1–20 of 24
Ron complaining that antibiotics put too many grave diggers out of work. The transfer of labor from humans to our inventions is nothing less than the history of civilization. It is inseparable from centuries of rising living standards and improvements in human rights. What a luxury to sit in a climate-controlled room…
Be patient. No matter what. Don’t badmouth: Assign responsibility, not blame. Say nothing of another you wouldn’t say to him. Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are to you. Expand your sense of the possible. Don’t trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change. Expect no more…
THE MAGNA CORTICA ORIGINAL TENETS (DATE UNKNOWN BUT BEFORE BF 80) I. Self knowledge. Sapient beings have the right to know whether they’ve been mentally modified. II. Self-modification. Sapient beings have the right to pursue self-modification. III. Refusing modification. They also have the right to refuse it. IV…
As algorithms push humans out of the job market, wealth and power might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social and political inequality. Alternatively, the algorithms might themselves become the owners. Human law already recognizes…
Ugh. In actual outcomes, voting isn't an expression of your heart, your soul, or even your emotion. The result of a vote isn't "the right thing" or "the thing I love" or "the cure for social ills" or "the perfect solution." It's not a mechanism of protest or a chance to be dramatic, and it's not a "gesture" or a stand…
...change requires more than just speaking out -- it requires listening, as well. In particular, it requires listening to those with whom you disagree, and being prepared to compromise... you need allies in a democracy. That's just the way it is. It can be frustrating and it can be slow. But history teaches us that…
The people who maintain the structures of science, religion, and politics have one thing in common that they don't share with the rest of society. They are responsible for creating a technical language, incomprehensible to the rest of us, whereby we cede to them our right and responsibility to think. They in turn…
The right to life, the right to not have other people prevent oneself from surviving, is a central right, without which all other rights have no meaning. But to realize the right to life we need other rights. Another central right for any humanistic view of human rights is the right to seek happiness. Without it human…
Let us open our hearts to the welfare of all people in our community by respecting the inherent dignity and worth of each person, and realize our differences of race, religion, and party affiliation are merely superficial. Our common humanity unites us all, and may we recognize that through our interdependence we…
LIBRARIES CHANGE LIVES Declaration for the Right to Libraries In the spirit of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we believe that libraries are essential to a democratic society. Every day, in countless communities across our nation and the world, millions of…
Surveillance serves not just as a legal and historical record but as a record of rep: proof that you’ve done what you say you’ve done. You bark, and anyone on the mesh can search to see if you also bite. It’s the foundation of the reputation economy. It’s not just video, of course, but surveillance of all types…
The spirit which animated the reformers did not introduce a real freedom of sentiment. Each religion, in the country in which it prevailed, had no indulgence but for certain opinions. Meanwhile, as the different creeds were opposed to each other, few opinions existed that had not been attacked or supported in some…
Nor am I less persuaded, that you will agree with me in opinion, that there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of Science and Literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of Government receive their impression so…
The art of printing had been applied to so many subjects, books had so rapidly increased, they were so admirably adapted to every taste, every degree of information, and every situation of life, they afforded so easy and frequently so delightful an instruction, they had opened so many doors to truth, which it was…
After ages of error, after wandering in all the mazes of vague and defective theories, writers upon politics and the law of nations at length arrived at the knowledge of the true rights of man, which they deduced from this simple principle: that he is a being endowed with sensation, capable of reasoning upon and…
As to Science, she has never sought to ally herself to civil power. She has never attempted to throw odium or inflict social ruin on any human being. She has never subjected anyone to mental torment, physical torture, least of all to death, for the purpose of upholding or promoting her ideas. She presents herself…
Injustice or oppression in the next street...or any spot inhabited by men was a personal affront to Thomas Addis and his name, from its early alphabetical place, was conspicuous on lists of sponsors of scores of organizations fighting for democracy and against fascism. He worked on more committees than could…
Like most scientists, I don't claim Truth with a capital T, but I am convinced that the manifest successes of science are a sure sign we are doing something right.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of…
...there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of government receive their impression so immediately from the sense of the community as in ours, it is…