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Complicated is only bad to the kind of people who need things to be simple.”
As a child of the twenty-first century, she vacillated between hope that so-called climate therapies could undo the damage done by her ancestors and cynicism that it was anything other than a Band-Aid at this point.
“That’s not the impression you give in your speeches.” “Well, since when have nuanced arguments ever worked in America?”
Humans are very good at inventing solutions and very, very bad at anticipating consequences.”
“In this country, power doesn’t derive from defeating a threat; true power comes from the fear of the threat. And maintaining power requires a continuing threat.
“Well, first of all, nature has no intentions. Nature is simply a personification of a complex system that ancient peoples were overawed by. And secondly, there is no such thing as unnatural.”
“The anthill doesn’t exist without the ant. But if a human builds a house, according to you, that is unnatural? It’s nothing more than a semantic contrivance to make us feel special.
Human beings have exactly one thing going for us—our minds. We’re neither the fastest nor the strongest. Adapting the environment to our needs is what’s natural for us.
Most of life is lived to be forgotten. That was the way of things, cruel though it felt when it was your life that would be lost.
Was immortality really an advance, and if so, toward what?
