• Nature is pretty good at networks, self-organizing systems. By contrast, social systems are top-down and hierarchical, from which we draw the basic assumption that organization and order can only come from centralism.

    Nicholas Negroponte: Nature is pretty good at networks, self-organizing systems. By contrast, social systems are top-down and hierarchical, from which we draw the basic assumption that organization and order can only come from centralism.
    "Online Extra: Q&A With MIT's Nicholas Negroponte". Interview with Stephen Baker, www.bloomberg.com. June 21, 2004.