“When your species acts like idiots hypnotized by their own machines, the rest of the living planet looks unintelligent to them. Similarly, the person drooling over a cellphone in the corner of the train does not attract the conversation of the occasional prodigies who happen to pass nearby. The most amazing thing about this is that it is your species that activates or fails to activate the web of life it is endlessly researching and evaluating. But research and evaluation do not activate or admit the living intelligence of creatures and ecosystems. And so, they cannot find what they themselves would otherwise catalyze and participate in, directly.”

— an anonymous informant