“All the usual rules of uprising realpolitik still apply, especially that concerning the peculiar of dialectic of dissent which—simply stated—dictates that in all but the most dedicatedly repressive hegemonies, if in a sizable population there are one hundred rebels, all of whom are then rounded up and killed, the number of rebels present at the end of the day is not zero, and not even one hundred, but two hundred or three hundred or more; an equation based on human nature which seem often to baffle the military and political mind.”

—  Iain Banks

“A Few Notes on the Culture” (pp. 168-169)
Short fiction, The State of the Art (1991)

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Iain Banks 139
Scottish writer 1954–2013

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