The Ferryman

by Justin Cronin

The mind works wondrously; it is capable of astonishing feats. It is the only machine in nature capable of thinking one thing while knowing its opposite.

“Not everyone would agree that the earth is round, but that doesn’t change the facts. Our planet is a system, we’ve knocked that system out of balance, and the system is correcting itself with increasing speed and violence. This isn’t a matter of ‘if’ but ‘how soon.’ Simply wishing the problem away solves nothing; we’ve done that for almost two centuries. There have been periods, tragically brief in my view, when the idea that we are guests of the planet had political clout. But the prevailing tendency of human society has always been to foul our own nest. Combine this with the consolidation of wealth in the hands of a select few, both individuals and multinational corporate entities, and you have a recipe for inaction. It will spell our doom.”

She’s an absolutely brilliant computer scientist, really pressing the envelope on philosophical questions surrounding artificial intelligence,

“They paid for all this, Proctor. In case that slipped your mind.” “Somebody had to. Why not the people who ruined the planet?”