John Twelve Hawks

John Twelve Hawks (pseudonym) is the author of the 2005 dystopian novel The Traveler and its sequels, The Dark River and The Golden City, collectively comprising the Fourth Realm Trilogy.

Quotes

How We Live Now (2005)

Believing that the government knows what's best is an argument that barely merits a serious discussion. Any high school history student can come up with hundreds of examples of when a king, dictator, or elected official followed a destructive, foolish policy. Democracy doesn't protect our leaders from having a limited, parochial vision. A politician's true priority is career self-preservation.

We drink our morning coffee with a drop of fear.

Many of our leaders have gone past the old-fashioned politics of the democratic era and entered into the politics of fear. People running for national office no longer emphasize their views about the economy or social change. The leading political question of our time has become: who can ease our nightmares?

Our sense of powerlessness—the belief that an ordinary person does not matter—has twisted our lips into a sneer.

Political affiliation is not a relevant part of this decision; privacy and personal freedom should be fundamental right for everyone.

The first icon of the 21st Century is the closed-circuit surveillance camera, slowly panning back and forth as we move beneath its gaze.

Fourth Realm Trilogy (2005-2009)

The Traveler (2005)

Peace and prosperity were possible only if people stopped asking new questions and accepted the available answers.
- Ch. 2

You don't need to watch everyone if everyone believes they're being watched.
- Ch. 17

All of us fight a battle every day, but we just don’t know it. Love tries to defeat hatred. Bravery destroys fear.
- Ch. 20

Virtue is admirable, but boring.
- Ch. 21

Life is dangerous. That's what makes it interesting.
- Ch. 21

The warrior uses the power of the brain to be deliberate and the power of the heart to be instinctive.
- Ch. 22

There was no need to worry about religion or philosophy; the truth was determined by whoever was in power.
- Ch. 24

The urge to control others is very strong, but the desire for freedom and the ability to show compassion will always survive. Darkness is everywhere, but the Light still appears.
- Ch. 26

The Grid still exists even if you don't see the lines.
- Ch. 28

Freedom is the biggest myth ever created. It's a destructive, unachievable goal that has caused a great deal of pain. Very few people can handle freedom. A society is healthy and productive when it's under control.
- Ch. 30

Even the most casual student of history realizes that human beings are greedy, impulsive, and cruel. But Bentham's prison showed us that societal control was possible with the right sort of technology. There was no need to have a policemen standing on every corner. All you need is a Virtual Panopticon that monitors your population. You aren't required to literally watch them all the time, but the masses have to accept the possibility and the inevitability of punishment. You need the structure, the system, the implicit threat that becomes a fact of life. When people discard their notions of privacy, they permit a peaceful society.
- Ch. 31

It's all just fear and distraction. Fear will get people into our Virtual Panopticon and then we'll keep them happy. People will be free to take antidepressant drugs, go into debt, and stare at their television sets. Society might seem disorganized, but it will be very stable. Every few years we'll pick a different mannequin to give speeches from the White House Rose Garden.
- Ch. 31

Most people go through life never knowing the truth about the major events of their time. They're watching a farce performed at the edge of the stage while the real drama is going on behind the curtain.
- Ch. 31

Half the things you've been taught in school are just convenient fictions. History is a puppet show for childish minds.
- Ch. 31

"I hate zoos," she told Gabriel. "They remind me of prisons."
"People like to see animals."
"Citizens want to kill wild creatures or put them into cages. It helps them forget that they're also prisoners."
- Ch. 33

You need to study history, Doctor. All great changes are based on pain and destruction.
- Ch. 35

Human beings have an almost unlimited capacity for self-delusion. We can justify any amount of sadness if it fits our own particular standard of reality.
- Ch. 39

All the news stories were telling me to be frightened. All the commercials were telling me to buy things I didn´t need. The message was that people could only be passive victims or consumers.
- Ch. 39

Every new experience is unusual. The rest of life is just sleep and committee meetings.
- Ch. 41

Love is just another means of manipulation. We can use that emotion like we use hatred and fear.

True freedom is tolerant. It gives people the right to live and think in new ways.

The Dark River (2007)

If privacy had a gravestone it might read: “Don't Worry. This Was for Your Own Good.”

Many physicists these days sound like the Delphic oracle - with equations.

The Golden City (2009)

Almost every important choice in our lives is really just an expression of hope.

"When people decide that a certain way of faith is destined and inevitable, hatred and intolerance follow. Instead of saying, 'The Light is within you, choose the Light,' the message becomes 'Agree with our version of history or we'll kill you.”

Spark (2014)

Fear requires a desire to exist in the future.

The laws of mathematics are stronger than the laws of man.

At the training camp, I was told that doors always open for a man wearing a hard hat and carrying a clipboard.

Mrs. Driscoll clapped her hands together and the bracelets jingled brightly. "Yes, Mr. Morgan! The theater can heal a wounded spirit and broken heart! I've seen it countless times. When we are completely artificial, we can find out what's real."

"All the doctors that have examined you state that you appear to have no friends or family relationships and you are incapable of any sort of empathy. In short…you’re perfect for this job.”

Bland is the truest expression of an advanced civilization. It took a great deal of money to create this pocket of cool, calm bland among the rickshaw men and the beggar children tapping on the car windows.

In reality, the universe is neutral about our existence. Only dogs care.

Her face kept changing and that bothered me as well. Why were human beings so unstable? The door and the curtains and the supply cabinet didn't continually change their appearance.'

The Turing Test tried to make a distinction between humans and machines. But these days Shadow programs like Edward and Laura can be programmed to say "I love you" or imitate other emotions. If a machine wanted to act like a human, then it had to deny the truth. Lying, not love, is the fundamental indication of humanity.

Machines, no matter how sophisticated, can only follow programs. If we sleepwalk through our lives, then we’re no better than machines. Only humans are capable of a job done well -- which means thinking about the consequences of our actions. A job done well pays the bills, but it also improves the lives of everyone around us.

Modern authority is based on a system of lies that are accepted by the general population. If you pull away the curtain and show the reality of power, people are motivated to question the fictions that govern their own lives.

True ideology has vanished, replaced by fear and fantasy. The right wing wants corporate control and a return to a past that never existed. The left wing wants government control and a future that will never exist. Both groups lose sight of the essential questions: how can the individual speak and think and create freely? New ideas are the only evolutionary force that will save us from destruction.

It took me years to realize that a computer would never truly be able to say cogito ego sum although dozens of lurid Hollywood movies about robots want to leave that impression. A computer thinks....that is, it realizes it has been switched on...but it doesn't know it exists.

No machine can daydream. When they’re not switched on, they’re as cold as a toaster in a midnight kitchen.

Artificial intelligence is a concept that obscures accountability. Our problem is not machines acting like humans -- it’s humans acting like machines.

A Vast Machine watched and evaluated them, remembering their past actions and predicting their future behavior.

All language – everything we say – is just an approximation of reality.

Most conscious thought is simply an attempt to claim ‘authorship’ for a choice that has already been made. Our thoughts are just an ongoing attempt to explain what we’ve already decided.

Lying, not love, is the fundamental indication of humanity.

What happens in our future can change the meaning of what has happened in our past.

Against Authority: Freedom and the Rise of Surveillance States (2014)

Both dogs and humans know when we’ve been caged.

In Orwell’s 1984, all Party members must assemble for a “Two Minutes Hate” session where they watch a propaganda film showing the Party’s enemies. The establishment of the Virtual Panopticon insures that these group meetings aren’t necessary. Those in power now have the resources to deliver a political message tailored to the specific fears of the individual citizen. Yes, we’ll still have political rallies and conventions, but these will be empty gestures retained from the past.

One of the pleasures of writing novels is that my characters usually do something. But in real life we often stay locked in a situation that we know is painful or wrong.

Children defer to adults because they’re older, bigger and stronger. But it’s also because children believe that adults have reasons for what they do. There was nothing magical about the Pied Piper of Hamelin’s flute. The Piper acted like he knew where he was going and the children followed him into the dark mountains where they were never seen again.

Gradually, I realized that the surveillance cameras plus the email and cell phone monitoring was creating a Virtual Panopticon – a digital prison created and maintained by computer networks that enclosed all of us within its invisible walls.

Any monitoring system that is invisible, pervasive, automatic, and permanent gives those in power the means to create a modern surveillance state. And these new states will have an authority that has detached itself from ethics and ideology. Politicians and dictators will continue to make speeches, but their words will become meaningless. This new system will see and know us. It will even predict our future behavior.

Identity is not taste or fashion; it has nothing to do with what we’ve purchased in the past or want to buy in the future. Identity comes from making real choices that force you to decide what is true, fair, and just. Identity is not given to you; it’s earned by your life experiences.

One cliché endlessly offered up by the people supporting government surveillance is that there needs to be a “trade-off” between security and privacy. But this is a trade that goes only one way. It’s clear that we’ve lost control over what personal information is public and what we prefer to keep private. The new reality is that they see us, but we can’t see them.

External links

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John Twelve Hawks