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Quote by Anthony T. Hincks

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Anthony T. Hincks

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“The brain is like a good lawyer: given any set of interests to defend, it sets about convincing the world of their moral and logical worth, regardless of whether they in fact have any either. Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than for virtue.”

MoralPsychologyLawyerHomo Sapiens
Book:The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are - The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
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“Let's imagine we're standing together on the launch pad at NASA's Cape Canaveral facility near Orlando, and staring up at the stars together. As I write this, the last constellation above the horizon is Centaurus. The centaur's front head is a bright star. In fact, it's three stars—a pair called Alpha Centauri A and B, and, dimmest of the trio, Proxima Centauri. Here, look through this telescope. See? You can tell them apart. But what we can't see is that there is, in fact, a planet circling the faint light of Proxima Centauri. Man, I wish we could see it. Because that planet, Proxima Centauri b, is the nearest known exoplanet to Earth. [...] If we were to board a spacecraft and ride it from the outer edge of our atmosphere all the way to Proxima Centauri b, you and I, who boarded the ship fit and trim, chosen as we were from billions of applicants, would die before the voyage reached even 1/100th of the intervening distance. [...] At a speed of 20,000 miles per hour—the speed of our top-performing modern rockets—4.2 light years translates to more than 130,000 years of space travel. [...] So how will we ever get there? A generation ship. [...] the general notion is this: get enough human beings onto a ship, with adequate genetic diversity among us, that we and our fellow passengers cohabitate as a village, reproducing and raising families who go on to mourn you and me and raise new of their own, until, thousands of years after our ship leaves Earth's gravity, the distant descendants of the crew that left Earth finally break through the atmosphere of our new home. [...] A generation ship is every sociological and psychological challenge of modern life squashed into a microcosmic tube of survival and amplified—generation after generation. [...] The idea of a generation ship felt like a pointless fantasy when I first encountered it. But as I've spent the last few years speaking with technologists, academics, and policy makers about the hidden dangers of building systems that could reprogram our behavior now and for generations to come, I realized that the generation ship is real. We're on board it right now. On this planet, our own generation ship, we were once passengers. But now, without any training, we're at the helm. We have built lives for ourselves on this planet that extend far beyond our natural place in this world. And now we are on the verge of reprogramming not only the planet, but one another, for efficiency and profit. We are turning systems loose on the decks of the ship that will fundamentally reshape the behavior of everyone on board, such that they will pass those behaviors on to their progeny, and they might not even realize what they've done. This pattern will repeat itself, and play out over generations in a behavioral and technological cycle.”

TechnologyPsychologyCapitalismGreedArtificial IntelligenceSociologyDisturbingSocial ScienceSad TruthFuturism
Book:The Loop: How Technology Is Creating a World Without Choices and How to Fight Back
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“About this time I had a dream which both frightened and encouraged me. It was night in some unknown place, and I was making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny light which threatened to go out at any moment. Everything depended on my keeping this little light alive. Suddenly I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me. But at the same moment I was conscious, in spite of my terror, that I must keep my little light going through night and wind, regardless of all dangers. When I awoke I realized at once that the figure was a "specter of the Brocken," my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being by the little light I was carrying. I knew, too, that this little light was my consciousness, the only light I have. My own understanding is the sole treasure I possess, and the greatest. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light.”

PsychologyShadowUbermensch
Book:Memories, dreams, reflections
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“C'è qualcosa di terribile nello scoprire che l'uomo ha anche un lato oscuro, una parte in ombra che non consiste soltanto in piccole debolezze e in piccoli difetti, ma è dotata di una dinamica addirittura demoniaca. L'individuo singolo di solito lo ignora perché, in quanto uomo singolo, guarda con incredulità all'ipotesi di dovere in qualche modo o in qualche circostanza riflettere con distacco su sé stesso. Ma basta che questi esseri innocui formino una massa ed ecco nascerne, in certi momenti, un mostro delirante, un corpo smisurato in cui l'individuo non è più che una piccola cellula la quale, volente o no, è costretta a condividere l'ebbrezza sanguinaria della bestia e addirittura a rinfocolarla quanto può.”

Psychology
Book:Psicologia dell'inconscio: Edizione integrale di riferimento
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“L'uomo ha due tipi di fini: il primo è il fine naturale, la procreazione e i vari compiti di protezione della prole, che implicano il procacciarsi un guadagno e la posizione sociale. Quando questo scopo è stato raggiunto comincia un'altra fase: il fine culturale. Per raggiungere il primo scopo interviene la natura e l'educazione, che sono invece di scarso o nessun aiuto per attuare il secondo. Eppure predomina spesso un'ambizione sbagliata, secondo la quale i vecchi dovrebbero essere come i giovani, o per lo meno cercare di imitarli, anche se sono intimamente persuasi della vanità della cosa. Per molte persone il passaggio dalla fase "naturale" alla fase "culturale" è quindi estremamente difficile e amaro. Si aggrappano all'illusione della giovinezza o ai figli, nel tentativo di salvare ancora un brandello di gioventù.”

Psychology
Book:Psicologia dell'inconscio: Edizione integrale di riferimento
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“All of us, from children to scientists, have difficulty accepting data that go against our firmly held beliefs. We have to restructure too much of our intellectual framework to assimilate such surprises. It is far less costly, at least for a time, to keep the framework and deny the fact.”

EducationPsychology
Book:The Having of Wonderful Ideas" and Other Essays on Teaching and Learning
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