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  "title": "The Jagged Orbit",
  "slug": "the-jagged-orbit",
  "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner/the-jagged-orbit",
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  "author": {
    "name": "John Brunner",
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      "slug": "western-culture-is-undergoing",
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      "text": "Western culture is undergoing a process of transition from guilt-oriented, with a conscience, to shame-oriented, with a morbid fear of being found out.",
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      "slug": "but-what-brought",
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      "text": "“But what brought about this ‘decline of civilization’?” Conroy demanded. “It can’t just have been the introduction of these weapons you’ve been talking about, this System C equipment.”\n\n“The maximization of arms sales implied the maximization of inter-human hostility,” Madison/Gottschalk said. “All the existing sources of this phenomenon were tapped, and those proving particularly fruitful were patriotism, parochialism, xenophobia, ochlophobia, racial, religious and linguistic differences, and the so-called ‘gulf between the generations.’ It was found readily feasible to emphasize these pre-existent attitudes to the point where a System C integrated weaponry unit was so desirable among the informed populace that the possibility of another individual acquiring this virtually indestructible equipment sufficed to provoke an attack on him before he purchased one.”",
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      "text": "She was on a pediflow, and—like so many of the devices which twenty-first century ingenuity had made available to mankind—that was something which seemed to have been destined for an altogether more rational species than the one she belonged to.",
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      "text": "Well-intentioned men don’t run for office any more! They have too much sense to expose themselves to assassination, and only delusible idiots like our current chief executive can be persuaded to don the robes of high office. Nice guys don’t crave power.",
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      "slug": "its-common-platitude",
      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner/the-jagged-orbit/its-common-platitude",
      "text": "It’s common platitude that knowledge is neutral but every now and then it would be useful if it were on your side rather than theirs.",
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      "slug": "even-though-he-wasnt",
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      "text": "Even though he wasn’t entirely convinced of the truth of what he was saying, the fact of saying it was curiously reassuring to his mind.",
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      "slug": "what-people-want",
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      "text": "What people want, mainly, is to be told by some plausible authority that what they are already doing is right. I don’t know know of a quicker way to become unpopular than to disagree.",
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      "slug": "if-media-is-the",
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      "text": "If “media” is the plural of “medium” the question is: how many of them are fraudulent?",
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      "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-brunner/the-jagged-orbit/whats-happened-to-us-that",
      "text": "What’s happened to us that we take killings for granted among our children? Don’t give me that hogwash about students at college having to be treated as adults—there’s nothing adult about playing with guns and grenades!",
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      "text": "It’s okay to be a responsible member of society if only you know what you’re going to be held responsible for.",
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