The point is … that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
Greed is right, greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, [for] knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind.
— Oliver Stone (1946), Wall Street, 1987.
Jimmy Carter (1924):
We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization. …
We cast this message into the cosmos. …
This is a present from a small distant world …
We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. …
We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations.
This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.
(The Golden Record, Voyager Spacecraft, 1977)
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857 – 1935):
Earth is the cradle of humanity.
But one cannot live in the cradle forever.
(1903)
Herbert Wells (1866 – 1946):
A day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars.
(The Discovery of the Future, Nature, 65:326, 1902)
Georges Lemaître (1894 – 1966):
Standing on a cooled cinder, we see that slow fading of the suns, and we try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds.
Ralph Emerson (1803 – 82):
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!
(Nature, Chapter 1, 1836)
Mark Alfano [Associate Professor of Philosophy, Macquarie University]:
[We] find that people who are open-minded, who scoreare simultaneously better at:
- low on intellectual arrogance, and
- high on a disposition to criticize their own in-groups,
(Trust and scepticism in a post-truth world, ABC The Philosopher's Zone, 30 September 2022)
- rejecting unwarranted conspiracy theories, [eg about COVID, and]
- accepting true, or warranted, conspiracy theories, like that Osama Bin Laden plotted 9/11.
The Taiwan War
Measuring What Matters
Goofy was a communist
Capitalism vs Democracy
Innoculation
Grassroots Democracy
Theory of mind in birds
Surviving the police
Dress Code Violation
Ghost in the Machine
