Top 41 Quotes by Ramez Naam

We're fortunate enough to live on a planet that's bathed in thousands of times more energy than we use and that's stocked with thousands of times more water, raw materials, and even food-growing potential than we need.

I have an 'office,' technically. I never use it. I work on a couch in my living room, with my laptop on my lap, looking out the windows. I love space and green things. And I'm an incredibly casual person. I slouch. I close the laptop and just lie on the couch for a while if I need to think. I put my feet up on a table while I type.

Some people manage their writing by saying, 'I need to get 2,000 words written today,' others by saying, 'I will write for X hours.' Not me. I start with a plan for the book, break it down into scenes, and I know what scenes need to get written each day. If the scene takes more words than I thought, so be it.

Technology is incredibly powerful. And in many ways, the sky is the limit in terms of what you can actually accomplish with the right science and the right technology. But to get there, you have to actually invest in R&D. And often that means you have to be willing to spend an awful lot in that R&D phase before you see the benefits.

Everything good and bad about technology would be magnified by implanting it deep in brains. Is the risk of brain-hacking outweighed by the societal benefits of faster, deeper communication, and the ability to augment our own intelligence?

I support GMOs. And we should label them. We should label them because that is the very best thing we can do for public acceptance of agricultural biotech. And we should label them because there's absolutely nothing to hide.

Orwell wasn't right about where society was in 1984. We haven't turned into that sort of surveillance society. But that may be, at least in small part, because of his book. The notion that ubiquitous surveillance and state manipulation of the media is evil is deeply engrained in us.