Michael Harris Quotes & Sayings

Until that moment, Canada had been a secular and progressive nation that believed in transfer payments to better distribute the country's wealth, the Westminster model of governance, a national medicare program, a peacekeeping role for the armed forces, an arm's-length public service, the separation of church and state, and solid support for the United Nations. Stephen Harper believed in none of these things. — Michael Harris

Despite the universality of this change, which we're all buffeted by, there is a single, seemingly small change that I'll be most sorry about. It will sound meaningless, but: One doesn't see teenagers staring into space anymore. Gone is the idle mind of the adolescent. — Michael Harris

The real trouble with Wikipedia lies exactly where its strength lies: its democratic impulse. In an arena where everyone's version of the facts is equally valid, and the opinions of specialists become marginalized, corporate and politicized interests are potentially empowered. — Michael Harris

to Picasso, computers were useless since "they can only give you answers — Michael Harris

As we embrace a technology's gifts, we usually fail to consider what they ask from us in return - the subtle, hardly noticeable payments we make in exchange for their marvelous service. We don't notice, for example, that the gaps in our schedules have disappeared because we're too busy delighting in the amusements that fill them. We forget the games that childhood boredom forged because boredom itself has been outlawed. Why would we bother to register the end of solitude, of ignorance, of lack? Why would we care that an absence has disappeared? — Michael Harris

terrorism is adamant. Fight against requires endurance, specific Counter-terrorism, Intelligence and swift operation — Michael Harris

The word"boundaries" often relates directly to the word fear. In other words, we often limit ourselves from going beyond the"norm" because we think of it as being"risky" or because we're afraid of failure. It's easy to settle for average or normal. That's why the majority of us do! — Michael Harris

Leaderships about transforming lives and making a difference through innovation and purpose, grounded in values and integrity — Michael Harris

we aren't lonely because we are alone; we are lonely because we have failed in our solitude. — Michael Harris

Experiment. Live a little. And remember that the fear of absence is the surest sign that absence is direly needed. — Michael Harris

Men at the Proving Ground were giving their lives for their country. Without knowing they were doing it. The — Michael Harris

It's hard to remember what we loved about absence; we never ask for our deprivation back. — Michael Harris

When we think we're multitasking," says Gentile, "we're actually multiswitching. That is what the brain is very good at doing - quickly diverting its attention from one place to the next. We think we're being productive because we are, indeed, being busy. But in reality we're simply giving ourselves extra work." A — Michael Harris

The brightest moments of human discovery are those unplanned and random instants when you thumb through a strange book in a foreign library or talk auto maintenance with a neuroanatomist. We need our searches to include cross-wiring and dumb accidents, too, not just algorithmic surety. — Michael Harris

If you believe that some opinions are in fact better than others, then you, too, are an elitist of sorts. — Michael Harris

The origin of innovation and entrepreneurship is a creative mindset — Michael Harris

Never forget that you live in an ecosystem designed to disrupt you and it will take you for a ride if you let it. — Michael Harris

Arguably, the larger and more productive world that our technologies deliver is simultaneously an impoverished version of the older one - a version that rejects direct experience and therefore rejects an earlier conception of reality that had its own value. We see more, yet our vision is blurred; we feel more things, yet we are numbed. — Michael Harris

Perhaps we now need to engineer scarcity in our communications, in our interactions, and in the things we consume. Otherwise our lives become like a Morse code transmission that's lacking breaks - a swarm of noise blanketing the valuable data beneath. — Michael Harris

But nothing could stand before our lads, they routed them from the Meadow, & all afterwards was a mere Chace, so far I saw."1 - James Parker, September 11, 1777 — Michael Harris

Every technology will alienate you from some part of your life. That is its job. Your job is to notice. First notice the difference. And then, every time, choose. — Michael Harris

Here's how a filter bubble works: Since 2009, Google has been anticipating the search results that you'd personally find most interesting and has been promoting those results each time you search, exposing you to a narrower and narrower vision of the universe. In 2013, Google announced that Google Maps would do the same, making it easier to find things Google thinks you'd like and harder to find things you haven't encountered before. Facebook follows suit, presenting a curated view of your "friends'" activities in your feed. Eventually, the information you're dealing with absolutely feels more personalized; it confirms your beliefs, your biases, your experiences. And it does this to the detriment of your personal evolution. Personalization - the glorification of your own taste, your own opinion - can be deadly to real learning. Only — Michael Harris

The more you can learn and the more knowledge you can retain, the more effective you'll become at what it is you choose to do. — Michael Harris

When we go online, we commit ourselves to the care of online mechanisms. Digital Band-Aids for digital wounds. We feed ourselves into machines, hoping some algorithm will digest the mess that is our experience into something legible, something more meaningful than the "bag of associations" we fear we are. — Michael Harris

Human memory was never meant to call up all things, after all, but rather to explore the richness of exclusion, of absence. It creates a meaningful, contextualized, curated assemblage particular to the brain's singular experience and habits. Valuable memories, like great music, are as much about the things that drop away - the rests - as they are about what stays and sounds. — Michael Harris

The psychologist Geoffrey Miller, when pondering why we haven't come across any alien species as yet, decided that they were probably all addicted to video games and are thus brought to an extreme state of apathy - the exploratory opposite of the heroes in Star Trek who spend all their time seeking out "new life and new civilizations." The — Michael Harris

When we think we're multitasking we're actually multiswitching. That is what the brain is very good at doing - quickly diverting its attention from one place to the next. We think we're being productive. We are, indeed, being busy. But in reality we're simply giving ourselves extra work. — Michael Harris

if salespeople want to sell value and differentiate their product, they have to deliver insight that will reframe the buying vision so buyers end up with the solution that helps them overcome their challenges and achieve their goals. — Michael Harris

Our generation seems to be facing a crisis of critique. We want to know what's best, we want to know where to eat and what movie to see, but we've begun to forget that real opinion, real critique, must always come out of an absence of voices - from a singular subjective viewpoint. You — Michael Harris

If solitude feels painful, it's only because we don't know how to be alone. — Michael Harris

When we grip our phones and tablets, we're holding the kind of information resource that governments would have killed for just a generation ago. And is it that experience of everyday information miracles, perhaps, that makes us all feel as though our own opinions are so worth sharing? After all, aren't we - in an abstracted sense, at least - just as smart as everyone else in the room, as long as we're sharing the same Wi-Fi connection? And therefore (goes the bullish leap in thinking) aren't my opinions just as worthy of trumpeting? — Michael Harris

We are now becoming, by Blackmore's estimation, teme machines - servants to the evolution of our own technologies. — Michael Harris

Without absence in our lives, we risk fooling ourselves into believing that things (a message from a lover, the performance of a song, the face of a human body) matter less. De — Michael Harris

we have in this brief historical moment, this moment in between two modes of being, a very rare opportunity. For those of us who have lived both with and without the vast, crowded connectivity the Internet provides, these are the few days when we can still notice the difference between Before and After. — Michael Harris

To be truly stylish (as opposed to merely "in style", which is the opposite) is to be unabashedly one's self, without reference to the fashions and demands of a sweltering crowd. — Michael Harris

I propose going up the Delaware, In order to be nearer this place than I should be by taking The course of the Chesapeake which I once intended."1 - William Howe, July 16, 1777 — Michael Harris