Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them.

To launch a taboo, a group has to be poised halfway between weakness and power.

Most adults, likewise, deliberately give kids a misleading view of the world.

Look for prigs, and see what’s inside their heads.

you’re liable to get both your grammar and your ideas corrected in the same conversation.

think many interesting heretical thoughts are already mostly formed in our minds. If we turn off our self-censorship temporarily, those will be the first to emerge.

The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true.

If everything you believe is something you’re supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn’t. Odds are you just think whatever you’re told.

Is our time any different? To anyone who has read any amount of history, the answer is almost certainly no. It would be a remarkable coincidence if ours were the first era to get everything just right.