Quotes from Peter Watts' novel "Blindsight"

While I didn't like the novel, it provided some quotes that made me ponder:

1. "Technology implies belligerence."

2. "space faring extraterrestrials ... if there are any ... they're not just going to be smart. They're going to be mean." "What is Human history, if not an ongoing succession of greater technologies grinding lesser ones beneath their boots?"

3. "tools existed for only one reason: to force the universe into unnatural shapes. They treated nature as an enemy, they were by definition a rebellion against the way things were. Technology is a stunted thing in benign environments, it never thrived in any culture gripped by belief in natural harmony."

4. History "only suggested that those who had stopped no longer struggled for existence. There could be other, more hellish worlds where the best Human technology would crumble, where the environment was still the enemy, where the only survivors were those who fought back with sharper tools and stronger empires. The threats contained in those environments would not be simple ones. Harsh weather and natural disasters either kill you or they don't, and once conquered—or adapted to— they lose their relevance. No, the only environmental factors that continued to matter were those that fought back, that countered new strategies with newer ones, that forced their enemies to scale ever-greater heights just to stay alive. Ultimately, the only enemy that mattered was an intelligent one."

5. "The fact that Rorschach's still growing may be the best reason to leave it alone for a while. We don't have any idea what the mature ... form of this artifact might be. Sure, it hid. Lots of animals take cover from predators without being predators, especially young ones. Sure, it's evasive. Doesn't give us the answers we want. But maybe it doesn't know them, did you consider that? How much luck would
you have interrogating a Human embryo? Adult could be a whole
different animal."

6. "You're thinking about the aliens like they were some
kind of mammal. Something that cares, something that looks after
its investments." "How do you know they aren't?" "Because you can't protect your kids when they're light years away. They're on their own, and it's a big cold dangerous universe so most of them aren't going to make it, eh? The most you can do is crank out millions of kids, take cold comfort in knowing that a few always luck out through random chance."

7. "Humans didn't really fight over skin tone or ideology; those were just handy cues for kin-selection purposes. Ultimately it always came down to bloodlines and limited resources."