Seeker Quotes

“In the West, the phone had become a drug even more addictive than opioids. In a culture becoming ever more secular, the phone had become a god.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“In 1996, Eastman Kodak was a hundred-year-old powerhouse with one hundred forty thousand employees and a valuation of twenty-eight billion dollars. Yet a mere sixteen years later, the company was filing for bankruptcy, a T. Rex dinosaur that had failed to fathom the disruptive power and game-changing impact of the digital photography revolution.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, by Matt Ridley The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker, Harvard Professor and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Abundance: The Future is Better Than you Think, by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“You have greater access to sanitation and clean water than ever before. To privacy, leisure, and artificial light. To transportation, communication, and computation. The list goes on and on.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“On what principle is it, that when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?”  —Thomas Babington Macaulay, Review of Southey’s Colloquies on Society”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“the longest one percent of these fifteen thousand tributaries, alone, wind through more than sixty thousand miles of jungle. All in all, the Amazon River system contains more than twenty percent of the Earth’s fresh water, and the jungle generates more than twenty percent of the world’s oxygen. The Amazon River itself is many miles wide in some places, and over a hundred miles wide where it meets the ocean, gushing fifty-five million gallons of water into the Atlantic each second.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“if we really are at our best, why do so many of us think otherwise?” “Because war, terrorism, violence, mass shootings, and so on are all around you,” replied Seeker. “They seem worse than ever now because you have twenty-four-hour news channels, which bring you constant examples of violence and barbarism from the most remote corners of the globe. These outlets, with the aid of social media, spread and amplify the bad news much more effectively than the good. Plus, few of you are able to put the current age into historical perspective.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“He knew it wasn’t sentient, but there was no doubt it could fake this well enough to pass a Turing test. Not that this had been considered adequate evidence of consciousness for some time now. Ironically, if an AI were truly sentient, as Ian MacDonald had once pointed out, it would be smart enough to know that it should fail such tests of sentience—on purpose.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“It’s gotten so bad that for several years now, we’ve been keeping our most important secrets in paper notebooks, never letting them touch anything electronic.” “Wow,” mumbled Stephanie Annise, unable to help herself, “that’s like the Dark Ages.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“Isaac Asimov, wrote a story about an eternal being, call it God, who creates an eternal afterlife for the best minds in the universe. As much as the owners of these minds might want to end the tedium of eternal existence, perhaps after a few billion long years have passed, God won’t let them. Eventually, they decide that the only way they can die in peace is to kill God first, which they set out to try to do. The twist is that this is the very reason God selected them, and is keeping them alive, in the first place. So they can find a way to, mercifully, end its existence—which is the only thing God is unable to do.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“In fact, erythropoietin, a hormone that stimulated red blood cell production, and thus increased oxygen-carrying capacity, was well known for its ability to confer dramatic increases in endurance. This hormone had long been used as a doping drug by athletes, most notably Lance Armstrong, but was only a tiny fraction as effective as Ella’s respirocytes.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“Cultures and national belief systems that maintain their integrity can add to diversity. I’m a strong believer in melting pot societies, but enclaves of distinctiveness are important too. As long as every nation, and every diverse group within every nation, is accepting of others.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“I’m sure you remember how we survived the alien invasion in H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds,” she continued. “Our bacteria got them. Given my job, the final passage of this novel is my all-time favorite. Wells wrote that the moment the invaders landed, and I quote, ‘our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. It was inevitable.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“To appreciate the nature and significance of the coming ‘singularity,’ it is important to ponder the nature of exponential growth. Toward this end, I am fond of telling the tale of the inventor of chess and his patron, the emperor of China. In response to the emperor’s offer of a reward for his new beloved game, the inventor asked for a single grain of rice on the first square, two on the second square, four on the third, and so on. The emperor quickly granted this seemingly benign and humble request. “One version of the story has the emperor going bankrupt as the sixty-three doublings ultimately totaled eighteen million trillion grains of rice, which would require rice fields covering twice the surface area of the Earth, oceans included. “Another version of the story has the inventor losing his head.” ​—Ray Kurzweil, The Law of Accelerating Returns”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“Because hope and optimism doesn’t sell nearly as well as pessimism and despair. Your news outlets earn clicks and viewership by sowing alarmism and division. Your social media plays to addictions and creates unprecedented social pressures. You’re wired by evolution to find bad news more motivational than good. To seek it out. “If your ancestors heard the rustle of a friendly breeze far away in the tall grass, and ran away, mistaking the breeze for a lion, this cost them very little. But if they heard the rustle of a lion in the tall grass, and mistook it for a friendly breeze, this would cost them their lives. Seeing potential bad news behind every harmless breeze is a survival instinct.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“That is right. Some of your human religious philosophers have conjectured that the need for external stimulation is the very reason God created the universe, and humanity, in the first place. To have a purpose. To combat loneliness. To ensure there is something that exists outside of itself.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“In 1996, Eastman Kodak was a hundred-year-old powerhouse with one hundred forty thousand employees and a valuation of twenty-eight billion dollars. Yet a mere sixteen years later, the company was filing for bankruptcy, a T. Rex dinosaur that had failed to fathom the disruptive power and game-changing impact of the digital photography revolution.   In”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“If your ancestors heard the rustle of a friendly breeze far away in the tall grass, and ran away, mistaking the breeze for a lion, this cost them very little. But if they heard the rustle of a lion in the tall grass, and mistook it for a friendly breeze, this would cost them their lives. Seeing potential bad news behind every harmless breeze is a survival instinct.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“Humanity was fiercely tribal. And young men, in particular, were wired to seek out adventure, glory, and esteem. ISIS was cool. ISIS was a brotherhood fighting together for a glorious cause. Killing together, raping unbelievers together. What could cement fraternal bonds more completely than this? And in addition to offering adventure, glory, and camaraderie, ISIS offered something even more important: purpose.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“So why do so many of us feel such despair about the direction we’re heading?” asked Ella. “Because hope and optimism doesn’t sell nearly as well as pessimism and despair. Your news outlets earn clicks and viewership by sowing alarmism and division. Your social media plays to addictions and creates unprecedented social pressures. You’re wired by evolution to find bad news more motivational than good. To seek it out. “If your ancestors heard the rustle of a friendly breeze far away in the tall grass, and ran away, mistaking the breeze for a lion, this cost them very little. But if they heard the rustle of a lion in the tall grass, and mistook it for a friendly breeze, this would cost them their lives. Seeing potential bad news behind every harmless breeze is a survival instinct. “There are many other psychological and evolutionary reasons to account for the state of your discontent in the face of prosperity, but I’ll stop there.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“The lesson of evolution is that struggle and competition are the only sculptors that can ensure a species reaches its highest potential. Only a struggle for the ultimate stakes can bring out the best on all sides, as each side is forced to adapt and improve in response to the other, in a constant escalation of potential.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“Where is the contrast?” it continued. “If nothing exists outside of yourself, if you inhabit the entire universe, if you are all there is—in all of time and space—then what do you have to compare yourself to? If you’re the only being in existence, you’re the strongest being there is, but also the weakest. The biggest, and also the smallest. Without contrast, nothing has scale. You’re everything, but also nothing. Worse still, you’re destined to go through infinity and eternity with no external stimulation of any kind.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“think of violence in relative terms. “The An Lushan Revolt in China in the eighth century killed thirty-six million people,” continued Seeker. “Greater than ten percent of the world’s population at the time. This would equate to almost a billion deaths today. The Mongol conquests of China in the thirteenth century killed over half a billion by today’s standards. The Fall of Rome, hundreds of millions. “Going back even further, on a per capita basis, early tribal warfare was nine times as deadly as the wars and genocide of the twentieth century. The murder rate in medieval Europe was more than thirty times what it is today. Wars between modern, westernized countries have all but vanished, and even in the developing world, these wars kill only a fraction of what they did before. Rape, battery, and child abuse are all markedly lower than in earlier times.” Seeker paused. “I could go on, but I think you get the point.” “I’ll be damned,” said Ella in wonder. “This sort of analysis never occurred to me.” “Me either,” said Kagan. “You make a surprisingly compelling case.” “I didn’t invent these arguments,” said Seeker. “Others of your species did. But based on my own reading and analysis, I find them valid. And humanity isn’t just better off in terms of the reduction in violence, but in nearly every other measurable way. Far better off. “Ironically,” continued the AI, “once again, most of you believe the opposite.  In an international poll, ninety percent of respondents said that worldwide poverty has gotten worse in the past thirty years, when, in fact, it has fallen by more than half. Not that your”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“In 1830, America’s farmers comprised seventy-one percent of the workforce. Yet, in modern times, this number had plummeted to less than two percent. Improved automation of farms had impacted a greater percentage of the workforce than autonomous vehicles ever could. Even so, society had readily absorbed the loss of these farming jobs, which had morphed into opportunities in other sectors.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“Seeker paused. “One of your authors, Isaac Asimov, wrote a story about an eternal being, call it God, who creates an eternal afterlife for the best minds in the universe. As much as the owners of these minds might want to end the tedium of eternal existence, perhaps after a few billion long years have passed, God won’t let them. Eventually, they decide that the only way they can die in peace is to kill God first, which they set out to try to do. The twist is that this is the very reason God selected them, and is keeping them alive, in the first place. So they can find a way to, mercifully, end its existence—which is the only thing God is unable to do.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“If nothing exists outside of yourself, if you inhabit the entire universe, if you are all there is—in all of time and space—then what do you have to compare yourself to? If you’re the only being in existence, you’re the strongest being there is, but also the weakest. The biggest, and also the smallest. Without contrast, nothing has scale. You’re everything, but also nothing. Worse still, you’re destined to go through infinity and eternity with no external stimulation of any kind.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“The Androms proved to be too much of a pushover. The battle with them was too short, and too unfulfilling. A hard-won victory is the most satisfying kind. So the ASI is seeking an eternal war between it—a computer-based superintelligence—and a bio-based one.  An epic struggle between a computer god, and the god-like species that humanity can become. Such a war will engage both. Give both purpose. Such a war will make existence interesting and challenging. And will prove to be critical for the well-being and continued growth of both.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“So Ella was attractive, brilliant, witty . . . and a Star Trek geek? Wow, he thought. She might just be the perfect woman. He made a mental note to marry her if they ever survived.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“Headrick smiled. “Not at all,” he replied in amusement. “Our people have learned how to use their quills at night, by torchlight, so we’re okay.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker

“thinned out. I will reduce your numbers from more than eight billion, to five or six million. Five or six million of you who will be modeled after the winning team in every way possible, representing their country, culture, philosophy, level of ruthlessness, and so on.”
― Douglas E. Richards, Seeker