Alexander Thurow2d ago

„It is evident that many national institutions and dogmas, however effective they may once have been, are now in need of change. No nation is yet well-fitted to the world of the twenty-first century. The challenge then is not in selective glorification of the past, or in defending the national icons, but in devising a path that will carry us through a time of great mutual peril. To accomplish…“ 1/

Carl Sagan in „Billions & Billions“ (1997)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billions_and_Billions

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Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„… this, we need all the help we can get. A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable. We are all fallible, even leaders. But however clear it is that criticism is necessary for progress, governments tend to resist. […] Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for…“ 2/
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„… leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.“ /3
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago

„What we need is an admission of how little we actually know about how to pass safely through the next few decades, the courage to examine a wide range of alternative programs and, most of all, a dedication not to dogma but to solutions. Finding any solution will be hard enough.“

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Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„Mankind likes to think in terms of extreme opposites. It is given to formulating its beliefs in terms of Either-Ors, between which it recognizes no intermediate possibilities. When forced to recognize that the extremes cannot be acted upon, it is still inclined to hold that they are all right in theory, but that when it comes to practical matters circumstances compel us to compromise. (JOHN DEWEY,
Experience and Education, I (1938)“
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„[…] the central lessons in a not very prolonged round-robin of Prisoner's Dilemma are about strategic clarity; about the self-defeating nature of envy; about the importance of long-term over short-term goals; about the dangers of both tyranny and patsydom; and especially about approaching the whole issue of rules to live by as an experimental question. Game theory also suggests that a broad knowledge of history is a key survival tool.“
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„The most effective strategy in many such tournaments is called "Tit-for-Tat." It's very simple: You start out cooperating, and in each subsequent round simply do what your opponent did last time. You punish defections, but once your partner cooperates, you're willing to let bygones be bygones. At first, it seems to garner only mediocre success. But as time goes on the other strategies defeat themselves, from too much kindness or cruelty, and this middle way pulls ahead. Except for always…“ 1/
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„… being nice on the first move, Tit-for-Tat is identical to the Brazen Rule. It promptly (in the very next game rewards cooperation and punishes defection, and has the great virtue that it makes your strategy absolutely clear to your opponent. (Strategic ambiguity can be lethal.) Once there get to be several players employing Tit-for-Tat, they rise in the standings together. To succeed, Tit-for-Tat strategists must find others who are willing to reciprocate, with whom they can…“ 2/
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„… cooperate. After the first tournament in which the Brazen Rule unexpectedly won, some experts thought the strategy too forgiving. Next tournament, they tried to exploit it by defecting more often. They always lost. Even experienced strategists tended to underestimate the power of forgiveness and reconciliation. Tit-for-Tat involves an interesting mix of proclivities: initial friendliness, willingness to forgive, and fearless retaliation.“ /3
Show threadAlexander Thurow
„[…] it is customary to quote phrases by great men and women that we've all heard before. We hear, but we tend not to focus. Let me mention one, a phrase that was uttered not far from this spot by Abraham Lincoln: "With malice toward none, with charity for all..." Think of what that means. This is what is expected of us, not merely because our ethics command it, or because our religions preach it, but because it is necessary for human survival. Here's another: "A house divided against…“ 1/
Mar 22 at 4:38pmWeb
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago

„… itself cannot stand." Let me vary it a little: A species divided against itself cannot stand. A planet divided against itself cannot stand. […] It is time to act.“ /2

(Excerpt from a speech by Carl Sagan at the 125th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, 03.07.1988)

Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but... for everything that is given something is taken. RALPH WALDO EMERSON, "Self-Reliance," Essays: First Series (1841)“
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„The twentieth century will be remembered for three broad innovations: unprecedented means to save, prolong, and enhance life; unprecedented means to destroy life, including for the first time putting our global civilization at risk; and unprecedented insights into the nature of ourselves and the Universe. All three of these developments have been brought forth by science and technology, a sword with two razor-sharp edges.“
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„Exploratory spacecraft have been launched to study 70 worlds and to land on three of them. The century has seen the almost mythic accomplishment of sending 12 humans to the Moon and bringing them, and over a hundred kilograms of moon rocks, back safely. Robotic craft have confirmed that Venus, driven by a massive greenhouse effect, has a surface temperature of almost 900° Fahrenheit; that 4 billion years ago Mars had an Earth-like climate; that organic molecules are…“ 1/
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„… falling from the sky of Saturn's moon Titan like manna from Heaven; that comets are made of perhaps a quarter of organic matter. Four of our spacecraft are on their way to the stars. Other planets have recently been Found around other stars. Our Sun is revealed to be in the remote outskirts of a vast, lens-shaped galaxy comprising some 400 billion other suns. At the beginning of the century it was thought that the Milky Way was the only galaxy. We now recognize that there…“ 2/
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„… are a hundred billion others, all fleeing one from another as if they are the remnants of an enormous explosion, the Big Bang. Exotic denizens of the cosmic zoo have been discovered that were not even dreamt of at the turn of the century—pulsars, quasars, black holes. Within observational reach may be the answers to some of the deepest questions humans have ever asked—on the origin, nature, and fate of the entire Universe.“ /3
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„Perhaps the most wrenching by-product of the scientific revolution has been to render untenable many of our most cherished and most comforting beliefs. The tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors has been replaced by a cold, immense, indifferent Universe in which humans are relegated to obscurity. But I see the emergence in our consciousness of a Universe of a magnificence, and an intricate, elegant order far beyond anything our ancestors imagined. And if much about the Universe…“ 1/
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„… can be understood in terms of a few simple laws of Nature, those wishing to believe in God can certainly ascribe those beautiful laws to a Reason underpinning all of Nature. My own view is that it is far better to understand the Universe as it really is than to pretend to a Universe as we might wish it to be. Whether we will acquire the understanding and wisdom necessary to come to grips with the scientific revelations of the 20th century will be the most profound challenge of the 21st.“ /2
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„Six times now have I looked Death in the face. And six times Death has averted his gaze and let me pass. Eventually, of course, Death will claim me - as he does each of us. It's only a question of when. And how. I've learned much from our confrontations - especially about the beauty and sweet poignancy of life, about the preciousness of friends and family, and about the transforming power of love. In fact, almost dying is such a positive, character-building experience that I'd…“ 1/
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„… recommend it to everybody - except, of course, for the irreducible and essential element of risk. […] The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.“ /2
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„For years, near my shaving mirror—so I see it every morning—I have kept a framed post-card. On the back is a penciled message to a Mr. James Day in Swansea Valley, Wales. It reads:“ 1/
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„It's signed with the almost-indecipherable initials of one William John Rogers. On the front is a color photo of a sleek, four-funneled steamer captioned "White Star Liner Titanic.“ The postmark was imprinted the day before the great ship went down, losing more than 1,500 lives, including Mr. Rogers's.“ /2
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„Cari didn't even know I was ill. Before I could get to the point, she said, "You got it. Whatever it is... liver... lung... It's yours." I still get a lump in my throat every time I think of Cari's generosity. […] She was a perfect match. I was incredibly lucky.“
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„But if there was one lesson I keenly learned, it is that the future is unpredictable. As William John Rogers, cheerfully penciling his postcard in the brisk air of the North Atlantic, ruefully discovered, there is no telling what even the immediate future holds.“
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„We all have a tendency to succumb to a state of despair about the destructiveness and shortsightedness of the human species. I've certainly done my share (and on grounds I still consider well-based). But one of the discoveries of my illness is the extraordinary community of goodness to which people in my situation owe their lives. There are more than 2 million Americans in the National Marrow Donor Program's volunteer registry, all willing to submit to a somewhat uncomfortable…“ 1/
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„… marrow extraction to benefit some unrelated perfect stranger. Millions more contribute blood to the American Red Cross and other blood donor institutions for no financial reward, not even a five-dollar bill, to save an unknown life. Scientists and technicians work for years—against long odds, often for low salaries, and never with a guarantee of success. They have many motivations, but one of them is the hope of helping others, of curing diseases, of staving off…“ 2/
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„… death. When too much cynicism threatens to engulf us, it is buoying to remember how pervasive goodness is.“ /3
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„For Carl, what mattered most was what was true, not merely what would make us feel better. Even at this moment when anyone would be forgiven for turning away from the reality of our situation, Carl was unflinching.“
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„In the early spring of 1977, Carl was invited by NASA to assemble a committee to select the contents of a phonograph record that would be affixed to each of the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. […] the two spacecraft would be gravitationally expelled from the Solar System. Here was an opportunity to send a message to possible beings of other worlds and times. […] The Voyager record would include greetings in sixty human languages and one whale language, an evolutionary audio essay, 116 pictures…“ 1/
Show threadAlexander Thurow2d ago
„… of life on Earth and ninety minutes of music from a glorious diversity of the world's cultures. The engineers projected a one-billion-year shelf life for the golden phonograph records. How long is a billion years? In a billion years the continents of Earth would be so altered that we would not recognize the surface of our own planet. One thousand million years ago, the most complex life forms on Earth were bacteria. In the midst of the nuclear arms race, our future, even in the short…“ 2/