My character is self-important, poorly informed, well-intentioned but an idiot. So we said, `Let's give him a promotion.'
I may be just an empty flesh terminal reliant on technology for all my ideas, memories and relationships, but I am confident that all of that everything that makes me a unique human being is still out there somewhere, safe in a theoretical storage space owned by giant, multinational corporations.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the reliance of modern individuals on technology for their identity and personal connections.
Stephen Colbert's quote comments on the paradox of modern existence where individuals feel like mere vessels of technology, depending on it for their thoughts, memories, and relationships. Despite this reliance, he expresses confidence that the essence of what makes a person unique is still preserved somewhere, albeit in the hands of large corporations, highlighting the tension between individuality and technological commodification.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote by Stephen Colbert could be used in a tech conference to provoke thoughts on the impact of technology on individual identity.
More from Stephen Colbert
All quotes →Luckily, a recent survey published in the American Sociological Review revealed that atheists are the least trusted group in America—less trusted, even, than homosexuals. It makes sense at least we trust the homosexuals with our hair.
And when those bombs went off, there were runners who, after finishing a marathon, kept running for another two miles to the hospital to donate blood. So, here's what I know - these maniacs may have tried to make life bad for the people of Boston, but all they can ever do, is show just how good those people are.
My father always wanted to be 'Col-bear.' He lived in the same town as his father, and his father didn't like the idea of the name with the French pronunciation. So my father said to us, 'Do what you want. You're not going to offend anybody.' And he was dead long before I made my decision.
And that brings us to tonight's word: Truthiness. Now I'm sure some of the word-police, the 'wordanistas' over at Websters, are gonna say, 'Hey, that's not a word!' Well, anybody who knows me knows that I am no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They're elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn't true, what did or didn't happen.
I don't perceive my role as a newsman at all. I'm a comedian from stem to stern. You can cut me open and count the rings of jokes.
Similar quotes
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No matter how deeply disturbing the thought of using the environment to manipulate behavior for national advantages to some, the technology permitting such use will very probably develop within the next few decades.
What I do instead is I will cheerfully spend literally hours on identifier names: variable names, method names, and so forth, to make my code readable. If you read some expression using these identifiers and it reads like an English sentence, your program is much more likely to be correct, and much easier to maintain.
Most of the good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program.
There are only two industries that refer to their customers as 'users'.
If we enter into the kind of world that Google likes, the world that Google wants, it's a world where information is copied so much on the Internet that nobody knows where it came from anymore, so there can't be any rights of authorship.