Barbarians, we call them, while all the while we timidly cling to our Web like Visigoths crouching in the ruins of Rome's faded glory and proclaim ourselves civilized.
Dan SimmonsHistory viewed from the inside is always a dark, digestive mess, far different from the easily recognizable cow viewed from afar by historians.
Dan SimmonsOnce upon a time ... the only autonomous intelligences we humans knew of were us humans. We thought then that if humankind ever devised another intelligence that it would be the result of a huge project ... a great mass of silicon and ancient transistors and chips and circuit boards ... a machine with lots of networking circuits, in other words, aping-if you will pardon the expression-the human brain in form and function. Of course, AIs did not evolve that way. They sort of slipped into existence when we humans were looking the other way.
Dan SimmonsAll violence flows from the same source ... the need for power. Power is the only true morality ... the only deathless god, and the appetite for violence is its only commandment.
Dan Simmons