-
Really good ideas are always good beyond what you anticipated originally.
David Gelernter -
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
-
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 -
Computers make people stupid.
David Gelernter -
We can't share the earth with pure evil anymore than we can share the earth with smallpox.
David Gelernter -
Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity.
David Gelernter -
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 -
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
-
In principle the first thing on the stream would be my birth certificate, a little electronic version of that, my parents would put my school records, health records, whatever of their child onto the stream. And the stream continues to flow forward through time.
David Gelernter -
If this is the information age, what are we so well-informed about?
David Gelernter