“…it’s essentially impossible to become successful or well off doing a job that is described and measured by someone else.”
— Seth Godin on the Curse of the Cog.
Category Archives: Quotable & Notes
Ferris Bueller: “You’re not dying”
As Ferris Bueller so bluntly put it, “You’re not dying, you just can’t think of anything good to do.”
Three Days of the Condor – Final Scene
I think the best answer can be found at the end of Sydney Pollack’s 1975 spy flick, Three Days of the Condor. Robert Redford’s character (Joe Turner) is talking to CIA agent Higgins (played by Cliff Robertson) about the no-longer-secret plan to invade the Middle East for oil.
Higgins: The fact is, it wasn’t a bad plan. It could’ve worked.
Turner: Jesus — What is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same as telling the truth.
Higgins: It’s simple economics, Turner… There’s no argument. Oil now, 10 or 15 years it’ll be food, or plutonium. Maybe sooner than that. What do you think the people will want us to do then?
Turner: Ask them!
Higgins: Now? (shakes head) Huh-uh. Ask them when they’re running out. When it’s cold at home and the engines stop and people who aren’t used to hunger… go hungry! They won’t want us to ask… (quiet savagery:) They’ll want us to GET it for them.
A more balanced, decentralized lifestyle
“The Internet will reestablish a more balanced, decentralized lifestyle. In the physical world, you win by being big, with economies of scale in manufacturing, worldwide distribution, and branding. In the virtual world, you win by being good: Automation reduces the benefits of scale, the Internet equalizes distribution, and reputation follows from quality rather than incessantly repeated slogans. The switch from centralization to decentralization goes to the heart of the human experience. And because the switch will drive up quality, it will tend to be a force for good.” [Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, November 22, 2004]
I no longer believe in politicians, large institutions, and organized religion…just to name a few. One thing (?) in which I believe strongly is the Internet and it’s potential for improving (saving?) mankind. I can’t make an intelligent case for that belief but Jakob Nielsen makes a good running start at it.
William Gibson quoting Martin Luther King
“I call on every man and woman of good will all over America today …to take a stand on this issue. Tomorrow may be too late. The book may close. Don’t let anyone make you think that God chose America as his divine messianic force, to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America ‘You are too arrogant! If you don’t change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power! And I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn’t even know my name. Be still and know that I am God.'”
— Martin Luther King, 4 April 1967 (one year before his assassination)