Autopilot Quotes

“What neuroscience has revealed is that there is no such control center in the brain. There are hubs in our brain networks whose activity is more influential than others; however, there is no one single hub that dictates action. Our brains are much more like an ant colony: billions of neurons collaborating to give rise to our selves without any external or internal agent. In other words you are an emergent self-organizing phenomenon.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“According to legend, it was while lazing in bed and staring at a fly on the ceiling that Descartes, habitually a late riser, conceived of the “X” and “Y” axes that comprise the coordinate grid, now the bane of so many grade-schoolers who lose sleep studying its properties. The greatest breakthroughs in science and”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“Economic growth disproportionately benefits the people who do not need to work”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“I wish to make a radical suggestion: because our social system is predicated on the majority of people believing in the fundamental necessity of work, a sharp increase in idleness, absenteeism, laziness, and non-industriousness might be the most effective way to bring about positive social and political change.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“To the ancient Greeks, anyone who had to work to make a living was considered a slave. In modern society almost everyone has to work to make a living because we all owe someone money, or expect a bill to come due in the near future.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“The only system we know of in the universe that can be innovative is the human brain. But the brain seems to need things like freedom, long periods of idleness, positive emotions, low stress, randomness, noise, and a group of friends with tea in the garden to be creative.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“Few people fear being overweight as much as they fear terrorism, even though statistically being obese is much more of a threat to your life than terrorism.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“The clearest evidence of this that is an estimated two thousand six hundred deaths and three hundred thirty thousand injuries are caused each year by drivers talking on their cell phones while driving. Multitasking is compulsive behavior that actually leads to a condition very similar to adult ADHD.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“These management fads use concepts and methods that were developed originally within scientific fields, but because they are not used for a scientific end, these torturous methods are misunderstood and misapplied. Science has no goals. Science is a creative act with the same purpose as art: to liberate the human spirit.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“Several large companies such as 3M noticed that when they religiously implemented Six Sigma, innovation slowed to a crawl.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“up to forty percent of prison inmates have ADHD.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“Bertrand Russell defined work as, first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. He goes on to say that the first is unpleasant and ill-paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“All the clocks struck at the same time because the clocks were not being wound.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“to grasp macroeconomics, zealots like Luther saw the new urban poor masses as “indifferent idlers” who should be punished with toil for their original sin of laziness.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing

“Six Sigma can be thought of as an organizational pathogen.”
― Andrew Smart, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing