Quotes About Consequences

Böse Absichten reisen nicht so weit wie gute. (S.37, Leuchtturmwärter)

Answer this for me. In order to protect something, your loved ones end up shedding blood. Is it worth it? Is it really the right thing to do? Is it necessary? Please. Answer me. (Sarasa)

We cannot explain the choices that history makes, but we can say something very important about them: history's choices are not made for the benefit of humans.

We cannot explain the choices that history makes, but we can say something very important about them: history's choices are not made for the benefit of humans. There is absolutely no proof that human well-being inevitably improves as history rolls along.

Were the Australian extinction an isolated event, we could grant humans the benefit of the doubt. But the historical record makes Homo sapiens look like an ecological serial killer.

If the future of humanity is decided in your absence, because you are too busy feeding and clothing your kids, you and they will not be exempt from the consequences.

If we are not careful, we will end up with downgraded humans misusing upgraded computers to wreak havoc on themselves and on the world.

Unfortunately, history does not give discounts.

Humans were always far better at inventing tools than using them wisely. It is easier to manipulate a river by building a dam than it is to predict all the complex consequences this will have for the wider ecological system.

We have now run out of time. The decisions we will make in the next few decades will shape the future of life itself, and we can make these decisions based only on our present worldview.

we should be careful not to make real people suffer for the sake of a fiction.

It is one thing to continue smoking despite general statistics that connect smoking with lung cancer. It is a very different thing to continue smoking despite a concrete warning from a biometric sensor that has just detected seventeen cancerous cells in your upper left lung. And if you are willing to defy the sensor, what will you do when the sensor forwards the warning to your insurance agency, your manager, and your mother?

capitalism too began as a very open-minded scientific theory but gradually solidified into a dogma. Many capitalists keep repeating the mantra "free markets and economic growth" irrespective of realities on the ground. No matter what awful consequences occasionally result from modernization, industrialization, or privatization, capitalist true believers dismiss them as mere "growing pains" and promise that everything will be made good through a bit more growth.

How can we act morally when we have no way of knowing all the relevant facts?

even rational leaders frequently end up doing very stupid things.

People were unable to fathom the full consequences of their decisions.

humains ont toujours excellé à inventer des outils, beaucoup moins à en faire un usage avisé. Il est plus facile de manipuler un fleuve en construisant un barrage qu'il ne l'est de prédire toutes les conséquences complexes que cela aura pour le système écologique plus large. De même sera-t-il plus facile de rediriger le flux de nos esprits que d'en deviner l'impact sur notre psychologie personnelle ou nos systèmes sociaux.

Even if war is catastrophic for everyone, no god and no law of nature protect us from human stupidity.

Mucho antes de la revolución industrial, Homo sapiens ostentaba el récord entre todos los organismos por provocar la extinción del mayor número de especies de plantas y animales.

When a single professional makes almost all the decisions, mistakes can be catastrophic.

We cannot explain the choices that history makes, but we can say something very important about them: history's choices are not made for the benefit of humans. There

Perhaps if more people were aware of the First Wave and Second Wave extinctions, they'd be less nonchalant about the Third Wave they are part of.

It is easier to manipulate a river by building a dam across it than it is to predict all the complex consequences this will have for the wider ecological system. Similarly, it will be easier to redirect the flow of our minds than to divine what it will do to our personal psychology or to our social systems.

Technology is never deterministic, and the fact that something can be done does not mean it must be done.