"What defines a cult is not what they believe, at all. It's how they behave. The belief system is almost incidental."

“Even though I think they're probably usually wrong, minority opinions in science are very useful. It keeps the whole process honest ...”

“Isn't the future necessarily going to be dominated by machine life?”

“Ignorance is a low-energy state. It takes constant vigilance and work to climb out of it.”

“In fact, there are many altered brain states where people may have a very vivid experience, or at least a vivid memory of their experience, precisely because they have impaired brain function. When you start dropping some of the higher brain functions out of the loop, like reality testing and things like that, … things can seem hyper-real. That could actually be a sign of brain dysfunction. It's similar to … somebody who is stoned thinking that they are really profound.”

“It is pretty well established that there is an overconfidence effect. ... You don't have the competence to assess your own competence. ... you need competence in order to assess your own competence. ... Everyone has the Dunning-Kruger effect.”

“I think the Internet is the biggest classroom we have.”