Richard Eriksson

“How easy it was to mistake clear reasoning for correct reasoning!”
― Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah

“In the end, how do you reason with someone whose beliefs outweigh their common sense? What do you do with a person whose principles are so immovable that it leaves them incapable of caring about anyone else? You do what you have to do, of course.”
― Kevin Nguyen, Mỹ Documents

“In the shooter hypothesis, a good marksman shoots at a target, creating a hole every ten centimeters. Now suppose the surface of the target is inhabited by intelligent, two-dimensional creatures. Their scientists, after observing the universe, discover a great law: “There exists a hole in the universe every ten centimeters.” They have mistaken the result of the marksman’s momentary whim for an unalterable law of the universe. The farmer hypothesis, on the other hand, has the flavor of a horror story: Every morning on a turkey farm, the farmer comes to feed the turkeys. A scientist turkey, having observed this pattern to hold without change for almost a year, makes the following discovery: “Every morning at eleven, food arrives.” On the morning of Thanksgiving, the scientist announces this law to the other turkeys. But that morning at eleven, food doesn’t arrive; instead, the farmer comes and kills the entire flock.”
― Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem

“Illogical behavior to fill an emptiness would not fulfill much more. How much do you trade to defeat lonesomeness?”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing