The Salmon of Doubt
By Douglas Adams




Page 115

"We are stuck with technology when what we really want is stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual."

Page 121

"Time Travel? I believe there are people travelling there and people travelling back from the future and interfering with our lives on a daily basis. The evidence is all around us. I'm talking about how every time we make an insurance claim we discover that somehow mysteriously the exact thing we're claiming for is now precisely excluded from our policy."

Page 125

"Present somebody with a questionnaire clipboard, and they lie. A friend of mine once had a job preparing a questionnaire for people to fill in on the Web. He said the information they got back was enormously heartening about the state of the world. For instance, did you know that almost 90 percent of the population are CEOs of their own companies and earn over a million dollars a year?"

Page 129

Tautology

"That which survives, survives."

This phrase is tautological and means nothing. No information has gone into it, no consequence has come out of it.

"Anything that happens happens, anything that in happening causes something else to happen causes something else to happen, and anything that in happening causes itself to happen again, happens again."

There is no information input required, no consequential output, and everything is self-evident. This is a tautology.

"People will be people" is another example of a tautological phrase.

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