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Quote by John Joclebs Bassey

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Night of a Thousand Thoughts

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John Joclebs Bassey

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“While it may seem a bit antithetical to use quite so many "naughty words" in an etiquette book, I can assure you that I would never use curse words for shock value alone or to prop up a needy joke. We live in a world in which one Real Housewife of New Jersey seriously admonished another to "show some fuckin' class!" Enough said.”

“Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didin't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we didn't have any delinquents. Without a prison, there can't be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white man arrived and I don't know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.”

“Tracker Marks was of a different opinion. Though he seemed more white than a white man, he had no time for their ways. For him his dress, his deportment was no different than staying downwind in the shadows of trees when hunting, blending into the world of those he hunted, rather than standing out from it. Once he had excelled at the emu dance & the kangaroo dance; then his talent led him to the whitefella dance, only now no-one was left of his tribe to stand around the fire & laugh & praise his talent for observation & stealthy imitation. The whites have no law, he told Capois Death, no dreaming. Their way of life made no sense whatsoever. Still, he did not hate them or despise them. They were stupid beyond belief, but they had a power, & somehow their stupidity & their power were, in Tracker Marks’s mind, inextricably connected. But how? he asked Capois Death. How can power & ignorance sleep together? Questions to which Capois Death had no answer.”

“Notice that the story [of technical progress accelerating indefinitely] is not testable; we just have to wait around and see. If the predicted year of true AI's coming is false, too, another one can be forecast, a few decades into the future. AI in this sense is unfalsifiable and thus--according to the accepted rules of the scientific method--unscientific.”