The merger of infotech and biotech might soon push billions of humans out of the job market and undermine both liberty and equality. (Location 197)
Democracy is based on Abraham Lincoln’s principle that “you can fool all the people some of the time, and some people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” (Location 372)
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, for every job lost to a machine at least one new job was created, and the average standard of living has increased dramatically. (Location 513)
replacing all human drivers by computers is expected to reduce deaths and injuries on the road by about 90 percent. (Location 587)
b×c×d = ahh! Biological knowledge multiplied by Computing power multiplied by Data equals Ability to Hack Humans. (Location 973)
In the big battle between health and privacy, health is likely to win hands down. (Location 1449)
For patriotism isn’t about hating foreigners. Patriotism is about taking care of your compatriots. (Location 2159)
accept foreign workers on a temporary basis because they want to benefit from the foreigners’ energy, talents, and cheap labor. But the countries then refuse to legalize the status of these people, saying that they don’t want immigration. (Location 2399)
A terrorist is like a gambler who is holding a particularly bad hand and tries to convince his rivals to reshuffle the cards. He cannot lose anything, and he could win everything. (Location 2698)
One potential remedy for human stupidity is a dose of humility. National, religious, and cultural tensions are made worse by the grandiose feeling that my nation, my religion, and my culture are the most important in the world—and therefore my interests should come before the interests of anyone else, or of humankind as a whole. How can we make nations, religions, and cultures a bit more realistic and modest about their true place in the world? (Location 2955)
Beloved-of-the-Gods, the king who regards everyone with affection, honors both ascetics and the householders of all religions…and values that there should be growth in the essentials of all religions. Growth in essentials can be done in different ways, but all of them have as their root restraint in speech, that is, not praising one’s own religion, or condemning the religion of others without good cause….Whoever praises his own religion, due to excessive devotion, and condemns others with the thought “Let me glorify my own religion,” only harms his own religion. Therefore contact between religions is good. One should listen to and respect the doctrines professed by others. Beloved-of-the-Gods, the king who regards everyone with affection, desires that all should be well learned in the good doctrines of other religions. (Location 3133)
Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question. (Location 3373)
Most of our views are shaped by communal groupthink rather than individual rationality, and we hold on to these views due to group loyalty. Bombarding people with facts and exposing their individual ignorance is likely to backfire. Most people don’t like too many facts, and they certainly don’t like to feel stupid. (Location 3511)
Most political chiefs and business moguls are forever on the run. Yet if you want to go deeply into any subject, you need a lot of time, and in particular you need the privilege of wasting time. (Location 3536)
The system is structured in such a way that those who make no effort to know can remain in blissful ignorance, and those who do make an effort will find it very difficult to discover the truth. (Location 3595)
Many were moved by her story and opened their hearts and purses. However, when in addition to Rokia’s personal story the researchers also presented people with statistics about the broader problem of poverty in Africa, respondents suddenly became less willing to help. (Location 3658)
Truth and power can travel together only so far. Sooner or later they go their separate paths. If you want power, at some point you will have to spread fictions. If you want to know the truth about the world, at some point you will have to renounce power. (Location 3856)
As a species, humans prefer power to truth. (Location 3862)
