"An engineering degree is also no longer a requisite to using technology, as seemingly anyone today can install a printer or upload a video. Similarly, another signifier of nerd status — knowing obscure facts about favorite subjects — has also lost its currency."

"Never before has the boundary between geek culture and mainstream culture been so porous."

"America's got a much stronger tradition of free speech and freedom of the press. In Europe, it's much more nuanced and they put a lot of meaning on the rights of your reputation."

"Internet companies and nonprofits like Wikipedia have been forced to choose between cooperating with the Chinese government and losing access to the growing online audience there."

"Playing the government off newspapers, and newspapers against each other, still does not compare with the power of the World Wide Web."

"If someone today had the Pentagon Papers, or the modern equivalent, would he still go to the press, as Daniel Ellsberg did nearly 40 years ago, and wait for the documents to be analyzed and published? Or would that person simply post them online immediately?"

"Before Wikileaks, or even the Internet, there were just plain leaks."

"My young nerds, here's the deal:"

"Michael Brown was a thug."

"We are swimming in the lake in which future generations will drown"

"If an animal spread plastic garbage all over the planet, we would certainly exterminate it."

"The ones who do not wander are the ones who are truly lost"

"When the impossible happens, everybody has a very simple explanation for why it was inevitable"

"The most difficult part of finding a solution is to accept that there is a problem"

"Question answers instead of answering questions."

"The paradox of innovation is that it is accepted as an innovation when it has become imitation."

"What we understand is not enough to understand why we understand it. (Signature line on his emails)"

"Philosophy is the art of saying something incredibly stupid and making it sound incredibly intelligent."

"Philosophy is the art of turning solutions into problems"

"The fact that so many books still name the Beatles "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success: the Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worth of being saved."

"Beatles' "aryan" music removed any trace of black music from rock and roll: it replaced syncopated african rhythm with linear western melody, and lusty negro attitudes with cute white-kid smiles."

"...but defining their sound was Little Girls, an exuberant ska wrapped in an electronic patina, with modernist vocals à la XTC and a touch of dementia."

"Zappa was not a protester or an activist. He was merely a man who used his brain."

"I really think we should modify the law so that one can be sued for defaming not only living people but also the memory and reputation of people who died centuries ago."

"If you tend to text and skim the surface of the Internet, you indirectly shape your mind to only deal with superficial matters."

"Mass culture is a way to escape from the psychological suffering that comes with that insight into the human condition, an escape alternative to the one preached by world religions. Mass culture is a modern invention to escape from existential anguish."

"Why are there age limits? why can't i marry a 12-year old? Helen of Troy was 12. Juliet and Cleopatra were still teenagers when they became famous. Most heroines of classic novels and poems were underage by today's laws. Thomas Edison married a 16-year-old. Medical studies show that the best age for a woman to have children is between 15 and 25 (lowest chances of miscarriage, of birth defects and, last but not least, of the woman dying while giving birth); while the worst age is after the mid 30s. And the younger you are, the more likely you are to cement a real friendship with your children; the older you are, the more likely that the "generational gap" will hurt your children's psychology. Therefore it is much more natural to have a child at 16 than at 40."

"If the cop honestly felt that this was a young black man (as politically incorrect as it sounds, this is the most violent category of people in the USA in 2014) aiming a gun at him, the cop can hardly be blamed for shooting first."

"Mass shooters and serial killers are white Christian men, with rare exceptions, and frequently with Anglosaxon last names."

"Trump is not an idiot at all, but those who voted for him are."

"There are two things in life that keep me motivated, a cup of coffee and a second cup of coffee."

"My friends liked it. My family liked it. I thought, 'If they all like it why can't everyone like it?' I knew I could get an audience."

"I was frustrated waiting tables when I knew I could make video... I didn't have any professional experience or a portfolio of work, so I decided to make stuff on my own for free."

"The fact that people are so willing to disclose (deeply personal issues in their lives) shows you how much we avoid talking about these very serious issues in our everyday lives,"

"When you say journalist, it's like oh -- how many sources have you fact checked? When you say photographer -- it's, why are your photos a little bit out of focus? The answer is because I don't care. I like to call myself a storyteller so I don't have to worry about other people's definition of what correct work is."

"New York is a giant place and no matter how big you get, there's still going to be a ton of people who haven't heard of you."

"There is no use in trying to judge everything but the condition you are in right now. You are absolutely delusional if you think that you know anything right now."

"[T]he whole time I was having this conversation, I was mildy enjoying it, but it bothered me how little substance there was. I always feel this during movie and music conversations, that it's entirely constrainted to just naming things...Perhaps the greatest pain of it is how shallow it is compared to the actual experience."

"This was incredibly foolish. To live just to die. And to die so easily."

"Sometimes I do believe in predestination. I feel helpless to do anything but what I am compelled to do."

"I felt aimless, but it felt fine. (This is not what I wanted to feel though. I wanted to feel a great absence, a longing, a distance that would finally inspire.)"

"And so, reaching futilely for answers, they blame the trees!"

"Reality's kind of a medium, maybe greater than paper. We all want life to have the same texture that we read about in novels."

"Why do the voters let all this happen? It is because Westerners like to be ‘good’ people and believe that their fellow men are equally good people. It is because they have humane values.” “It is because the moral and ethical values of Western man have made him helpless in the face of wickedness and immorality."

"The ruling Left milks the working Swedes to maintain a predominantly idle immigrant population, who thankfully vote for the Left. Swedish society has to support two parasites, each living in a symbiotic relationship with the other. That is, in this particular game of thought."

"From the Leftist point of view isolated ghettoes mainly populated by isolated immigrant groups are an ideal solution. Complete dependency on the political left makes the immigrant population loyal supporters of the left. Because the ghettoes are isolated, they only disturb the image of well-being in Sweden to an extent that can be covered up with effective media self-censorship and “education”. At the same time the dependence of the political Left on the ghettoes not only prevents it from taking any effective measures to stop the ghettoization (you cannot criticize your voters) but also makes stopping the ghettoization undesirable."

"It is hard for me to think about a lower reptile in the universe than a Scandinavian social democrat. The most slimy subscpecies of this reptile is the Swedish social democrat."

"I am throughly confused as to why muslims have such a great desire to inflict pain on those who are in a weaker position, such as animals, children and women. I think this pattern is pretty clear. Why do muslims jump around ululating with their dicks hard whenever heads get chopped off or someone gets whipped?"

"The only measurable and therefore undebatably existing human value is the instrumental value of an individual. There can be a justified hierarchy of individuals based on how much the removal of their talents or skills would weaken the community."