“Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups…So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.”

— Philip K. Dick

"How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later" (1978)

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Philip K. Dick 278

American author 1928–1982

Ron Finley American fashion designer and urban gardener

Ron Finley at TED2013 (2013)

“We have to manufacture machines that allow us to continue manufacturing machines, because what machines will never do is to manufacture machines in turn.”

Mariano Rajoy (1955) Spanish politician

8 March, 2016
As President, 2016
Source: El País http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/03/08/videos/1457457914_756232.html

“Civilization consists in giving something an unfitting name, then dream about the result. And indeed the false name and the real dream create a new reality. The object really becomes another, because we turned it into another one. We manufacture realities.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 89
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A civilização consiste em dar a qualquer coisa um nome que lhe não compete, e depois sonhar sobre o resultado. E realmente o nome falso e o sonho verdadeiro criam uma nova realidade. O objecto torna-se realmente outro, porque o tornámos outro. Manufacturamos realidades.

“People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful — very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Speech in Boston (2002)

“We are using electronic instruments both in the studio and on stage but we are not living in an ivory tower, banned from any kind of popularity doing just intellectual research on electronics. So we really like to entertain people in the best way possible to show how modern, sophisticated equipment can be used today in order to create a futuristic sound.”

Edgar Froese (1944–2015) German musician and founder of Tangerine Dream

“I was always skeptical about authority, about things which were told by authorities, because I was living in a country and in a time where the authority was utterly wrong, in my view. And therefore I distrusted, I feared authority, I also fear it today. I am in a very, very fearful, I mean maybe more than other people, but I distrust authority. That makes me more independent and also some part of rebellious,… I’m a maverick.”

Reinhard Selten (1930–2016) German economist

Reinhard Selten (2004), as cited in: Klein, Daniel B., Ryan Daza, and Hannah Mead. " Reinhard Selten (Ideological Profiles of the Economics Laureates) http://econjwatch.org/file_download/768/SeltenIPEL.pdf." Econ Journal Watch 10.3 (2013): 601-604.

“The standard four food groups are based on American agricultural lobbies. Why do we have a milk group? Because we have a National Dairy Council. Why do we have a meat group? Because we have an extremely powerful”

Marion Nestle American academic

meat lobby
Reported in "Feeding Frenzy" by Laura Shapiro, in Newsweek (27 May 1991) http://europe.newsweek.com/feeding-frenzy-203990?rm=eu

“A sane society would be asking questions about the very nature of a society and culture that creates so much trauma for children.... We live in a society that prioritizes profits for large corporations and power for large institutions. We live in a society in which, for example, the cause of depression and suicide has been, for decades, falsely attributed by psychiatry and Big Pharma to a chemical imbalance theory long known to be untrue—an untruth that has made billions of dollars for drug companies and increased power for psychiatry through increased use of antidepressants which are known to actually increase suicide... just one of many examples that we do not live in a sane society.”

Bruce E. Levine American psychologist

The Groundbreaking Public Health Study That Should Change U.S. Society—But Won’t https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/19/the-groundbreaking-public-health-study-that-should-change-u-s-society-but-wont/, (19 July 2019)

“This is a big statement and it sounds a little precious. Generally a man is ashamed to make such a statement. He is afraid sophisticated people will laugh at him. But I don't mind. I'm asking sophisticated people to laugh. That is what sophistication is for.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Seventy Thousand Assyrians (1934)

“Well, if you create your own reality, you no longer live in a real world. It used to be a joke when we were young about the insane and I am told that there were a fair number in institutions who thought of themselves as Napoleon. And that was a departure from reality, creating their own reality. That is what our world is doing today.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Decadence and the New Age (March 10, 1989)

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