Quotes by Jon Ronson

Theres a societal push for conformity in all ways. Theres less tolerance of difference. And so maybe for some people having a label is better. It can confer a sense of hope and direction. (interview with Allen Frances)

I kept remembering something Michael Fertik had said to me at the Village Pub in Woodside. The biggest lie, he said, is The Internet is about you. We like to think of ourselves as people who have choice and taste and personalized content. But the Internet isnt about us. Its about the companies that dominate the data flows of the Internet.

We journalists love writing about eccentrics. We hate writing about impenetrable, boring people. It makes us look bad: the duller the interviewee, the duller the prose. If you want to get away with wielding true, malevolent power, be boring.

A stab had clearly once been made at de-uglifying these public spaces by painting a corridor a jaunty yellow. This was because, it turned out, babies come here to have their brains tested and someone thought the yellow might calm them. But I couldn’t see how. Such was the oppressive ugliness of this building it would have been like sticking a red nose on a cadaver and calling it Ronald McDonald.

Theres definitely evidence that capitalism at its most ruthless rewards psychopathic behavior. When you look at the worst corners of the American health insurance industry or the sub-prime banking market, it really feels like the more psychopathically someone behaves, the more its rewarded.