“We owe everything we are to others—the language we speak and think in, our habits and opinions, even the style in which we carry out gestures of rebellion. As humans we are fragile biological entities who will die unless we take care of each other” David Graeber
As with all forms of confidence, the confidence that one’s life is one’s own is not a natural fact of human psychology but a response to certain social, material, and ideological features of an individual’s surround.
Lowry Pressly, from the book The Right to Oblivion
Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure. If you ask your boss for leave of absence from the office on some legitimate occasion, his love of power will derive more satisfaction from a refusal than from a consent. If you require a building permit, the petty official concerned will obviously get more pleasure from saying «No» than from saying «Yes». It is this sort of thing which makes the love of power such a dangerous motive.
Bertrand Russell, Nobel Prize Lecture https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1950/russell/lecture/
“The tears of the poor stir the poets. They don’t move the poets of the living room, but they do move the poet of the garbage dump, this idealist of the favela, a spectator who sees and notes the tragedies that the politicians inflict on the people.”
Carolina Maria de Jesus
People try to rub out things, but they cannot. Things are not so easy. What has passed between us is too much to be passed over in a sentence. We need to talk, to open our hearts to one another, examine them, and then together plan the future we want.
—Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, A Grain of Wheat
While on transit with friends, one asked me a question. He asked “Have I become an alcoholic?” It was a curious question which deserves a little background. We were tired and he had had a few cans of beer for this question to come up. Here we were, seated waiting for our means to get back home to roll in and he asks this question.
The first thing that came to mind was whether he is asking for permission to drink more or he has really seen an issue (self diagnose). I almost said “Bro, get some more if you want to” plus maybe add that “you don’t need anyone’s permission to drink”. Instead I said “If you are asking that question then maybe you have a problem and its for you to really gauge if you are drinking too much but I figure you are just feeling that because we are just about to get on a long ride back home and you want to pass time”. Long story short, he didn’t get more beers.
Why did this come up while I was on my morning walk? Clearly, it’s because I listen to podcasts on my 1.5 hours walks. I was listening to the 25th episode of No Stupid Questions podcast (https://freakonomics.com/podcast/is-hedonism-better-than-self-control-nsq-ep-25/) in which Angela Duckworth mentions Harry Frankfurt and his philosophy around freedom of will. Simple put the “want and want to want”. She makes a reference to ice cream which can be replaced with beer for our case. May be? Here are her words based on the episode’s transcript
But I think the real issue is this: What do you want, and what do you want to want? As the great philosopher Harry Frankfurt said, “The heart of free will is to line up your wants — you want an ice cream cone — and your want to wants. If you want the ice cream cone and you want to want the ice cream cone, eat the goddamn ice cream cone. If you want the ice cream cone and you don’t want to want the ice cream cone, that’s a different story.”
My friend had to interrogate his want to want a beer and see if it has become an issue. Heh!
I find this from Chomsky really helpful when struggling to think how change can come. The how is often hard to articulate but the principles are there and are really what matters.
Well, I suppose I don’t feel that in order to work hard for social change you need to be able to spell out a plan for a future society in any kind of detail. What I feel should drive a person to work for change are certain principles you’d like to see achieved. Now, you may not know in detail-and I don’t think that any of us do know in detail-how those principles can best be realized at this point in complex systems like human societies. But I don’t really see why that should make any difference: what you try to do is advance the principles.
For all the promise and dangers of AI, computers plainly can’t think. To think is to resist – something no machine does
— Read on aeon.co/essays/can-computers-think-no-they-cant-actually-do-anything
Andy Greenberg is a cyber security writer for WIRED magazine, in his book Sandworm he tracks cyber attacks against Ukraine. Attacks against Maersk (the shipping company), the power grid, hospitals, banking sector & postal office. The author reaches the conclusion that it’s all done by Russia with the aim on instilling fear among the Ukraine citizens.
The author makes a case that there needs to be a line drawn i.e cyber attacks shouldn’t affect the citizens life and he also wanted America to lead the efforts. USA only put out a response when one of the attacks stills to their hospitals.
As government officials (in the Obama & Trump administration) made it clear to the author that unless there is direct attack on America, the USA shouldn’t respond.
He concludes that we are all in a world without borders when it comes to cyber space and will face the same challenges Ukraine faces.
I am not a fan of biographies (i think they are usually too curated) but i wanted to get a glimpse into how one forms strong views on different subjects.
The author takes us through an ancestral lineage that has produced a lot of missionaries before Derik Parfit is born. The parents spent time in China providing medical assistance & services to underserved communities. His family history is rich in intellectual and humanitarian pursuits shaped Parfit’s life. His own life is dedicated to pursuing ethical questions. Parfit spent his time so engaged in philosophical debates, teaching and commenting on his students’ work. There were also a lot of vodka bottles.
Interestingly he spent a lot of time traveling for photography. He is equally spent a lot of money, he would spend a lot of time post processing the photos. You can look at some photos here https://express.adobe.com/page/Tz8IkRg1fCA8Y/ His photographs are characterized by their meticulous composition, often taken during dawn or dusk to utilize the “near-horizontal golden rays” of light. When editing he removed elements he deemed distracting, such as people, vehicles, and scaffolding, to present an idealized version of reality. This practice reflected his philosophical pursuit of timeless truths and perfection. This obsession is echoed in how he spent a lot of time getting his books published.
For me, my key takeaway was how the authored ended the book. We can be obsessed with narrow pursuits but at a certain cost. The question is will the gamble pay off.
britone mwasaru