"As for the little green men... they don't want us to know about them, so they refrain from making contact... then they do silly aerobatics displays within radar range of military bases... with their exterior lights on... if that's extraterrestrial intelligence, I'm not sure I want to know what extraterrestrial stupidity looks like."
-- Russell Wallace
"Characterizing male status-seeking as egotistical is like characterizing bonobo promiscuity as unchaste."
-- Liza May
"Introducing a technology is not a neutral act--it is profoundly revolutionary. If you present a new technology to the world you are effectively legislating a change in the way we all live. You are changing society, not some vague democratic process. The individuals who are driven to use that technology by the disparities of wealth and power it creates do not have a real choice in the matter. So the idea that we are giving people more freedom by developing technologies and then simply making them available is a dangerous illusion."
-- Karl Schroeder
"Hans Riesel held a Mersenne record for 14 days in the 50's, calculated using the first Swedish computer. My old highschool computing teacher had worked as a student on the system and had managed to crush his foot when a byte fell out of its rack and onto him."
-- Anders Sandberg
"Gentlemen, I do not mind being contradicted, and I am unperturbed when I am attacked, but I confess I have slight misgivings when I hear myself being explained."
-- Lord Balfour, to the English Parliament
What Nominull said. Let us also not forget that it's not just the wealthy and the powerful that choose to use new technology (availability is another issue that I'd think should be squarely in economics court. May be Prof. Robin Hanson already has some posts on that?). Often times, it's the people who are generally enterprising that adopt new technologies because they see efficiency gains in doing so.
I've been reading Elizer's posts for about 2 months now and I am completely hooked! I can't find enough time to catch up (although I work in IT and I do have free time ;-)