“Every judgement teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous.” 

"It was the religion of Muad'Dib that upset Stilgar most. Why did they make a god of Muad'Dib? Why deify a man known to be flesh?

"Too much knowledge never makes for simple decisions"

 "When your actions describe a stystem of evil consequences, you should be judged by those consequences and not by those explanations."

"A sophisicated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the human's way of life changes. Old values change, become linked to the landscape with its plants and animals. This new existence requires a working knowledge of those multiple and cross-linked events usually referred to as nature. It requires  ameasure of respect for the inertial power within such natural systems. When a human gains this working knowledge and respect, that is called 'being primitive'. The converse, of course, is equally true: the primitive can become sophisicated, but not without accepting dreadful psychological damage."

"A large populace held in check by a small but powerful force is quite a common situation in our universe. And we know the conditions wherein this large populace may turn upon its keepers - One: When they find a leader. This is the most volatile threat to the powerful; they must retain control of leaders. Two: When the populace recognizes its chains. Keep the populace blind and unquestioning. Three: When the populace perceives a hope of escape from bondage. They must never even beleive that escape is possible!"

"Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualites of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders."

"Each planet has it own period, and each life likewise."

"In all major socializing forces you will find an underlying movement to gain and maintain power through the use of words....A goverened populace must be conditioned to accept word-power as actual things, to confuse the symoblized system with the tangible universe.  In the maintenance of such a power structure, certain symbols are kept out of reach of common understanding."

"A memory was not enough...unless its use was known and its value revealed to judgement."

"The generalist looks outwards; he looks for living principles, knowling full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the characteristics of change itself that the generalist must look."

"Irony often masks the inability to think beyond one's assumptions."

"As with all religions, your institution moves toward cowardice, mediocrity, inertia and self satisfaction...Is your religion real when it costs you nothing and carries no risk? Is your religion real when you fatten upon it? Is your religion real when you commit atrocities in its name? Whence comes your downward degeneration from the original revelation?"

"To exist is to stand out, away from the background. You aren't really thinking or really ecisting uneless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence."

"Humans tend to think of everything in a sequential, world-orientated framework. This mental trap produced very short-term concepts of effectiveness and consequences, a condition of constant, unplanned response to crises."

"To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty."

"Every question, every problem, doesn't have a single correct answer. One must permit diversity. A monolith is unstable. Why do you demand a correct statement from me?"

"Peace demands solutions, but we never reach living solutions; we only work toward them. A fixed solution is, by definition, a dead solution. The trouble with peace is that it tends to punish mistakes instead of rewarding brilliance." 

"Men must want to do things out of their own innermost drives. People, not commercial organizations or chains of command, are what make great civilizations work. Every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, supress their urge to greatness - they cannot work and their civilization collapses."

"Limits of survival are set by climate, these long drifts of change, which a generation may fail to notice. And it is the extremes of climate which set the pattern. Lonely, finite humans may observe climatic provinces, fluctuations of annual weather and may occasionally observe such things as 'This is a colder year that I've ever known'/ Such things are sensible. But humans are seldom alerted to the shifting average through a great span od years. And it is precisely in this alerting that humans leanr how to survive on any planet. The must learn climate."

[In reference to the Butlerian Jihad and computer technology] "The assumption that a whole system can be made to work better through an assualt on its concious elements betrays a dangerous ignorance. This has often been the ignorant approach of those who call themselves scientists and technologists."

A person [of any race] who..." fails to consider the role that whiteness and the racial privilege attached to it have played… in universalizing white feminist concerns, agendas, and beliefs as being those of all feminists."

• I particuarly loved the numerous case studies made within British colonialism of India
• The explanation of compulsorary sexuality and comparison to eastern countries' cultures
• The entire chapter on FGM and 'honour killings'
• Emphasising Nancy Fraser, that redistribution is more important and impactful that recognition
• We need sisterhood and solidarity, not exploitation of intimate spaces for individualistic gain

• Class anylases. Zakaria absolutely does perform class anayses throughout. She looks at warfare, white women becoming the oppressor of 'others' in order achieve dominance parity with white men, levels of poverty and access to opportunities, capitalism affecting women through compulsorary sexuality and consumerism etc. But for me the clarity of thought came late in the book and seemed secondary. The class system and capitalism is the generating force behind these things, I strongly believe it should be identified clearly as the primary oppressing structure from which all others are interconnected upon, included white feminism. "Individualism in a very crucial sense is a building block of capitalism". (Produce women as economic producers and consumers, capitalists try to depoliticise as much as possible, and push into meaningless competition instead of solidarity), this should have been indentified clearly in the introduction, not stated 90% of the way through.

• Gayatri Spivak's subaltern essay - a landmark writing I haven't read
• Rebellion rather than resilience is recognised in white feminism
• 'Sultana's dream' - Indian separatism feminist fiction 
• The origins of the definition of 'Empowerment'
• Gita Sen - notable Indian feminist scholar
• 'Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an' - Asma Barlas
• The Hindu legal system before British colonialism/imperialism 
• Doctrine of qisas in Sharia (Islamic) law
• 'Choice feminism' actually gives me pause for thought. I had never considered the negative implications before. I'm still not sure I fully understand the argument againist it, so I will reread the chapter. I wish Zakaria had actually given examples of which ones (choices) we should critique in order to champion POC. From inference, perhaps challenging centering sex positive capitalism?

"Documentation of experience is also valuable as an affirmation of humanity, solidarity, and collective experience. Which are important kinds of self care for women or colour and other marginalised women"

"It is not enough for alternative narratives for women of colour simply to exist, they must actually alter the content and course of the movement for gender parity. And before this can happen, white women must reckon with just how much white privilege has influenced feminist movements and continues to influence the agenda of Feminism today"

"Part of the problem is... the universal authoritative voice, usually white make subjectivity masquerading as non racial, non gendered, objectivity, is merely transferred to those who but for gender, share many if the same cultural economic and social characteristics. In other words, white women take on the voices of white men and that is considered progress".

"It is still so tempting for white women to interpret their own assent as a matter of pure mertit and their own quest for parity the most urgent priority."

"It is most often easier to inhabit the systems that we find ourselves in than to dismantle them due to their inequity"

"I cannot hide my anger to spare you guilt or hurt feelings... It trivialises our efforts....Guilt is not a response to anger, it is a response to ones own actions or lack of action"

"The change that we need, that feminism needs, is transformational change. The analysis of how and where to make that change must be intersectional. Considering race and class and gender, and the redress must be redistributive and recognitive." 

"White feminists must accept that true solidarity, where all races if women interact at a level of parity, means accomodating and valuing many different kinds of knowledge and expertise first and foremost the kind that comes from lived experience. Accomplishing equality will require lifting up woken who are not slick with jargon rhetoric and venerating their contributions as much as those who know how to package themselves appealingly". 

"To stand for something inherently means that some will choose not to stand with you. This is essential for the Constitution of a movement. Not a harbinger of its inadequacy."

"Without community, there is no liberation...but community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist." - Audre Lorde 

• Percipi - 2.5 ⭐
• Cirrostratus - 2.5 ⭐
• Scarecrow - 2 ⭐
• Cosmogramma - 2.5 ⭐
• Buck - 3 ⭐
• Control - 4.25 ⭐ 
• You meets you- 2.75 ⭐
• Seed - 4 ⭐ 
• Dark Matters - 3.5 ⭐
• Nocturne - 2 ⭐
• Nommo - 2.5 ⭐ repeat mating story like buck 
• The Sankofa Principle 2.5 ⭐
• Link - 2 ⭐
• The difference between me and you - 3 ⭐
• Utoma - 3.25 ⭐

txw9394's review:
I enjoy how this series explores insanity in the face of something truly unknowable, but the unknowable here is also apparently unwritable for the author. The descriptions of the central mysteries that surround Area X are so deliberately vague they almost always failed to make me feel anything. Just kind of bummed, because again the premise is fascinating.

ahna's review:
As the conclusion to a trilogy, I expected it to answer the questions around Area X set up by the first two books. While it does answer some, it leaves much wanting, and not in a thought-provoking way. Simply in a disappointing way.

ryanmcweeny's review:
never come close to capturing the brilliance of annihilation. There are some answers but nothing truly satisfying and no new mysteries to excite the imagination.  

• what microwork is.
• how it exploits the 'workers' directly (withholding pay, precarity of work, no employee rights) and indirectly (the tech they assist build oppresses them e.g. drones, facial recognition AI etc.)
• highlights the exascerbation of existing inequalities e.g., of the global south and displaced people
• how microwork gives the companies something more valuable than the completed task at hand, e.g., teaching AI how to recognise a cat in a photo, but meta data on how the task was completed. This is valuable data that the companies can use, reuse, and sell on. 
• implications of microwork changing the traditional workforce, e.g. informal work affects on the relationship of employer vs employee, the wage, and unionising
• A small, but interesting sight into opportunites of ogranisation and an alterative (better) use for microwork e.g., through universal basic services and freedom of labour (per William Morris, and note; not from labour)

"Art must be disturbing, art must ask questions, art must predict the future. If art is just political it becomes like a newspaper, it can be used once and then the next day it becomes yesterday's news. Only layers of meaning can give long life to art. that way society takes what it needs from the work over time."

"Pain is something like a secret door to another state of consciousness. When you reach the door then another side opens."

"Testing the willingness or unwillingness of the audience to participate."

"I felt strongly how war and violence bring people to spiritual emptiness"