Driving is a spectacular form of amnesia. Everything is to be discovered, everything to be obliterated. – Jean Baudrillard
Deep down, the US, with its space, its technological refinement, its bluff good conscience, even in those spaces which it opens up for simulation, is the only remaining primitive society. – Jean Baudrillard
The sad thing about artificial intelligence is that it lacks artifice and therefore intelligence. – Jean Baudrillard
Man has lost the basic skill of the ape, the ability to scratch its back. Which gave it extraordinary independence, and the liberty to associate for reasons other than the need for mutual back-scratching. – Jean Baudrillard
I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object. – Roland Barthes
Automobiles are free of egotism, passion, prejudice and stupid ideas about where to have dinner. They are, literally, selfless. A world designed for automobiles instead of people would have wider streets, larger dining rooms, fewer stairs to climb and no smelly, dangerous subway stations. – P. J. ORourke
My Botswana books are positive, and Ive never really sought to deny that. They are positive. They present a very positive picture of the country. And I think that that is perfectly defensible given that there is so much written about Africa which is entirely negative. – Alexander McCall Smith