Everyone who builds a factory builds a temple.

Calvin Coolidge, in Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

Watching [The Social Network], even though you know Sorkin wants your disapproval, you can’t help feel a little swell of pride in this 2.0 generation. They’ve spent a decade being berated for not making the right sorts of paintings or novels or music or politics. Turns out the brightest 2.0 kids have been doing something else extraordinary. They’ve been making a world.

Zadie Smith, “Generation Why?”

It is impossible to work with information technology without also engaging in social engieering.

[…]

We [technologists] tinker with your philosophy by direct manipulation of your cognitive experience, not indirectly, through argument.

Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto