Ruth Margalit: There's a word in Hebrew -- malkosh -- that means "last rain." It's a word that only means something in places like Israel, where there's a clear distinction between winter and the long, dry stretch of summer. It's a word, too, that can only be applied in retrospect. When it's raining, you have no way of knowing that the falling drops would be the last ones of the year. But then time goes by, the clouds clear, and you realize that that rain shower was the one.
Bruce Sterling: The wolf's not at the door, the wolf's in the living room.
Joseph Stiglitz, via Felix Salmon: Just because somebody is winning and somebody else is losing doesn't mean that society as a whole is benefiting in any way.
Paul Ganley and Ben Allgrove, via Alexis Madrigal: It is important to appreciate that the notion that we currently have a "neutral" Internet is simply false.
Ian Bogost: To fear a "pay to play" Internet because it will be less hospitable to competition and innovation is not just to board a ship that's already sailed, but to prepay your cruise vacation down the river Styx. So as you proceed with your protests, I wonder if you might also ask, quietly, to yourself even, what new growth might erupt if we let the Internet as we know it burn. Shouldn't we at least ponder the question? Perhaps we'd be better off tolerating the venial regret of having lost something than suffering the mortal regret of enduring it.
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