You are the main character…But there in the background, faint and out of focus, are the extras. The random passersby. Each living a life as vivid and complex as your own. They carry on invisibly around you, bearing the accumulated weight of their own ambitions, friends, routines, mistakes, worries, triumphs, and inherited craziness. – John Koenig from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. – John Perry Barlow from A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
It’s a shame it didn’t ultimately work out that way.
Social media’s really great if you’re tired of sane conversations and you’re feeling too good about yourself. – Chris Hardwick
One of the biggest takeaways that I’ve had over the last seven years in the gen AI space is that urgency is creating toxicity. – Allie K. Miller
“I’ve got people in my family that are to the right of Attila the Hun. And when people tell me, like, ‘How can you platform that person on your show?’ I go, ‘I platform my uncle every fucking Thanksgiving.’ And by the way, I love him. He’s a three-dimensional human being who has qualities that I really admire — things about him. And we’ve lost that. We’ve lost the ability to love people because we litmus test at every point, in every single moment.” – Jon Stewart
Why do you continue to assume that your duty as a citizen is to watch and read about horrible stuff constantly? – Ryan Holiday
Why should we feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice! – Marcus Aurelius
People only mention it’s a free country if they’re doing something shitty. – Demetri Martin
A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn’t. – Mark Twain
I am now officially nostalgic not for some fabled era of good government — which probably never existed — but for an era when I didn’t have to think about government much at all. Sober people with solid haircuts and slightly above room-temperature IQs just sort of governed and shut up about it. – Matt Labash
