, Mayhem, you can read the extremely controversial historical thriller saga in one place! ***Warning*** This book is an extremely controversial religious/historical thriller. Please do NOT purchase this book if you were at all disturbed by DaVinci's revelations. However, if you like your fiction to challenge historical events, read on… Praise for The Betrayed Series…

Dr. Small points out that this atmosphere of manic disruption makes my adrenal gland pump up production of cortisol and adrenaline. In the short run, these stress hormones boost energy levels and augment memory, but over time they actually impair cognition, lead to depression, and alter the neural circuitry in the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex—the brain regions that control mood and thought. Chronic and prolonged techno-brain burnout can even reshape the underlying brain structure. Techno-brain

This, the techno-optimists assert, is the real story of technological change and economic development. Technology improves human productivity and lowers the price of goods and services. Those lower prices mean consumers have greater spending power, and they either buy more of the original goods or spend that money on something else. Both of these outcomes increase the demand for labor and thus jobs. Yes, shifts in technology might lead to some short-term displacement. But just as millions of farmers became factory workers, those laid-off factory workers can become yoga teachers and software programmers. Over the long term, technological progress never truly leads to an actual reduction in jobs or rise in unemployment.