You don't get to cut that chain of evidence and start over. You're always going to be pursued by your data shadow, which is forming from thousands and thousands of little leaks and tributaries of information.
Bruce SterlingRead
Anything that can be done to a rat can be done to a human being. And we can do most anything to rats. This is a hard thing to think about, but it's the truth. It won't go away because we cover our eyes. THAT is cyberpunk.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the ethical implications of technology and how human beings can harm both animals and themselves through technological advances.
Bruce Sterling's quote highlights the disturbing truth about the parallel between the treatment of rats in experiments and the potential for humans to endure similar fates. It provokes deep ethical considerations regarding human and animal rights in the face of technological progress, suggesting that just because we choose to ignore these uncomfortable truths does not mean they will disappear. The term 'cyberpunk' captures the dystopian elements of this reality, where technological advancements can often lead to dehumanization.
Themes
TechnologyEthicsCyberpunkHumanityAnimalsDehumanization
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate on ethical standards in technology, this quote could emphasize the consequences of neglecting moral responsibilities.
More from Bruce Sterling
All quotes →If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, science fiction writers are its court jesters. We are Wise Fools who can leap, caper, utter prophecies, and scratch ourselves in public. We can play with Big Ideas because the garish motley of our pulp origins make us seem harmless.
Bruce SterlingRead
When you can’t imagine how things are going to change, that doesn’t mean that nothing will change. It means that things will change in ways that are unimaginable.
Bruce SterlingRead
Similar quotes
I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, I can't do anything to change events anyway.
Anne FrankRead
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business...There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
Paddy ChayefskyRead
If every event which occurred could be given a name, there would be no need for stories.
John BergerRead
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Thomas MertonRead
Now it is nothing but torture.
Sigmund FreudRead
It is no coincidence that a rebirth of psychedelic use is occuring as we acquire the technological capability to leave the planet. The mushroom visions and the transformation of the human image precipitated by space exploration are spun together. Nothing less is happening than the emergence of a new human order. A telepathic, humane, universalist kind of human culture is emerging that will make everything that preceded it appear like the stone age.
Terence MckennaRead