Quotes About Power

The feminine genes that made it to the next generation belonged to women who were submissive caretakers. Women who spent to much time fighting for power did not leave any of those powerful genes for future generations.

Of all human collective activities, the one most difficult to organise is violence.

We are suddenly showing unprecedented interest in the fate of so-called lower life forms, perhaps because we are about to become one. If and when computer programs attain superhuman intelligence and unprecedented power, should we begin valuing these programs more than we value humans? Would it be okay, for example, for an artificial intelligence to exploit humans and even kill them to further its own needs and desires? If it should never be allowed to do that, despite its superior intelligence

If you believe in an absolute truth revealed by a transcendent power, you cannot allow yourself to admit any error, for that would nullify your whole story. But if you believe in a quest for truth by fallible humans, admitting blunders is part of the game.

History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods…

A single priest often does the work of a hundred soldiers – far more cheaply and effectively.

As a species, humans prefer power to truth.

Alamogordo, 16 July 1945, 05:29:53. Eight seconds after the first atomic bomb was detonated. The nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer, upon seeing the explosion, quoted from the Bhagavad Gita: 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

History isn't a single narrative, but thousands of alternative narratives. Whenever we choose to tell one, we are also choosing to silence others.

Sapiens by contrast is more like a banana republic dictator. Having so recently been one of the underdogs of the savannah, we are full of fears and anxieties over our position, which makes us doubly cruel and dangerous. Many historical calamities, from deadly wars to ecological catastrophes, have resulted from this over-hasty jump.

Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens have thus been living in a dual reality. On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations. As time went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of rivers, trees and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as the United States and Google. Bypassing

Homo sapiens is a post-truth species, whose power depends on creating and believing fictions.

During the Agricultural Revolution humankind silenced animals and plants, and turned the animist grand opera into a dialogue between man and gods. During the Scientific Revolution humankind silenced the gods too.

An empire that cannot sustain a blow and remain standing is not really an empire. Yet

Thomas Jefferson no hizo al Estado responsable de la felicidad de sus ciudadanos. En cambio, solo buscó limitar el poder del Estado. La idea era reservar para los individuos una esfera privada de elección, libre de la supervisión estatal.

los abogados modernos son, en realidad, poderosos hechiceros. La principal diferencia entre ellos y los chamanes tribales es que los abogados modernos cuentan relatos mucho más extraños. La

The single most remarkable and defining moment of the past 500 years came at 05:29:45 on 16 July 1945. At that precise second, American scientists detonated the first atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico. From that point onward, humankind had the capability not only to change the course of history, but to end it.

Chad could put a solar panel on every roof in the country and yet become a barren desert due to the irresponsible environmental policies of distant foreigners. Even powerful nations such as China and Japan are not ecologically sovereign. To protect Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo from destructive floods and typhoons, the Chinese and Japanese will have to persuade the Russian and American governments to abandon their "business as usual" approach.

Today most of us speak, think and dream in imperial languages that were forced upon our ancestors by the sword.

Those living in palaces have always had different agendas to those living in shacks, and that is unlikely to change in the twenty-first century.

During the Agricultural Revolution humankind silenced animals and plants, and turned the animist grand opera into a dialogue between man and gods. During the Scientific Revolution humankind silenced the gods too. The world was now a one-man show. Humankind stood alone on an empty stage, talking to itself, negotiating with no one and acquiring enormous powers without any obligations.

Russia has been following the schoolyard-bully principle: pick on the weakest kid, and don't beat him up too much, lest the teacher intervene.

In the twenty-first century fiction might thereby become the most potent force on earth, surpassing even wayward asteroids and natural selection.

Biological knowledge multiplied by Computing power multiplied by Data equals Ability to Hack Humans.