Quotes

Some quotes bout computers, data, information, etc.

“Through the computer, the heralds say, we will make education better, religion better, politics better, our minds better — best of all, ourselves better. This is, of course, nonsense, and only the young or the ignorant or the foolish could believe it.”

Neil Postman (1931-2003)

Nothing could be more misleading than the idea that computer technology introduced the age of information. The printing press began that age, and we have not been free of it since.

Neil Postman (1931-2003)

"We aren't in an information age, we are in an entertainment age."

Tony Robbins

"Welcome to the information age. Data, data, everywhere, but no one knows a thing."

Roger Kimball

"It's very difficult to get to the truth and ironically, in the Information Age, which we would have thought meant channels to the truth is in fact obfuscating the truth."

David Irving

“A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequila.”

Mitch Ratcliffe

“In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show.”

Timothy Leary (1920-1996)

“Data is the pollution problem of the information age, and protecting privacy is the environmental challenge.”

Bruce Schneier

“We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.”

Robert Wilensky

"A frying-pan is technology. All human artifacts are technology. But beware anybody who uses this term. Like "maturity" and "reality" and "progress", the word "technology" has an agenda for your behavior: usually what is being referred to as "technology" is something that somebody wants you to submit to. "Technology" often implicitly refers to something you are expected to turn over to "the guys who understand it"."

​—Ted Nelson​

""Information", referred to as a commodity, is a myth. Information always comes in packages (media bundles, called "documents" (and sometimes "titles")), and every such package has a point of view. Even a database has a point of view."

​—Ted Nelson​

"The good news is: Anything is possible on your computer. The bad news is: Nothing is easy. "

Ted Nelson

“The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008)