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Social Systems Quotes

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Social Systems Quotes

“A system is corrupt when it is strictly profit-driven, not driven to serve the best interests of its people.”

PeopleGovernmentTruthLeadershipJusticeMoneyDemocracySocietyCapitalismDemocraticGreedProfitCorruptionAdministrationHypocrisyCensorshipGreedyNationHumanity QuotesCorruptSystemGovernment CorruptionSocial SystemsEmpireProfitabilityDysfunctionalInterestsPlutocracyProfitsPoliciesCapitalistsRulershipCapitalisticNot WorkingCapitalistic GreedSocial SystemDefunctCorporate GainGreed CorruptionProfit Drive
Book:Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
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“The systems we will be exploring in order are: ● Breeding Targets: Arousal patterns tied to systems meant to get our ancestors to have sex with things that might bear offspring (e.g., arousal from things like penises, the female form, etc.). ● Inverse Systems: Arousal patterns that arise from a neural mix-up, causing something that disgusts the majority of the population to arouse a small portion of it (e.g., arousal from things like being farted on, dead bodies, having insects poured on one’s face, etc.). ● Emotional States and Concepts / Dominance and Submission: Arousal patterns that stem from either emotional concepts (such as betrayal, transformation, being eaten, etc.) or dominance and submission pathways. ● Emotional Connections to People: While emotional connections do not cause arousal in and of themselves, they do lower the threshold for arousal (i.e., you may become more aroused by a moderately attractive person you love than a very attractive stranger). ● Trope Attraction: Arousal patterns that are enhanced through a target’s adherence to a specific trope (a nurse, a goth person, a cheerleader, etc.). ● Novelty: Arousal patterns tied to the novelty of a particular stimulus. ● Pain and Asphyxiation: Arousal patterns associated with or enhanced by pain and oxygen deprivation. ● Basic Instincts: Remnants of our pre-cognitive mating instincts running off of a “deeper” autopilot-like neurological system (dry humping, etc.) that compel mating behavior without necessarily generating a traditional feeling of arousal. ● Physical Stimuli: Arousal patterns derived from physical interaction (kissing, touching an erogenous zone, etc.). ● Conditioned Responses: Arousal patterns resulting from conditioning (arousal from shoes, doorknobs, etc.).”

ReligionCultureBiologyExplorationNeuroscienceHierarchySocial SystemsPopularExperimental PsychologyWide Range
Book:The Pragmatist's Guide to Sexuality
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“Contrary to widespread faith in "communication" and "knowledge transfer," information has a social life, and unless new insights are embedded in the social system they evaporate.”

SocialKnowledgeLearningInformationCommunicationManagementInsightContraryTransfersSocial LifeEmbeddedSocial Systems
Book:The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems
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“In order to survive, all systems must evolve by providing greater and greater access to the currents that flow through them. This applies to all physical, biological and social systems that survive and thrive.... But let’s take that one step forward... the systems just described are ... constantly evolving. This suggests another design principle: ... design for evolution rather than creating a static design optimizing for the present.”

OrderSocialStepsPrinciplesGreaterDesignEvolutionCreatingFlowCurrentsAccessEvolveThriveProvidingStaticSteps ForwardSocial Systems
Author:John Hagel
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“As thou thyself art a component part of a social system, so let every act of thine be a component part of social life. Whatever act of thine that has no reference, either immediately or remotely, to a social end, this tears asunder thy life, and does not allow it to be one, and it is of the nature of a mutiny, just as when in a popular assembly a man acting by himself stands apart from the general agreement.”

MenDoeArtEndsSocialActingTearsAgreementComponentsThyselfAssemblySocial LifeSocial SystemsMutiny
Book:沉思錄:讀了一百年還要再讀一百年的不朽鉅著
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“Those who can bring themselves to renounce wealth, position and power accruing from a social system based on violence and putting a premium on acquisitiveness, and to identify themselves in some real fashion with the struggle of the masses toward the light, may help in a measure - more, doubtless, by life than by words - to devise a more excellent way, a technique of social progress less crude, brutal, costly and slow than mankind has yet evolved.”

WayMayRealHelpingLightSocialWealthStruggleProgressViolenceMankindFashionPositionMassTechniqueExcellentBrutalCrudeRenounceSocial ProgressSocial SystemsPremium
Author:A. J. Muste
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“If you do not know your place in the world and the meaning of your life, you should know there is something to blame; and it is not the social system, or your intellect, but the way in which you have directed your intellect.”

IfsKnowsWorldWayShouldSocialBlameIntellectMeaning Of LifePlaces In The WorldSocial Systems
Book:A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Se
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“I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and silencing them forever.”

MenWorldHas BeensImportantSpiritSocialForeverHe ManCapableCriticalConvincedAccomplishedRitualPreservationBarbarismSocial SystemsInquiringSilencingCritical Spirit
Book:It Can't Happen Here
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“The American system demands success, and in order to succeed we must first believe that we can. Yet our society, with its intolerance of failure and poverty, traps millions of people in positions where any kind of success seems impossible to contemplate, and in which failure itself is a kind of passive rebellion against their own misery and the social system which created it in the first place. To succeed it is necessary to accept the world as it is and rise above it.”

PeopleWorldFirstsBelieveKindSeemsOrderSocialAcceptingPovertyMillionsImpossiblePositionSucceedDemandMiseryOur SocietyRebellionContemplatingIntolerancePassiveTrapsRise AboveSocial SystemsOrder To SucceedRise Above It
Author:Michael Korda
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“I believe there are huge numbers of people in this country who would be willing to have radical changes in our economic and social system in order to make it a more egalitarian society and do away with homelessness and hunger and clean up the environment. But these people have no voice. They have no way of expressing themselves. Elections give them no way of expressing themselves.”

PeopleWayGivingBelieveCountryWould BeOrderI BelieveSocialVoiceNumbersEnvironmentEconomicWillingHugeElectionCleanHungerRadicalHomelessnessSocial SystemsRadical ChangeHuge Numbers
Author:Howard Zinn
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“The long history of mankind is studded with convergences, perhaps most notably in social systems and the use of artefacts and technology. But for human history, set in the arrow of time, there appears to be one intolerable stumbling-block. This is the catastrophic failure in human values and decency.”

HumansLongUseValuesSocialTechnologyMankindBlockHuman HistoryDecencyArrowsStumblingHuman ValuesSocial SystemsConvergenceStumbling BlocksArtefacts
Author:Simon Conway Morris
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“Terrorism is carried out purposefully, in a cold-blooded, calculated fashion. The declared goals of the terrorist may change from place to place. He supposedly fights to remedy wrongs -- social, religious, national, racial. But for all these problems his only solution is the demolition of the whole structure of society. No partial solution, not even the total redressing of the grievance he complains of, will satisfy him -- until our social system is destroyed or delivered into his hands.”

MayWholeProblemHandsFightingSocialGoalReligiousFashionColdSolutionsStructureTerrorismComplainingTerroristDestroyedRemedyGrievanceSocial SystemsCold BloodedDemolition
Author:Benjamin Netanyahu
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“The thing to understand is that if you are going to reform society you don't start with cops. And if you are going to reform intellect you don't start with psychiatrists. If you don't like our present social system or intellectual system the best thing you can do with either cops or psychiatrists is stay out of their way. You leave them 'till last.”

IfsWayLastsSocialGrowthCan DoIntellectualIntellectReformBest ThingsCopPsychiatristSocial Systems
Book:LILA An Inquriry into Morals
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“An optimist is somebody who thinks our various political and social systems, schools and churches, support groups and Boy Scout troops, jury trials and congressional committees, are on the up-and-up. That they are intended for the benefit of the members. The reality is that they are designed to keep everyone in line.”

ThinkingRealitySchoolPoliticalSocialChurchLinesBoysSupportGroupsMembersBenefitsVariousTrialsTroopsCommitteesOptimistJurySocial SystemsBoy ScoutSupport GroupsCongressional Committees
Author:Jack McDevitt
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“One of the most insidious consequences of the present burden of personal income tax is that it strips many middle class families of financial reserves & seems to lend support to campaigns for socialized medicine, socialized housing, socialized food, socialized every thing. The personal income tax has made the individual vastly more dependent on the State & more avid for state hand-outs. It has shifted the balance in America from an individual-centered to a State-centered economic & social system.”

MadeStatesHandsSeemsAmericaIndividualSocialClassSupportEconomicMiddleBalanceTaxesConsequenceMedicineFinancialBurdenCampaignsIncomeDependentMiddle ClassReservesHousingIncome TaxInsidiousSocial SystemsAvidMiddle Class FamilySocialized Medicine
Author:William Henry Chamberlin
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“If history could prove and teach us anything, it would be the private ownership of the means of production as a necessary requisite of civilization and material well-being. All civilizations have up to now been based on private property. Only nations committed to the principle of private property have risen above penury and produced science, art, and literature. There is no experience to show that any other social system could provide mankind with any of the achievements of civilization.”

IfsWellsMeanArtShowsWisdomWould BeLiteraturePoliticsNationsSocialPrinciplesTeachEconomyMankindMaterialsCivilizationProveAchievementPropertyCommittedProductionsWell BeingLiberalismOwnershipRisenPrivate PropertySocial Systems
Author:Ludwig von Mises
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“Let’s begin with capitalism, a word that has gone largely out of fashion. The approved reference now is to the market system. This shift minimizes - indeed, deletes - the role of wealth in the economic and social system. And it sheds the adverse connotation going back to Marx. Instead of the owners of capital or their attendants in control, we have the admirably impersonal role of market forces. It would be hard to think of a change in terminology more in the interest of those to whom money accords power. They have now a functional anonymity.”

ThinkingHardWould BeForceSocialInterestWealthRolesGoneEconomicFashionCapitalismOwnersShedAccordApprovedAnonymityAdverseSocial SystemsConnotationTerminology
Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
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“Unless we do change our whole way of thought about work, I do not think we shall ever escape from the appalling squirrel-cage of economic confusion in which we have been madly turning for the last three centuries or so, the cage in which we landed ourselves by acquiescing in a social system based upon Envy and Avarice. A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste.”

ThinkingWayHas BeensWholeLastsOrderThreeSocialWorkEconomicCenturyWasteEconomicsProductionsEnvyConfusionConsumptionCagesTrashAvariceSquirrelsSocial Systems
Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Modern schools and universities push students into habits of depersonalized learning, alienation from nature and sexuality, obedience to hierarchy, fear of authority, self-objectification, and chilling competitiveness. These character traits are the essence of the twisted personality-type of modern industrialism. They are precisely the character traits needed to maintain a social system that is utterly out of touch with nature, sexuality and real human needs.”

NeedsHumansRealSelfCharacterSchoolSocialModernStudentsTypePersonalityNeededHabitAuthorityEssenceUniversitySexualityObedienceTraitsChillHierarchyTwistedAlienationHuman NeedsCompetitivenessSocial SystemsObjectificationReal HumanPersonality TypesCharacter Trait
Book:Witchcraft and the Gay counterculture: a radical view of Western civilization and some of the people it has tried to destroy
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“There are, of course, a number of epistemological questions, some of which lie more in the province of the philosopher than they do the economist or the social scientist. The one with which I am particularly concerned here is that of the role of knowledge in social systems, both as a product of the past and as a determinant of the future.”

PastLyingCoursesSocialNumbersRolesProductsConcernedScientistPhilosopherEconomistProvincesSocial Systems
Author:Kenneth E. Boulding
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“The thing that distinguishes social systems from physical or even biological systems is their incomparable (and embarrassing) richness in special cases. Generalizations in the social sciences are mere pathways which lead through a riotous forest of individual trees, each a species unto itself. The social scientist who loses this sense of the essential individuality and uniqueness of each case is all too likely to make a solemn scientific ass of himself, especially if he thinks that his faceless generalizations are the equivalents of the rich vareity of the world.”

IfsThinkingWorldIndividualSocialLosesCasesRichTreeSpecialEssentialsScientistMereSpeciesIndividualityForestsAssUniquenessEmbarrassingRichnessSolemnPathwaysSocial ScienceGeneralizationSocial SystemsIncomparableFaceless
Author:Kenneth E. Boulding
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“Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery.”

PeopleDoeOrderFightingSocialBrotherArmsAngryMiseryConclusionFighterInevitableProtestRespondingOppressorsReformersSocial SystemsUnarmedGuerrillasIgnominyGuerrilla Warfare
Book:Guerrilla Warfare
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“It would be rash to conclude that, on balance, the environment of the globe as a whole is either deteriorating or improving, or that the survival of the societies we know depends upon filling a simple set of prescriptions. It is all too complex and dynamic, whether it involves managing greenhouse gases or Nile snails... The future condition of the globe's interlocking natural and social systems depends more on human behavior than on the further investigation of natural processes, however desirable that may be.”

KnowsHumansMayWholeWould BeSocialProcessNaturalSimpleEnvironmentConditionsDependsBalanceBehaviorSurvivalComplexesEnvironmentalSustainabilityInvestigationGlobesImprovingHuman BehaviorDesirableFillingPrescriptionsGreenhousesSocial SystemsGreenhouse GasesSnailNileDeteriorating
Author:Gilbert F. White
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“Our universe cannot even be stated symbolically. And this touches us all more directly than one might suppose. For example, artists, who have been very little influenced by social systems, have always responded instinctively to latent assumptions about the shape of the universe. The incomprehensibility of our new cosmos seems to me, ultimately, to be the reason for the chaos of modern art.”

LittlesHas BeensArtReasonSeemsMightArtistUniverseSocialModernExampleShapesChaosAssumptionCosmosLatentModern ArtSocial Systems
Author:Kenneth Clark
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“A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils. It undermines the virtues necessary for the support of the social system, and encourages propensities destructive to its happiness. It wars against industry, frugality, and economy, and it fosters the evil spirits of extravagance and speculation.”

WarWisdomPoliticalSpiritEvilPoliticsSocialSupportEconomyVirtueIndustryLiberalismDestructiveCurrencySpeculationExtravagancePropensityFrugalitySocial SystemsEvil SpiritsGreatest Political
Book:Speeches in the convention to amend the constitution of Massachusetts ; Speeches in Congress
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“A living system continually re-creates itself. But how this occurs in social systems such as global institutions depends on our level of awareness, both individually and collectively... As long as our thinking is governed by industrial, "machine age" metaphors such as control, predicatbility, and "faster is better", we will continue to re-create institutions as we have, despite their increasing disharmony with the larger world.”

ThinkingWorldLongAgeSocialLevelsAwarenessDependsMachinesInstitutionsMetaphorDespiteFasterSocial SystemsDisharmony
Author:Betty Sue Flowers
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“The truth is that capitalism has not only multiplied population figures, but at the same time, improved the people's standard of living in an unprecedented way. Neither economic thinking nor historical experience suggests that any other social system could be as beneficial to the masses as capitalism. The results speak for themselves. The market economy needs no apologists and propagandists. It can apply to itself the words of Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph in St. Paul's: Si monumentum requires, circumspice.”

PeopleThinkingWayNeedsSpeakSocialResultsEconomyEconomicFiguresTruth IsMassStandardsCapitalismHistoricalPopulationBeneficialUnprecedentedStandards Of LivingEpitaphMarket EconomySocial SystemsPropagandistWrens
Author:Ludwig von Mises
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