quote · Legacy record
So the next time you doubt the strangeness of the future, remember how you were born in a hunter-gatherer tribe ten thousand years ago, when no one knew of Science at all. Remember how you were shocked, to the depths of your being, when Science explained the great and terrible sacred mysteries that you once revered so highly. Remember how you once believed that you could fly by eating the right mushrooms, and then you accepted with disappointment that you would never fly, and then you flew. Remember how you had always thought that slavery was right and proper, and then you changed your mind. Don't imagine how you could have predicted the change, for that is amnesia. Remember that, in fact, you did not guess. Remember how, century after century, the world changed in ways you did not guess.Maybe then you will be less shocked by what happens next.
So the next time you doubt the strangeness of the future, remember how you were born in a hunter-gatherer tribe ten thousand years ago, when no one knew of Science at all. Remember how you were shocked, to the depths of your being, when Science explained the great and terrible sacred mysteries that you once revered so highly. Remember how you once believed that you could fly by eating the right mushrooms, and then you accepted with disappointment that you would never fly, and then you flew. Remember how you had always thought that slavery was right and proper, and then you changed your mind. Don't imagine how you could have predicted the change, for that is amnesia. Remember that, in fact, you did not guess. Remember how, century after century, the world changed in ways you did not guess.Maybe then you will be less shocked by what happens next.
Approximate author period: c. 1979 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Eliezer Yudkowsky
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1979 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1979; activity date not established; Wikidata Q704195, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q704195 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 105253; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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