Marques Brownlee Quotes

I'm definitely a techno-optimist. I think we can do amazing things. But in my experience, if a thing has great potential, there is also a risk of great downsides, so to speak. Coming from a truly, really enthusiastic 'wow decade,' we are now moving into waters where we are somewhat more cautious.

Technology is mostly a force for good, but it has its downsides, too. I want my students - and my readers - to be intelligently skeptical about technology and be informed about the good and the not-so-good parts.

I think, when I wrote 'Children of Jihad,' I wrote it with a very optimistic view of what technology can do. Today I maintain that optimistic view, but I'm also aware of the challenges we have. So I would say I'm not a techno-utopian, but I'm a techno-pragmatist.

I used to have the very standard worldview. I can easily identify with people who see computers getting faster and smarter, and technology getting more and more beneficial, without seeing the other side.

We wring our hands over the miscarriages of technology and take its benefactions for granted

With any advent in technology, any technological innovation, there is the good and the bad.

Techno-optimism is a belief in the power of technology to extend our sphere of possibilities and, ultimately, a belief that technology helps us solve and transcend problems, limitations and obstacles.

I actually think the one who is underestimated in terms of impact he's had on society is Bill Gates. The reason is that with the innovation of software, he really allowed the computer revolution to take hold.

I am not a Luddite. I am suspicious of technology. I am perfectly aware of its benefits, but I also try to pay attention to some of the negative effects.

I have very complex and complicated ideas about technology. It's such a prominent way that we communicate with each other. In ways, I think it's really positive, and in ways, I think it's really negative.

I think that we live in techno-enthusiastic times. We celebrate our technologies because people are frightened by the world we've made.

What I'm trying to do is to at least raise a flag to the blinding light of technology.

Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other.

People see technology as something that will ruin society and culture, but I've always embraced technology.

Technology is a wonderful tool, but also if used incorrectly a horrible tool. We're fascinated by all aspects of it, whatever makes our human lives easier on the planet, but eventually there will have to be some sort of merger. The fascination isn't going to die down.

We cannot blindly embrace the benefits of technology.

Asians love technology. They see it as the path to a good life. This is not so in Europe where there is much skepticism about technology—maybe because of Nazi Germany and its use of technology.

One calls humans, who see only the good side of a new invention, technicians.

We cannot idealize technology. Technology is only and always the reflection of our own imagination, and its uses must be conditioned by our own values.

We presumably believe that most of the technological progress over the arc of humanity to date has been good. I don't see any argument to go back to 1600.

I wouldn't put a big trust in what people in Silicon Valley say. They may be good at manipulating ones and zeroes and writing software, but beyond that, their contribution to human progress has been pretty dismal. I'm not impressed.

I truly hope that we can evolve with technology, and use it for the benefit of all mankind, but history might suggest otherwise.

I don't want to tell a story about how technological advancement is bad.

Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt persisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which must bring either decay or explosion?

There are dangers, but only dangers if people don't understand where technology is taking us.