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21 " Americans make more trash than anyone else on the planet, throwing away about 7.1 pounds per person per day, 365 days a year. Across a lifetime that rate means, on average, we are each on track to generate 102 tons of trash. Each of our bodies may occupy only one cemetery plot when we’re done with this world, but a single person’s 102-ton trash legacy will require the equivalent of 1,100 graves. Much of that refuse will outlast any grave marker, pharaoh’s pyramid or modern skyscraper: One of the few relics of our civilization guaranteed to be recognizable twenty thousand years from now is the potato chip bag. "
― Edward Humes , Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash
22 " If and when our civilization comes to ruin, the destructive agent will be Science; man's knowledge of science, applied to warfare, meaning slaughter not only of human bodies, but of human institutions, of all we have created through the centuries. "
23 " Let the war turn off the families. Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge. "
― Ray Bradbury , Fahrenheit 451
24 " Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one man sings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better. If our civilization goes on like this, only one man will laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest. "
― G.K. Chesterton
25 " We cannot rely on trial-and-error approaches to deal with existential risks… We need to vastly increase our investment in developing specific defensive technologies… We are at the critical stage today for biotechnology, and we will reach the stage where we need to directly implement defensive technologies for nanotechnology during the late teen years of this century… A self-replicating pathogen, whether biological or nanotechnology based, could destroy our civilization in a matter of days or weeks. "
― Ray Kurzweil , The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
26 " No university in the world has ever risen to greatness without a correspondingly great library ... When this is no longer true, then will our civilization have come to an end. "
― Lawrence Clark Powell
27 " Let me first talk about our brains as a personal radio telescope. Let me talk first about its wonderful built-in wiring for tuning out the static of our civilization in order to better tune in its symphony. "
― E.L. Konigsburg , Talk, Talk : A Children's Book Author Speaks to Grown-Ups
28 " We think our civilization near its meridian but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star. "
29 " In our civilization men are afraid that they will not be men enough and women are afraid that they might be considered only women. "
30 " In our civilization men are afraid they will not be men enough and women are afraid they might be considered only women. "
31 " I've been thinking about the distorted view of science that prevails in our culture. I've been wondering about this, because our civilization is completely dependent on science and high technology, yet most of us are alienated from science. "
32 " Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by around 2029. Follow that out further to, say, 2045, we will have multiplied the intelligence, the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization a billion-fold. "
