Kim Stanley Robinson

I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal.
I died as animal and I was human.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die human,
To soar with angels blessed above.
And when I sacrifice my angel soul
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.’

“Whether it be of this world or of that,
Your love will lead us yonder at the last.”

And then she was tired of talk again, tired of its uselessness. It had never been any more than it was now: whispers against the great roar of the world, half-heard and less understood.

this would be succumbing to monocausotaxophilia, the love of single ideas that explain everything, one of humanity’s most common cognitive errors

The three richest people in the world possess more financial assets than all the people in the forty-eight poorest countries added togethe

had become a glaciologist to indulge his introverted personality while still holding down a job

“We are the Ministry for the Future,” Estevan insisted to her, “not the ministry to solve all possible problems that can be solved now. We have to pick our battles or else it becomes just an everything.”

I think the principle was set at Nuremberg— you’re wrong to obey orders that are wrong.”

Security costs for the conference are shared by the organizers and the Swiss canton of Graubünden, plus the Swiss federal government. Some in Switzerland criticized the cost of this, but then again, if the annual meeting of the rulers of the world wants to be in Switzerland, this probably helps Switzerland hold on to its weird position as one of the wealthiest countries on Earth despite having nothing at all to base that on. Maybe the beauty of the Alps and the brains of its people, but I’m dubious about both. Call me Doubtful in Davos.

I am a secret so everyone can know me. First you must count every part of me, then translate those parts into signs that do not describe me. Together we are shackled, and with the sign that does not describe me you can open me up and read me as I am. People will give you their promises for me, and if wrongdoers try to take me away from you, you can find me and tell the world where I am hidden. I began as a silent speaking, a key to open every door; now that I have opened all the front doors, I am the key that locks the back doors by which wrongdoers try to escape the scene of the crime. I am the nothing that makes everything happen. You don’t know me, you don’t understand me; and yet still, if you want justice, I will help you to find it. I am blockchain. I am encryption. I am code. Now put me to use.