Words&Dirt

“Intelligence is the handmaiden of flexibility and change. Dumb animals can change only as fast as natural evolution. Human equivalent races, once on their technological run-up, hit the limits of their zone in a matter of a few thousand years. In the Transcend, superhumanity can happen so fast that its creators are destroyed. It wasn’t surprising then that the Powers themselves were evanescent.”

––A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge, loc. 1456

“The disagreements in economics aren’t just about technicalities: they’re usually based on profound divergences in moral analysis. In economics, though, the morality is buried below the surface of what you’re talking about. Morality and ethics are too basic, too fundamental to be given direct expression in economics. The language of money doesn’t express any implied moral perspective. Judgements of what’s right and wrong are left out. This can make the language seem abrasive, even shocking, to people habitually speak a different kind of discourse. Since much of the language of public life has an implied moral and political load, this makes money-speak very distinctive.”

––How to Speak Money: What the Money People Say––And What It Really Means, by John Lanchester, pg. 15-6