I’m an optimist. My own fiction, while it has its own dark warnings about pitfalls ahead, depicts the potential of science to improve society by networking human minds. Ramez Naam Read Quote
I’m a computer scientist by training. I’m also the author of three books, all of which endorse the use of biotechnology to improve the human condition. In the most recent of these, ‘The Infinite Resource,’ I talk about the power of innovation to save the world. Ramez Naam Read Quote
I’ve read science fiction my whole life. I never really dreamed that I’d be a published science fiction writer myself, but a short story I started years ago sort of demanded to be turned into a novel. Ramez Naam Read Quote
I have an ‘office,’ technically. I never use it. I work on a couch in my living room, with my laptop on my lap, looking out the windows. I love space and green things. And I’m an incredibly casual person. I slouch. I close the laptop and just lie on the couch for a while if I need to think. I put my feet up on a table while I type. Ramez Naam Read Quote
Some people manage their writing by saying, ‘I need to get 2,000 words written today,’ others by saying, ‘I will write for X hours.’ Not me. I start with a plan for the book, break it down into scenes, and I know what scenes need to get written each day. If the scene takes more words than I thought, so be it. Ramez Naam Read Quote
We’re fortunate enough to live on a planet that’s bathed in thousands of times more energy than we use and that’s stocked with thousands of times more water, raw materials, and even food-growing potential than we need. Ramez Naam Read Quote
On a large scale, people aren’t going to cut back how much they use. That’s a pipe dream. If anything, as the developing world gets richer, the world’s going to consume more – more cars, bigger homes, more energy, more water, more food. Ramez Naam Read Quote
When you’re managing a large number of people, you learn that incentives matter tremendously. You really want people to be rewarded for doing the right thing for the customers and the organization. Ramez Naam Read Quote
Ideas come mostly bottoms-up. They come when you have a free flow of ideas and you have people able to combine multiple ideas into one concept… And you’ve got to have competition, too. You’ve got to say, ‘We’re going to have 10 different ideas, nine of them are going to fail, and the one that does the best is going to move forward.’ Ramez Naam Read Quote
The total amount of energy we use every year – from coal, oil, natural gas, hydro, nuclear, and everything else – is dwarfed by the amount of solar energy hitting the planet each year. Ramez Naam Read Quote
