The future was and remains the quintessential American art form. Other nations sit back and let their futures happen; we construct ours. We can let the future happen, or take the trouble to imagine it. We can imagine it dark or bright - and in the long run, that's how it will be.

David Gelernter

Categorized in : Art Running Dark

if we were forced to choose just one, there would be no way to deny that Judaism is the most important intellectual development in human history.

David Gelernter

important intellectual would-be

Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity. ... The geniuses of the computer field, on the the other hand, are the people with the keenest aesthetic senses, the ones who are capable of creating beauty. Beauty is decisive at every level: the most important interfaces, the most important programming languages, the winning algorithms are the beautiful ones.

David Gelernter

learning winning beautiful

While we bemoan the decline of literacy, computers discount words in favor of pictures and pictures in favor of video. While we fret about the decreasing cogency of public debate, computers dismiss linear argument and promote fast, shallow romps across the information landscape. While we worry about basic skills, we allow into the classroom software that will do a student's arithmetic or correct his spelling.

David Gelernter

video skills worry

Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity.

David Gelernter

complexity design defense

Really good ideas are always good beyond what you anticipated originally.

David Gelernter

good-ideas ideas

If this is the information age, what are we so well-informed about?

David Gelernter

wells information age

I think the print media have failed to make the most of their opportunity. They may all disappear because they are approaching things in the wrong way.

David Gelernter

print-media opportunity thinking

The book is a form in which some of the greatest masterpieces that mankind has ever achieved are expressed.

David Gelernter

mankind form book

There are great science books that were conceived as books. Feynman's famous introductory lectures in physics, which have a beginning and an end, which are written with style.

David Gelernter

lectures style book

Software unification. So that I no longer care what computing device I pick up, whether it's a laptop or desktop, whether it's one I own or one in a public place, whether it has a small screen or a large screen.

David Gelernter

unification laptops care

We can't share the earth with pure evil anymore than we can share the earth with smallpox.

David Gelernter

earth share evil

Computers make people stupid.

David Gelernter

computer stupid people

The "paperless office" is a bad idea because paper is one of the most useful and valuable media ever invented. "On paper" is a good place for information you want to use; a bad place for information you want to store.

David Gelernter

media office ideas

For years, computer scientists were treating operating systems design as sort of an open-reserch issue, when the field's direction had been decided by commercial operations. Computer science has become completely cut off from reality.

David Gelernter

cutting reality years

One: Make Congress and the White House obey the same Obamacare rules you do. Two: Obama let business off for a year; we want workers to be let off for a year too. That’s the GOP plan. What part don’t you like?

David Gelernter

obamacare two years

The best computer scientists are...technologists who crave beauty.

David Gelernter

scientist crave computer

We still have books because they are so brilliantly suited to the way human beings absorb information and at their best, they are among the most beautiful things we have.

David Gelernter

information beautiful book

The book is a unit and is such a brilliant ergonomic unit.

David Gelernter

units brilliant book

Surprise is the beginning of wisdom.

David Gelernter

surprise

Abolishing the book is like abolishing the symphony, or sonata form, or the sonnet, or the wall painting.

David Gelernter

wall symphony book