From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
There have been well-known people who actually have advocated rights for great apes – chimps and orangs and gorillas. They're our closest genetic relatives; but why should we exclude any creature that can suffer? If you hold the paw of a little rabbit or a mouse or whatever so hard that it squeaks or screams, isn't that cruel? isn't that hurting it? What right have we got to hurt animals like that? We don't have any right at all.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child is not just a document - it's a promise we made to every child on this planet that they matter, that their voices count.
Consider a car with malfunctioning brakes; it's unsafe to let it on the street, as it could cause harm. You'd need to confine it, but you wouldn't punish it or moralize its malfunction. Instead, you'd seek to understand why its brakes failed. This approach mirrors how we should handle human criminality.
…the question is not can they reason? Or can they talk? …But can they suffer?
Other components of liberal democracy—civil liberties, rule of law and free markets—may play a larger role as long-term deterrents than simply having free elections. If the country goes all the way to a more complete liberal democracy, then it is likely to significantly decrease terrorism and political violence.
If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, it will show that democracy and the world's forces are not enough to stop him. Are we building a world where the rule of law means something? Or a world where the rule of law means nothing, and only firepower counts.
It's hard for people to defend democracy when it cannot defend them against social injustice.
This principle demands careful consideration of protection that must be given to civilians and civilian property, balancing military objectives against foreseeable collateral damage. This balance cannot be made by a formulaic algorithm – there isn't one – but by human judgment. In recent decades, it has become apparent that that human judgement is assisted by legal advisors who play a crucial role in these decisions, offering guidance on the legality of military actions.
These models depend entirely on government statistics. They automatically leave out many forms of illicit money such as drug trading, human trafficking, some forms of trade mispricing and so forth. That is why we feel our estimates are very conservative.
The police never talk to us, they ignore us, they don't think we're human in this area.
David was wrongfully convicted for a murder, spending 29 years in prison before his exoneration. His response underscored the power of adopting a positive and healthy mindset. He compared his ordeal to his sister's lifelong struggle with cerebral palsy, saying that in light of her condition, what he went through didn't seem so bad. Despite having 30 years of his life unjustly taken away, he spoke of his own fortunes.
I need to tell my story until there are no more stories like mine. More than 97% of my friends, with whom I shared this journey, died. My mission was to be voice for all those who died on my journey, and who kept on dying.