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" I think a lot of moral debates are not over what is the basis of justice, but who gets a ticket to play in the game. "
Steven Pinker
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Think
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" We know about every massacre that has taken place close to the present, but the ones in the distant past are like trees falling in the forest with no one to hear them. "
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" No one knows what the nongenetic causes of individuality are. Perhaps people are shaped by modifications of genes that take place after conception, or by haphazard fluctuations in the chemical soup in the womb or the wiring up of the brain or the expression of the genes themselves. "
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" Capitalism saved the world, and there is even a heretical theory now, moving up from the level of individuals to countries: countries that trade more and have more open economies are less likely to fight wars and less likely to have genocides. "
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" There is a correlation between economic inequality and personal violence. The explanation for the correlation isn't completely clear; there are a number of possibilities. "
Steven Pinker
Possibilities
Violence
Inequality
" I think the reason that swearing is both so offensive and so attractive is that it is a way to push people's emotional buttons, and especially their negative emotional buttons. Because words soak up emotional connotations and are processed involuntarily by the listener, you can't will yourself not to treat the word in terms of what it means. "
Steven Pinker
People
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" Heritability pertains to the entirety of the genome, not to a single gene. "
Steven Pinker
Entirety
Genome
Gene
" The rules of friendship are tacit, unconscious; they are not rational. In business, though, you have to think rationally. "
Steven Pinker
You
Rules
Think
" If you aren't just brought up in your tribe but interact with other people either directly or vicariously, through journalism and literature, you see what life is like from other points of view and are less likely to demonize them or dehumanize others and more likely to empathize with them. "
Steven Pinker
Journalism
Life
People
" People know there is a difference between what you do and what you accept. There is a difference between me knowing that people swear, me hearing people swear and me swearing, and everyone accepting that this is something you can do as much as you like. "
Steven Pinker
Know
Knowing
Me
" As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world's ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to genocide. "
Steven Pinker
Up
Genocide
Group
" I think this confusion leads intellectuals and artists themselves to believe that the elite arts and humanities are a kind of higher, exalted form of human endeavor. "
Steven Pinker
Arts
Think
Kind
" The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate... is a totalitarian's dream. "
Steven Pinker
Happiness
Human Nature
Life
" I think students should know something about religion as a historical phenomenon, in the same way that they should know something about socialism and humanism and the other great ideas that have shaped political philosophies and therefore the course of human events. "
Steven Pinker
Political
Great
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" So no, it's not all in the genes, but what isn't in the genes isn't in the family environment either. It can't be explained in terms of the overall personalities or the child-rearing practices of parents. "
Steven Pinker
Environment
Parents
Genes
" You have to remember that not every creature that was evolving left behind its skull or its tools for our convenience tens of thousands of years later. Most bones or most tools rot or get buried and are never found again. "
Steven Pinker
You
Tools
Skull
" Climate change could produce a lot of misery and waste without necessarily leading to large-scale armed conflict, which depends more on ideology and bad governance than on resource scarcity. "
Steven Pinker
Change
Bad
Conflict
" M.I.T. has a reputation for turning out Dilberts. They may be brilliant in what they do, but no one can understand what they say. "
Steven Pinker
Understand
Say
Reputation
" Most wars are not fought over shortages of resources such as food and water, but rather over conquest, revenge, and ideology. "
Steven Pinker
Over
Water
Revenge
" I teach classes 28 weeks of the year, but the rest of the time I do research and write books. While I'm writing a book, which I probably do two out of every three years, it's like having a second job. I squeeze in the hours when I can. "
Steven Pinker
Time
Rest
Research
" I think it may not be a coincidence that the rise of printing and book publication and literacy and the phenomenon of best sellers all preceded the humanitarian reforms of the Enlightenment. "
Steven Pinker
Think
Book
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" Human evolution, at first, seems extraordinary. How could the process that gave rise to slugs and oak trees and fish produce a creature that can fly to the moon and invent the Internet and cross the ocean in boats? "
Steven Pinker
Fish
Moon
Trees
" The way to understand how different species evolved is to think about the niches that they fill in an ecosystem - basically, how they make a living. "
Steven Pinker
Living
Way
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" No matter how inured you get to atrocities, you're still always stunned and shocked by how cruel and wasteful Homo sapiens can be. "
Steven Pinker
Cruel
You
Matter
" 20th-century totalitarian movements were no more defined by a rejection of Judeo-Christianity than they were defined by a rejection of astrology, alchemy, Confucianism, Scientology, or any of hundreds of other belief systems. "
Steven Pinker
More
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" The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon. You can see it over millennia, over centuries, over decades and over years. "
Steven Pinker
Years
Violence
See
" As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones. "
Steven Pinker
People
Equality
Political
" Plants can't very well defend themselves by their behavior, so they resort to chemical warfare, and plants are saturated with toxins and irritants to deter creatures like us who want to eat them. "
Steven Pinker
Eat
Behavior
Plants
" Evolutionary psychology is one of four sciences that are bringing human nature back into the picture. "
Steven Pinker
Back
Picture
Nature
" The connections I draw between human nature and political systems in my new book, for example, were prefigured in the debates during the Enlightenment and during the framing of the American Constitution. "
Steven Pinker
Political
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Book
" Regardless of its causes, thoughtlessly blaming the present is a weakness which, even if it is never outlawed, ought to be resisted. Though commonly flaunted as a sign of sophistication, it can be an opportunity for one-upmanship and an excuse for misanthropy, especially against the young. "
Steven Pinker
Weakness
Opportunity
Young