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extirpator species
one hundred billion neurons in an average human brain.
a primordial, measurable manifestation of a singularity—a collective mind that comes into being whenever information processing achieves critical mass?
humans are social creatures. That we coevolve with other species as part of a fabric of interwoven and interdependent life-forms. The world isn’t entirely about competition and dominance. And species that cooperate with others succeed better than those who do not. That’s what civilization is, cooperation.”
a criminal element—people who will do anything to gain and keep power.
By some cosmic joke, nearly the entire scope of human experience was at odds with the biological world.
This was the root of most conflict in the world—people asserting their will to survive, to flourish, and to procreate. Evil had nothing to do with it.
‘pattern of life’ analysis. Compiling a fingerprint, a signature of a city’s normal routine.
a system like EITS was not intended to resolve conflicts. It was intended merely to manage them. To keep violence disorganized, channeled, and isolated long enough to permit uninterrupted resource extraction. Once that was finished, the locals would be left to their own devices again.
‘status for cover’—meaning a reason to be someplace.
“There are people who work for the people who run the world. He’s one of them.
barring some unforeseen advance in human affairs, the implied threat of violence is the only thing holding civilization together.”
behind every law is the implicit threat of force, and behind every vote is the implicit threat of rebellion. That’s the bargain that holds a free society together. And no society with a wide power imbalance remains free for very long.”
The pretty female being lectured to by the man.
there are fifteen chemicals that indicate human presence by the breath we exhale—things like acetone, pentane, hexane, isoprene, benzene, heptane, alpha-Pinene.
what a positive reflection she was on him, and he thought of places where he should be seen with her.
Mammals aren’t predisposed to murdering their own species; they engage in a primordial fight-flight-posturing-or-submission process that naturally inhibits killing.
“The Web is a lot like the pheromonal matrix of an ant colony; popular messages get reinforced, less popular messages fade away. That creates a data trail that others can follow. That got me thinking about all this data being gathered on everyone—purchase records, calling patterns, social media, and e-mails, everything. What if the systems that these private security firms built to analyze that data—to keep us safe—actually did the opposite? What if whoever’s doing this is using that data to select targets?”
maquiladora
“Dài qù . de kàn huòguì
lachrimatory agents
gases that cause tears; tear gas
