John Twelve Hawks Quotes

49 Sourced Quotes

One of the pleasures of writing novels is that my characters usually do something. But in real life we often stay locked in a situation that we know is painful or wrong.

John Twelve Hawks
Modern authority is based on a system of lies that are accepted by the general population. If you pull away the curtain and show the reality of power, people are motivated to question the fictions that govern their own lives.

John Twelve Hawks
The Turing Test tried to make a distinction between humans and machines. But these days Shadow programs like Edward and Laura can be programmed to say "I love you" or imitate other emotions. If a machine wanted to act like a human, then it had to deny the truth. Lying, not love, is the fundamental indication of humanity.

John Twelve Hawks
The laws of mathematics are stronger than the laws of man.

John Twelve Hawks
Human beings are tool-making animals. Since the prehistoric era, we have created and used a wide variety of objects. But now a significant change is about to occur. In the near future, we will simply become another object that can be monitored, tracked and controlled within a vast machine.

John Twelve Hawks
Gradually, I realized that the surveillance cameras plus the email and cell phone monitoring was creating a Virtual Panopticon – a digital prison created and maintained by computer networks that enclosed all of us within its invisible walls.

John Twelve Hawks
What happens in our future can change the meaning of what has happened in our past.

John Twelve Hawks
When a person speculates about my identity, it reveals something about their own background and preferences. If the canvas is blank; the only thing people can see on its surface is themselves.

John Twelve Hawks
You don't need to watch everyone if everyone believes they're being watched.

John Twelve Hawks
One cliché endlessly offered up by the people supporting government surveillance is that there needs to be a trade-off between security and privacy. But this is a trade that goes only one way. It's clear that we've lost control over what personal information is public and what we prefer to keep private. The new reality is that they see us, but we can't see them.

John Twelve Hawks
No machine can daydream. When they're not switched on, they're as cold as a toaster in a midnight kitchen.

John Twelve Hawks
These days, I live on the grid – primarily because of medical issues. But I think that it would be hypocritical for a writer to condemn our surveillance culture and then appear on the Charlie Rose show to blather about personal details. Focusing on a writer's life undermines the power of that writer's ideas.

John Twelve Hawks
Believing that the government knows what's best is an argument that barely merits a serious discussion. Any high school history student can come up with hundreds of examples of when a king, dictator, or elected official followed a destructive, foolish policy. Democracy doesn't protect our leaders from having a limited, parochial vision. A politician's true priority is career self-preservation.

John Twelve Hawks
Children defer to adults because they're older, bigger and stronger. But it's also because children believe that adults have reasons for what they do. There was nothing magical about the Pied Piper of Hamelin's flute. The Piper acted like he knew where he was going and the children followed him into the dark mountains where they were never seen again.

John Twelve Hawks
The first icon of the 21st Century is the closed-circuit surveillance camera, slowly panning back and forth as we move beneath its gaze.

John Twelve Hawks
Most conscious thought is simply an attempt to claim 'authorship' for a choice that has already been made. Our thoughts are just an ongoing attempt to explain what we've already decided.

John Twelve Hawks
Sometimes the best way to find the truth is to create a fiction.

John Twelve Hawks
Bland is the truest expression of an advanced civilization. It took a great deal of money to create this pocket of cool, calm bland among the rickshaw men and the beggar children tapping on the car windows.

John Twelve Hawks
True ideology has vanished, replaced by fear and fantasy. The right wing wants corporate control and a return to a past that never existed. The left wing wants government control and a future that will never exist. Both groups lose sight of the essential questions: how can the individual speak and think and create freely? New ideas are the only evolutionary force that will save us from destruction.

John Twelve Hawks