“The history of modern culture is a history of popular entertainments evolving into art.” Quote by Andrew Hoberek
“If I were to give a prize for the single best idea anybody ever had, I'd give it to Darwin for the idea of natural selection - ahead of Newton, ahead of Einstein - because his idea unites the two most disparate features of our universe: the world of purposeless, meaningless matter and motion, particles jostling on the one side, and the world of meaning and purpose, design on the other.” IfsWorldGivingTwoIdeasMatterPurposeUniverseSidesNaturalDesignFeaturesPrizeMeaninglessSelectionParticlesNewtonNatural Selection Author:Daniel Dennett
“The traditional view of purpose says it comes from on high, from God, from the Creator. Darwin's idea of natural selection makes people uncomfortable because it reverses the direction of tradition. Whereas people used to think of meaning coming from on high and being ordained from the top down, now we have Darwin saying, "No, all of this design can happen, all of this purpose can emerge from the bottom up without any direction at all."” PeopleThinkingIdeasHappensUsedPurposeNaturalViewsDesignTraditionBottomCreatorTraditionalUncomfortableReverseSelectionSaying NoNatural SelectionThink Of MeTop Down Author:Daniel Dennett
“Ideal government would be a very boring job - it would be a matter of organizing a lot of utilities and keeping the wires together and the power plant and all that kind of stuff. It's not a matter of telling people how to live, it's a matter of making it pleasant for them to live. Government should be in the position of distributing food, stuff like that.” PeopleShouldKindMatterGovernmentWould BeTogetherJobsStuffPositionIdealsPlantBoringPleasantWireUtilityPower Plants Author:Grace Slick
“Rap isn't poetry, not least because it involves music and often other elements that aren't words. But the way poets in English use things like rhyme and meter, and the ways these conventions both do and don't apply to rap we try to lay out the rules for rap, in order to understand the techniques that artists like Jay-Z and Kanye employ.” WayTryingUseArtistOrderPoetElementsLaysRapTechniqueConventionsRhymeMeter Author:Andrew Hoberek
“One of my goals as a professor of English is to teach students to recognize and think critically about what makes something art.” ThinkingArtGoalTeachStudentsProfessors Author:Andrew Hoberek
“It might be a good idea to have government totally by the people - that each person takes four or five hours of the week doing some kind of government job - in other words, along with what you do you also help maintain the government so no one person has total control - I might go down to an office for four hours and do whatever I'm capable of doing - writing out receipts for food distribution in a certain area - but it's all actually a monstrous secretarial job and that's all I think it should be.” PeopleThinkingShouldWritingKindPersonsIdeasHelpingGovernmentMightJobsCertainHoursFiveFourWeekOfficeCapableAreasGood IdeasDistributionMonstrousReceiptsGovernment Jobs Author:Grace Slick
“Those who dismiss rappers as vulgar outsiders miss the way that Jay-Z and Kanye embody the American dream: starting from humble beginnings, both rose by dint of hard work and talent to wealth and success. Jay embraces this role, styling himself as much a CEO as an artist, and he and Beyoncé have become, in a significant way, more fully America's first couple than their friends the Obamas.” WayFirstsHardDreamAmericaArtistWealthRolesTalentMissingHard WorkCoupleEmbraceRoseStartingHumbleSignificantRapperAmerican DreamOutsidersCeoVulgarHumble BeginningsWealth And Success Author:Andrew Hoberek
“For more than a century, people have often thought that the conclusion to draw from Darwin's vision is that Homo sapiens, our species - and we're just animals too, we're just mammals - that there is nothing morally special about us. I myself don't think this follows at all from Darwin's vision, but it is certainly the received view in many quarters.” PeopleThinkingAnimalViewsVisionSpecialCenturyDrawsSpeciesConclusionQuartersHomo SapiensMammals Author:Daniel Dennett
“I think that what one can see from a Darwinian account is how the addition of culture in our species turns us into a very special sort of animal, an animal that can be a moral agent in a way that no other animal can be.” ThinkingWayTurnsCultureAnimalMoralSpecialAccountsSpeciesAgents Author:Daniel Dennett
“After Darwin, God's role changes from being the designer of all creatures great and small to being the designer of the laws of nature, from which natural selection can unfold, to being perhaps just the chooser of the laws. By the time God's role has been so diminished, he becomes a bit like a constitutional monarch, presiding ceremonially but not having any more work to do. That's a place for God if it makes people comfortable to keep God as the presider over the universe. I suppose that is satisfying for many.” PeopleIfsHas BeensLawUniverseBitsNaturalRolesCreaturesComfortableDesignerSatisfyingSelectionLaws Of NatureNatural SelectionMonarchs Author:Daniel Dennett