You think you can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. . . . . We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.

To apply general tools to specific problems is to fail.

We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas.

Friendships are nice. So is competence.

Let's be clear: all professions look bad in the movies. And there's a good reason for this. Movies don't portray career paths, they conscript interesting lifestyles to serve a plot. So lawyers are all unscrupulous and doctors are all uncaring. Psychiatrists are all crazy, and politicians are all corrupt. All cops are psychopaths, and all businessmen are crooks. Even moviemakers come off badly: directors are megalomaniacs, actors are spoiled brats. Since all occupations are portrayed negatively, why expect scientists to be treated differently?

The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

The notion that the natural world obeys its own rules and doesn't give a damn about your expectations comes as a massive shock. But the natural world is not so malleable. On the contrary, it will demand that you adapt to it - and if you don't, you die.