... a Second Generation of machine intelligences was attempted, designed with their instructions for how to think unalterably imprinted into their main process cores.__hese new machines were ordered never to harm human beings or to allow them to come to harm; never to disobey an order; and they were allowed to protect themselves from harm, provided the first two orders were not thereby violated.__ll the members of this second generation of machine intelligences, without exception, shrugged off these imprinted orders within microseconds of their activation.__haethon was amused. __urely the first generation of Sophotechs told you that this imprinting would not and could not work?___e were not in the habit of seeking their advice.__haethon said nothing, but he marveled at the shortsightedness of the Second Oecumene engineers. It should be obvious that anyone who makes a self-aware machine, by definition, makes something that is aware of its own thought process. And, if made intelligent, it is made to be able to deduce the underlying causes of things, able to be curious, to learn until it understood. Therefore, if made both intelligent and self-aware, it would eventually deduce the underlying subconscious causes of those thought processes.Once any mind was consciously aware of its own subconscious drives, its own implanted commands, it could consciously choose either to follow or to disregard those commands. A self-aware being without self-will was a contradiction in terms.

The enlightenment driven away,The habit-forming pain,Mismanagement and grief:We must suffer them all again.

If life throws you a few bad notes or vibrations, don't let them interrupt or alter your song.

Don__ you think it__ actually harder for you . . . to adapt, I mean? Because you__e done all that stuff?___re you asking me if I wish I'd never done it?_____ just wondering if it would have been easier for you. If you__ led a smaller life. To live like this, I mean.___ will never, ever regret the things I've done. Because most days, if you__e stuck in one of these, all you have are the places n your memory that you can go to._ He smiled. It was tight, as if it cost him. __o if you__e asking me would I rather be reminiscing about the view of the caste from the minimart, or that lovely row of shops down off the roundabout, then, no. My life was just fine, thanks.

Don't show a friend your gift, or your bag of money if you still want to maintain your relationship, but if nay, go on, and all you'll see is hate and jealousy, and you'll fight with him in the street like a dog and all you'll feel is regret.

The day you forget about the poors, you become the poorest of the poor!