I find it amusing that I'm on the Internet now, because I've criticized it, but mainly I've criticized it on the basis of, 'What are you going to do with it?'
Interpretation
Ray Bradbury reflects on his critiques of the Internet, pointing out the irony of using it despite his skepticism.
In this quote, Ray Bradbury expresses a sense of irony about his presence on the Internet, having been a critic of it in the past. He acknowledges his previous concerns regarding the potential uses of the Internet, yet finds himself engaging with it, hinting at the complexity and duality of technological advancement where one can critically assess something while also being a part of it.
In practice
In a discussion on technology at a conference.
I've written about 2,000 short stories; I've only published 300 and I feel I'm still learning. Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer. Ray Bradbury, 1967 interview (Doing the Math - that means for every story he sold, he wrote six "un-publishable" ones. Keep typing!)
I never went to college, so I went to the library.
There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.
I think the sun is a flower, That blooms for just one hour.
The first thing a writer should be is - excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms. Without such vigor, he might as well be out picking peaches or digging ditches; God knows it'd be better for his health.
You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.
There has never been an unexpectedly short debugging period in the history of computers.
I like going to Burning Man, for example. An environment where people can try new things. I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out new things and figure out the effect on society. What's the effect on people, without having to deploy it to the whole world.
I don't believe that government is good at picking technology, particularly technology that is changing. By the time you get it done and go through democracy, it's so outdated.
Increasingly, our decisions will be made by the algorithms that surround us. Whenever there is a big dilemma, you just ask Google what to do. And what kind of life is that?
If there's any object in human experience that's a precedent for what a computer should be like, it's a musical instrument: a device where you can explore a huge range of possibilities through an interface that connects your mind and your body, allowing you to be emotionally authentic and expressive.
It used to be that the only ones with access to cutting-edge technology were top government labs, big companies and the ultra-rich. It was simply too expensive for the rest of us to afford.
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