Charles Stross Quotes

Bob loses saving throw vs. shiny with a penalty of -5. Bob takes 2d8 damage to the credit card.

We are medium-sized mammals who only prosper because we've developed a half-arsed ability to terraform the less suitable bits of the planet we evolved on, and we're conscious of our inevitable decay and death, and we can't live anywhere else. There is no invisible sky daddy to give us immortal life and a harp and wings when we die.

Private ownerships of a ...slave chip is illegal in many polities. It tends to be a government monopoly, much like other forms of violence. But I had fallen among pirates and life insurance underwriters.

This has serveral consequences, starting with screwing over most cryptography algorithms--translation: all your bank account are belong to us--

Only debt is forever.

The encapsulated bird your conspirators sent you to fetch. The sterilized male chicken with the Creator DNA sequences. The plot capon. Where is it?

Any civilization where the main symbol of religious veneration is a tool of execution is a bad place to have children.

Christmas: the one time of year when you can’t avoid the nuts in your family muesli.

Although I am unconvinced that I desire life, I am not yet ready to embrace death.

Humans: such a brilliant model of emotional self-awareness.

There is a philosophy by which many people live their lives, and it is this: life is a shit sandwich, but the more bread you've got, the less shit you have to eat.These people are often selfish brats as kids, and they don't get better with age: think of the shifty-eyed smarmy asshole from the sixth form who grow up to be a merchant banker, or an estate agent, or one of the Conservative Party funny-handshake mine's a Rolex brigade. (This isn't to say that all estate agents, or merchant bankers, or conservatives are selfish, but that these are ways of life that provide opportunities of a certain disposition to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Bear with me.)There is another philosophy by which people live their lives, and it goes thus: You will do as I say or I will hurt you.. . . Let me draw you a Venn diagram with two circles on it, denoting sets of individuals. They overlap: the greedy ones and the authoritarian ones. Let's shade in the intersecting area in a different color and label it: dangerous. Greed isn't automatically dangerous on its won, and petty authoritarians aren't usually dangerous outside their immediate vicinity -- but when you combine the two, you get gangsters and dictators and hate-spewing preachers.