Michael Harris Quotes

When we go online, we commit ourselves to the care of online mechanisms. Digital Band-Aids for digital wounds. We feed ourselves into machines, hoping some algorithm will digest the mess that is our experience into something legible, something more meaningful than the "bag of associations" we fear we are.

Never forget that you live in an ecosystem designed to disrupt you and it will take you for a ride if you let it.

The more you can learn and the more knowledge you can retain, the more effective you'll become at what it is you choose to do.

To be truly stylish (as opposed to merely "in style", which is the opposite) is to be unabashedly one's self, without reference to the fashions and demands of a sweltering crowd.

Perhaps we now need to engineer scarcity in our communications, in our interactions, and in the things we consume. Otherwise our lives become like a Morse code transmission that's lacking breaks - a swarm of noise blanketing the valuable data beneath.

Human memory was never meant to call up all things, after all, but rather to explore the richness of exclusion, of absence. It creates a meaningful, contextualized, curated assemblage particular to the brain's singular experience and habits. Valuable memories, like great music, are as much about the things that drop away - the rests - as they are about what stays and sounds.

As we embrace a technology's gifts, we usually fail to consider what they ask from us in return - the subtle, hardly noticeable payments we make in exchange for their marvelous service. We don't notice, for example, that the gaps in our schedules have disappeared because we're too busy delighting in the amusements that fill them. We forget the games that childhood boredom forged because boredom itself has been outlawed. Why would we bother to register the end of solitude, of ignorance, of lack? Why would we care that an absence has disappeared?

We are now becoming, by Blackmore's estimation, teme machines - servants to the evolution of our own technologies.

Until that moment, Canada had been a secular and progressive nation that believed in transfer payments to better distribute the country's wealth, the Westminster model of governance, a national medicare program, a peacekeeping role for the armed forces, an arm's-length public service, the separation of church and state, and solid support for the United Nations. Stephen Harper believed in none of these things.

When we think we're multitasking we're actually multiswitching. That is what the brain is very good at doing - quickly diverting its attention from one place to the next. We think we're being productive. We are, indeed, being busy. But in reality we're simply giving ourselves extra work.

we have in this brief historical moment, this moment in between two modes of being, a very rare opportunity. For those of us who have lived both with and without the vast, crowded connectivity the Internet provides, these are the few days when we can still notice the difference between Before and After.

we aren't lonely because we are alone; we are lonely because we have failed in our solitude.

Here's how a filter bubble works: Since 2009, Google has been anticipating the search results that you'd personally find most interesting and has been promoting those results each time you search, exposing you to a narrower and narrower vision of the universe. In 2013, Google announced that Google Maps would do the same, making it easier to find things Google thinks you'd like and harder to find things you haven't encountered before. Facebook follows suit, presenting a curated view of your "friends'" activities in your feed. Eventually, the information you're dealing with absolutely feels more personalized; it confirms your beliefs, your biases, your experiences. And it does this to the detriment of your personal evolution. Personalization - the glorification of your own taste, your own opinion - can be deadly to real learning. Only

Experiment. Live a little. And remember that the fear of absence is the surest sign that absence is direly needed.

if salespeople want to sell value and differentiate their product, they have to deliver insight that will reframe the buying vision so buyers end up with the solution that helps them overcome their challenges and achieve their goals.

It's hard to remember what we loved about absence; we never ask for our deprivation back.

The word"boundaries" often relates directly to the word fear. In other words, we often limit ourselves from going beyond the"norm" because we think of it as being"risky" or because we're afraid of failure. It's easy to settle for average or normal. That's why the majority of us do!

Men at the Proving Ground were giving their lives for their country. Without knowing they were doing it. The

Our generation seems to be facing a crisis of critique. We want to know what's best, we want to know where to eat and what movie to see, but we've begun to forget that real opinion, real critique, must always come out of an absence of voices - from a singular subjective viewpoint. You

But nothing could stand before our lads, they routed them from the Meadow, & all afterwards was a mere Chace, so far I saw."1 - James Parker, September 11, 1777

Despite the universality of this change, which we're all buffeted by, there is a single, seemingly small change that I'll be most sorry about. It will sound meaningless, but: One doesn't see teenagers staring into space anymore. Gone is the idle mind of the adolescent.

If solitude feels painful, it's only because we don't know how to be alone.

If you believe that some opinions are in fact better than others, then you, too, are an elitist of sorts.

Every technology will alienate you from some part of your life. That is its job. Your job is to notice. First notice the difference. And then, every time, choose.

I propose going up the Delaware, In order to be nearer this place than I should be by taking The course of the Chesapeake which I once intended."1 - William Howe, July 16, 1777