There’s something to the idea of the autonomous character. Big…

There’s something to the idea of the autonomous character. Big chunks of our wetware are devoted to simulating other people, trying to figure out if we are likely to fight or fondle them. It’s unsurprising that when you ask your brain to model some other person, it rises to the task. But that’s exactly what happens to a reader when you hand your book over to him: he simulates your characters in his head, trying to interpret that character’s actions through his own lens.

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Other Cory Doctorow Quotes

I think that if I’m still here in ten thousand years, I’m going to be crazy as hell. Ten thousand years, pal! Ten thousand years ago, the state-of-the-art was a goat. You really think you’re going to be anything recognizably human in a hundred centuries? - View Quote Details on I think that if I’m still here in ten thousand…
Lying on my hotel bed, mesmerized by the lazy turns of the ceiling fan, I pondered the possibility that I was nuts. It wasn’t unheard of, even in the days of the Bitchun Society, and even though there were cures, they weren’t pleasant. - View Quote Details on Lying on my hotel bed, mesmerized by the lazy turns…
It is a mistake to let aesthetics drive your rational decision making. - View Quote Details on It is a mistake to let aesthetics drive your rational…
All secrets are deep. All secrets become dark. That’s in the nature of secrets. - View Quote Details on All secrets are deep. All secrets become dark. That’s in…
I released this book a little over a year ago under the terms of a Creative Commons license that allowed my readers to freely redistribute the text without needing any further permission from me. In this fashion, I enlisted my readers in the service of a grand experiment, to see how my book could find its way into cultural relevance and commercial success. The experiment worked out very satisfactorily.
When I originally licensed the book under the terms set out in the next section, I did so in the most conservative fashion possible, using CC’s most restrictive license. I wanted to dip my toe in before taking a plunge. I wanted to see if the sky would fall: you see writers are routinely schooled by their peers that maximal copyright is the only thing that stands between us and penury, and so ingrained was this lesson in me that even though I had the intellectual intuition that a “some rights reserved” regime would serve me well, I still couldn’t shake the atavistic fear that I was about to do something very foolish indeed.
It wasn’t foolish. - View Quote Details on I released this book a little over a year ago…
The universe gets older. So do I. So does my backup, sitting in redundant distributed storage dirtside, ready for the day that space or age or stupidity kills me. It recedes with the years, and I write out my life longhand, a letter to the me that I’ll be when it’s restored into a clone somewhere, somewhen. It’s important that whoever I am then knows about this year, and it’s going to take a lot of tries for me to get it right. - View Quote Details on The universe gets older. So do I. So does my…
Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time rich and cash poor. - View Quote Details on Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time…
I’m of the opinion that science fiction writers suck at predicting the future. We mostly go around describing the present in futuristic clothes - (such as) Mary Shelley, Bill Gibson, and many others. - View Quote Details on I’m of the opinion that science fiction writers suck at…
It’s not necessarily about what career you pick. It’s about how you do what you do. - View Quote Details on It’s not necessarily about what career you pick. It’s about…
I lived long enough to see the cure for death; to see the rise of the Bitchun Society, to learn ten languages; to compose three symphonies; to realize my boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World; to see the death of the workplace and of work. - View Quote Details on I lived long enough to see the cure for death;…