I have problems with the violence and the torture on '24.' What I'm trying to say is that that's not the only… — Steven Johnson Cognitive Copy Share Image
If we didn't have genetic mutations, we wouldn't have us. You need error to open the door to the adjacent possible. — Steven Johnson Biology Copy Share Image
The problem is, there are definitely some genuinely lame things on television, and there's more at the bottom of the barrel, because… — Steven Johnson Barrels Copy Share Image
What's encouraging is that the early new platforms - Kindle and iPad - are clearly leading to people buying more books. The… — Steven Johnson Books Copy Share Image
“Babbage had most of this system sketched out by 1837, but the first true computer to use this programmable architecture didn’t appear… — Steven Johnson Computers Copy Share Image
I love those stretches where I've just been a writer - when I haven't been doing Internet start-ups - where I pretty… — Steven Johnson Internet Copy Share Image
“The birth of the civil rights movement was intimately bound up in the spread of jazz music throughout the United States. It… — Steven Johnson African americans Copy Share Image
For decades, we've worked under the assumption that mass culture follows a steadily declining path toward lowest-common-denominator standards, presumably because the 'masses'… — Steven Johnson Assumption Copy Share Image
“Over generations, the gene pool of the first farmers became increasingly dominated by individuals who could drink beer on a regular basis.… — Steven Johnson Beer drinkers Copy Share Image
It is extraordinary how safe flying has become. You are now statistically more likely to be elected president of the United States… — Steven Johnson Achievement Copy Share Image
“De Forest was wrong about the utility of gas as a detector, but he kept probing at the edges of that error,… — Steven Johnson Place Wrong Copy Share Image
“If we're going to survive as a planet with more than 6 billion people without destroying the complex balance of our natural… — Steven Johnson Mother nature Copy Share Image
I suspect millions of people from my generation probably have comparable stories to tell: if not of sports simulations then of Dungeons… — Steven Johnson Chess Copy Share Image
Every childhood has its talismans, the sacred objects that look innocuous enough to the outside world, but that trigger an onslaught of… — Steven Johnson Child Copy Share Image
“In the popular folklore of American history, there is a sense in which the founders’ various achievements in natural philosophy—Franklin’s electrical experiments,… — Steven Johnson American history Copy Share Image
The patterns are simple, but followed together, they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts. Go… — Steven Johnson Art Copy Share Image
“When it first emerged, Twitter was widely derided as a frivolous distraction that was mostly good for telling your friends what you… — Steven Johnson Business model Copy Share Image
“And so it was with the Broad Street well that the decision to remove the pump handle turned out to be more… — Steven Johnson First time Copy Share Image
“We are often better served by connecting ideas than we are by protecting them... Environments that build walls around good ideas tend… — Steven Johnson Good ideas Copy Share Image
“Early risers strolling along the Thames would see the toshers wading through the muck of low tide, dressed almost comically in flowing… — Steven Johnson Early Riser Copy Share Image
Who is giving the orders to ants? No one. They are self-organizing. Each of our immune systems get smarter over the years… — Steven Johnson Ants Copy Share Image
Keeping a slow hunch alive poses challenges on multiple scales. For starters, you have to preserve the hunch in your own memory,… — Steven Johnson Alive Copy Share Image
In a peer network, no one is officially in charge. It doesn't have a command hierarchy. It doesn't have a boss. So,… — Steven Johnson Boss Copy Share Image
Calculus, the electrical battery, the telephone, the steam engine, the radio - all these groundbreaking innovations were hit upon by multiple inventors… — Steven Johnson Batteries Copy Share Image
Popular culture, on average, has been growing more cognitively challenging over the past thirty years, not less. Despite everything you hear about… — Steven Johnson Average Copy Share Image
Good ideas may not want to be free, but they do want to connect, fuse, recombine. They want to reinvent themselves by… — Steven Johnson Borders Copy Share Image
“The second analog-era mechanism that encourages serendipity involves the physical limitations of the print newspaper, which forces you to pass by a… — Steven Johnson Journalism Copy Share Image
What I'm saying is individuals have better ideas if they're connected to rich, diverse networks of other individuals. If you put yourself… — Steven Johnson Connected Copy Share Image
It may not be possible to 'win the future,' in President Obama's words, but if we're going to encourage more innovation, it's… — Steven Johnson Enough Copy Share Image
“Those early spectacles were called roidi da ogli, meaning “disks for the eyes.” Thanks to their resemblance to lentil beans—lentes in Latin—the… — Steven Johnson Spectacles Copy Share Image
We are strangely biased, as individuals and media institutions, to focus on big sudden changes, whether good or bad - amazing breakthroughs,… — Steven Johnson Biased Copy Share Image
Some great minds become great by turning the rubble of an exploded paradigm into something consistent and meaningful. Others become great by… — Steven Johnson Consistent Copy Share Image
Organizations that empower folks further down the chain or try to get rid of the big hierarchal chains and allow decision making… — Steven Johnson Adaptive Copy Share Image
What you end up seeing when you look at history is that people who have been good at pushing the boundaries of… — Steven Johnson Boundaries Copy Share Image
Legendary innovators like Franklin, Snow, and Darwin all possess some common intellectual qualities—a certain quickness of mind, unbounded curiosity—but they also share… — Steven Johnson Attributes Copy Share Image
“Building by building, Chicago was lifted by an army of men with jackscrews. As the jackscrews raised the buildings inch by inch,… — Steven Johnson Architecture Copy Share Image
![“And so it was with the Broad Street well that the decision to remove the pump handle turned out to be more significant than the short-term effects of that decision [Cholera outbreak abated.] . . . .But the pump handle stands for more than that local redemption. It marks a turning point in the…” quote by Steven Johnson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/2b2/steven-johnson-9014_first-time_and-so-it-was-with-the-broad-street-well_2967220.jpg)
