We wouldn't like there to be any heroin in society, but there's plenty of heroin. So our discussion can't just concern our moral feelings about drug addiction. It has to involve our consequential feelings about prisons, overdose deaths, and the effect on communities. You can't escape consequences when you talk about the world.
— Alvin Roth“I have this feeling that everyone should run a marathon once in their life- like a rite-of-passage. Most people think, 'that's not me, I could never run a marathon!' That's precisely why you should do it – a marathon is a way of proving to yourself that you're better than you think- that you can go further- and endure more.”— Dean Karnazes
Ultramarathon runner known for extreme endurance feats and adventures
The quote archive
Wisdom in fragments
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
A repugnant transaction has fans as well as foes. When I call something repugnant, I'm not saying I oppose it, or that you should -- only that it has opponents who raise objections primarily on moral grounds.
— Alvin RothThere are plenty of reasonable, moderate, reformist, liberal leaders who just don’t quite know what to do. Our book ideally will help them make that choice. That is my hope.
— Andrés VelascoNot only are incomes being lost — a sense of community, a sense of pride, a sense of belonging has also been lost. Those things clearly matter for human wellbeing. We’re just not very good at measuring them.
— Andrés VelascoIt is the job of the prime minister or the president to persuade people that we are all in it together, and that if you fall behind, we will lend you a hand.
— Andrés VelascoWe have the technological means to deal with climate change. We have the technological means to deal with pandemics. This is not a technical problem. It is mostly a political problem. If we get our politics under control, the rest is fun and games.
— Andrés VelascoEconomic growth is a means. The goal must be something else. It must be shared prosperity. It must be happier lives. It must be communities in which we all feel that we belong. It must be mutual respect. Those are ends.
— Andrés VelascoOne interesting way to break the sunk cost is to think about the cost of staying to other people. You might be willing to absorb the abuse yourself — but are you willing to put your family through the effects of your staying?
— Leanne ten BrinkeThey tend to have quite a power of persuasion and dominance in person. That gets diminished when they are reduced to words on a page.
— Leanne ten BrinkeIt’s more like a you problem than a them problem. You have a problem with their behaviour, but they don’t have the same level of empathy or concern for others. So why would they care about it?
— Leanne ten BrinkeThat stress doesn’t just stay in the office. We get in our car, we get on the subway, we bring it home with us. If you have a high-psychopathy boss, research shows you actually have more conflict at home too.
— Leanne ten BrinkeThey are not held back by care, compassion, concern, or remorse. They are very willing to lie to get what they want.
— Leanne ten BrinkeNo matter how poor you are, you don’t really have to wear rags anymore. Why? Because technology automated the production of t-shirts.
— Richard SocherIt’s this weird dichotomy of superintelligence and super stupidity, sort of mixed in one scenario.
— Richard SocherThe way we should think about intelligence is in terms of a volume in a high-dimensional space.
— Richard SocherThe problem of our information society isn’t anymore that we don’t have access to information. It’s that we have actually too much information.
— Richard Socher