Geek Heresy Quotes

“Occasionally, I’ll use the words “wisdom” and “virtue” interchangeably with intrinsic growth, but one reason those words aren’t ideal is that they call to mind either old gray-haired folk or demure young virgins. Intrinsic growth, though, isn’t about age or sex–it’s about improving intention, discernment, and self-control. The point is not to turn individuals into long-bearded gurus, but to nudge everyone toward incrementally greater intrinsic growth. 17”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“What’s more, the world’s richest, freest, happiest people are the ones who are most responsible for these problems. On a per capita basis, Americans consume as much as thirty-five times the natural resources of their developing-country peers. 64 And the world’s financial troubles can be linked to the excesses of Wall Street, where people live like demigods and buy their own justice. It seems that prosperity, justice, dignity, freedom, happiness, and peace do not guarantee themselves–either forever or for everyone. If anything, it’s our success with these desirables that increasingly infringes on our neighbors and on our own future.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“Want to know where free speech is most likely to thrive online? It will be where it thrives offline. Want to know when new technology will actually cut costs? It will be when management is focused on cost control. Want to know how to ensure that your children will learn productively on an iPad? It will be if they have good learning habits independent of the tools at their disposal and adult guardians monitoring proper use.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“Combined, the capacity for intention, discernment, and self-control—or again, heart, mind, and will—might be called virtue, character, maturity, emotional intelligence, sophia, or wisdom. Unfortunately, these terms are all loaded. They're fraught with religious, political, and philosophical dogma that fails to distinguish between pure expedience and moral righteousness. [...] I need vocabulary without baggage.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“{A] certain amount of public criticism may serve the Communist Party's interests. It mollifies citizens who want to blow off steam, and it alerts the central government to issues requiring attention. It's when the criticism spills over into calls for action that the censorship machine—and sometimes also the police—kicks in.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“Surely, Homer thought of his Iliad as much more than 15,693 lines of dactylic hexameter.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“Even the best-designed institutions need a compatible mass culture.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“An aspiration achieved without effort doesn’t build wisdom.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“democracy requires much more than Facebook revolutions and ballot boxes. It demands active citizens, effective bureaucrats, and enlightened leaders.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“It’s good to care for oneself, better to care for family and community, even better to care for country, and best to care for humanity as a whole.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“It’s foolish to neglect metrics where they’re available – but to think that only what’s measurable is meaningful is pure sophistry.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“we as a society fool ourselves into believing that the world’s problems can be solved by enlightened consumerism.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“If you’re interested in contributing to a fair, universal educational system, novel technology isn’t what will do the trick.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“The real danger to a state comes when its citizens no longer complain in the open.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“When technologies go mainstream, it’s because they help scratch itches that people already have, not because they create new itches that people don’t want.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology

“So during a golden age of innovation in the world’s most technologically advanced country, there has been no dent in our rate of poverty.13 All of our amazing digital technologies, widely disseminated, didn’t alleviate our most glaring social ill.”
― Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology