Humans, Viruses, and Favorite Quotes

At the recommendation of several people, I finally got around to renting The Matrix, a pretty incredible 1999 film. My favorite quote:

I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.

— Agent Smith

Here are some other great quotes I collected this week, mainly from the WarSocialism discussion list:

Moreover, brains are "physical." After about age 25, they are mostly hardwired and it's almost impossible to teach them new world views.

People evolved, and are wired by experience, to execute "behavioral algorithms" in response to "environmental cues." It's almost like reflexes, like a doctor whacking you on your knee. If you change the environmental cues, you change the behavior. That the essence of AMERICA 2.0: same people, same education and values, different environmental cues.

— Jay

And another one. This is a short book that I own. I don't even remember who gave it to me.

You don't communicate with anyone purely on the rational facts or ethics of an issue... It is only when the other party is concerned or feels threatened that he will listen — in the arena of action, a threat or a crisis becomes almost a precondition to communication ... No one can negotiate without the power to compel negotiation ... To attempt to operate on a good-will basis rather than on a power basis would be to attempt something that the world has not yet experienced.

— Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

So True:

The big corporations, our clients, are scared shitless of the environmental movement. They sense that there's a majority out there and that the emotions are all on the other side — if they can be heard. They think the politicians are going to yield to the emotions. I think the corporations are wrong about that. I think the companies will have to give in only at insignificant levels. Because the companies are too strong, they're the establishment. The environmentalists are going to have to be like the mob in the square in Romania before they prevail.

— William Greider, Who Will Tell the People

This is from an article about an ex-cop in Siberia who says that he's the Messiah. Based on this statement, I will follow him:

He says he realised that God has sent him to Earth to teach mankind about the evils of war and the havoc we are wreaking on the environment.

Oh, and the definition of Deep Ecology:

A philosophy that calls for a profound shift in our attitudes and behavior based on voluntary simplicity; rejection of anthropocentric attitudes; intimate contact with nature; decentralization of power; support for cultural and biological diversity; a belief in the sacredness of nature; and direct personal action to protect nature, improve the environment, and bring about fundamental societal change.

And yes, I absolutely love Gaylord Nelson, one of the greatest of all environmentalists:

The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around.

— Gaylord Nelson