“The power of the internet… to connect people, minds, and causes, is one of the most dangerous threats to regimes of any stripe. No longer can they depend upon control of media to mindwipe and program us. And they know it. So the next conquest of theirs will be this newfound connectivity — they will demand control. And this might be catastrophic except for the fact that we are using the tools with which we could forge a new epoch for our species and new minds for ourselves… to exchange bikini shots, cat pictures, and memes about Alice in Wonderland. Well, if we lost that to our enemies, I wouldn’t mourn. But it we lose the chance at a future worth being human in because we were more fascinated with giggles, insipid maxims, and cat photos than we were with developing intelligence, mutual cooperation — or liberating the people and creatures of the world from the death grip of our own stupidity — perhaps we shall deserve the results such ignorance demands.”

— an a i