The technologies that raise the fewest ethical problems are those that work on a human scale, brightening the lives of individual people.

Vegetation is really controlling what happens...whereas the emphasis in the climate models has always been on the atmosphere.

Every orchid or rose or lizard or snake is the work of a dedicated and skilled breeder. There are thousands of people, amateurs and professionals, who devote their lives to this business. Now imagine what will happen when the tools of genetic engineering become accessible to these people.

Mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of our universe in a way that altogether surpasses our understanding.

Intelligence may indeed be a benign influence creating isolated groups of philosopher-kings far apart in the heavens... On the other hand, intelligence may be a cancer of purposeless technological exploitation, sweeping across a galaxy as irresistibly as it has swept across our own planet.

The thing that makes me most optimistic is China and India - both of them doing well.

It's us that's really amazing. As far as I can see, our concentration of different abilities in one species - there's nothing I can see that in this Darwinian evolution that could've done that. So it seems to be a miracle of some sort.