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This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.
Douglas Adams
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote highlights the pervasive unhappiness experienced by most people on Earth.

Douglas Adams reflects on the inherent dissatisfaction present in human existence, suggesting that a significant portion of humanity struggles with unhappiness. This statement challenges readers to consider the sources of such discontent and the potential for change in our collective emotional states.

Themes

UnhappinessPeopleEarthProblemExistence

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about mental health, someone might quote this to illustrate widespread unhappiness.

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Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.
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"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "Ask a glass of water."
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Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen. [...] Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer.
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Computers are still technology because we are still wrestling with it: it's still being invented; we're still trying to work out how it works. There's a world of game interaction to come that you or I wouldn't recognise. It's time for the machines to disappear. The computer's got to disappear into all of the things we use.
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What the computer in virtual reality enables us to do is to recalibrate ourselves so that we can start seeing those pieces of information that are invisible to us but have become important for us to understand.
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We are stuck with technology when all we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual.
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