Excerpt from 2017 Personality Lecture 21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9U5IHQWSZc
Personality Lectures
“Christ, you're dragging me out for that? I can tell you what they'll say. They'll drag out the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: kiddie porn, terrorists, pirates, and the mafia. They'll tell us that any tool for communicating that they can't tap, log, and switch off is irresponsible. They'll tell us we're stealing from ISPs. It's what they say every time someone tries this: Philly, New York, London. All around the world same song.”
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (2005)
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Cory Doctorow 53
Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction a… 1971Related quotes
“Find out what people want to do, then tell them to do it. They'll think you're a genius.”
Source: The Bridal Season
“Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.”
Source: Time Enough for Love
Presidential debate http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec00/for-policy_10-12.html (11 October 2000).
2000s, 2000
“If you're going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh; otherwise they'll kill you.”
Credited to Shaw in the lead in to the mockumentary C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004) and other recent works, but this or slight variants of it are also sometimes attributed to W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, and Oscar Wilde. It might possibly be derived from Shaw's statement in John Bull's Other Island (1907): "My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world."
Another possibility is that it is derived from Shaw's characteristic of Mark Twain: "He has to put things in such a way as to make people who would otherwise hang him believe he is joking."
Variants:
If you are going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
Disputed
“They'll name a city after us
And later say it's all our fault…”
Us
Soviet Kitsch (2004)