The future is too interesting and dangerous to be entrusted to any predictable, reliable agency. We need all the fallibility we can get. Most of all, we need to preserve the absolute unpredictability and total improbability of our connected minds. That way we can keep open all the options, as we have in the past.

That’s because it is cruel, Obi-Wan,” Anakin snapped. “Cruel and unfeeling and unworthy of the Jedi Order.” He was so like Qui-Gon. This was like arguing with a ghost.

The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on the slates. 'What are they doing?' Alice whispered to the Gryphon. 'They can't have anything to put down yet, before the trial's begun.'They're putting down their names,' the Gryphon whispered in reply, 'for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial.