The guard rails on a highway may restrict some folks from driving the way they want, but those rules mostly end up saving the lives of those other drivers who understand that living in a society means behaving in a commonly beneficial way. Steven Weber More Quotes by Steven Weber More Quotes From Steven Weber If you have to lie, cheat, steal, obstruct and bully to get your point across, it must not be a point capable of surviving on its own merits. Steven Weber merit bully lying Social media has created a legion of social delinquents, billions of people speaking not their minds but their spleens, venting everything from the gum-cracking snark befitting a hair-twisting mallrat to the froth-flecked rage of a bell tower marksman. Steven Weber media hair people Anyone who thinks they stand apart from society and defies all which govern its existence has less in common with the lone wolf patriot standing up to dystopic forces of oppression - a myth - and more in common with the disease known as cancer - a harsh reality. Steven Weber cancer reality thinking Let me go out on a limb and suggest that those who see hints of a new class ideology developing around information technology are not necessarily wild-eyed. "Bit-twiddlers" are neither exactly proletariat nor bourgeoisie. They may not own the means of production in the sense that Marx argued, but they certainly do have significantly control over those means, in a more profound way than the term "symbols analysts" or "knowledge workers" captures. As a rough generalization, they value science and technological problem-solving elegance equally at least with profit. Steven Weber technology class mean If only Coca-Cola had had the kind of message to accompany its addictive deliciousness that Fox News has, we'd all be speaking Cokelish today. Steven Weber news messages today A product is usually created to improve people's lives; otherwise, why buy it? I'm no genius, but I am an American, and gosh-darnit, I consume, so I know what I'm talking about. Steven Weber genius talking people A culture cannot lie down with dogs and not become utterly infested with fleas. The dogs, in this case, are the mongrel media and the corporate overlords who have grown fat on manufactured controversy and fear mongering. Steven Weber fear-mongering dog lying Everything sells. Like integrity. Like democracy. Like truth. Like deeds. Steven Weber democracy deeds integrity From the moment America went full-on industrial, it seems like it's been a steady path towards people never having to be physically present in order to satisfy their needs. Steven Weber order america people A nation is not a budget, no matter how much ideologues want it to be so. Steven Weber ideologues matter want The flaw in, say, austerity, is that its success is predicated on the relative exactitude of math rather than the shifting, liquid imperfection of peoples lives. Steven Weber austerity imperfection math I know it's sappy, but I bet there's a market for civility and niceness out there that, while probably not as titillating as a junkyard scrap between shirtless adversaries, it'd sure be healthier. Steven Weber junkyard niceness civility What's hard, it seems, is living up to the expectations Democracy imposes upon those who would participate in society. Steven Weber democracy expectations seems Fantasy-based ideologies invariably have neat happy endings where all the bad people and all the bad behavior goes away when the volume is turned up and enough force is applied. Steven Weber happy-endings fantasy people The GOP/corporate right-wing, it seems, never really considers the consequences of their actions. Steven Weber right-wing action wings We fight wars from progressively great heights and distances, the blessings of technology steadily removing the personal human element from what was historically an extremely personal experience. Steven Weber distance fighting war The element which is conveniently missing from today's Republican Party is the human one. People's hopes and realities become numbers and words, devoid of personality and easy to erase. Steven Weber party numbers reality My experience tells me that any time you hear people laughing on a sitcom, it's the writers who happen to be closest to the microphones - not the audience. Steven Weber microphones laughing people Meaning and value depend on human mind space and the commitment of time and energy by very smart people to a creative enterprise. And the time, energy, and brain power of smart, creative people are not abundant. These are the things that are scare, and in some sense they become scarcer as the demand for these talents increases in proportion to the amount of abundant computing power available. Steven Weber smart space commitment In the corporate-owned media, men dressed like Ronald Reagan and women dressed like Rita Hayworth disseminate grotesque exaggerations and gossip in authoritative tones. Steven Weber gossip media men
