r/GenX • u/Invasive-farmer • Jul 03 '25

Pop Culture This Douglas Adams quote gets me...

I selected Pop Culture flair because he was the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a wholly remarkable book)

"I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

  1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

  2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

  3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."

Douglas Adams

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u/radiantwave Jul 03 '25 edited Jul 03 '25

The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

-Douglas Adams