“When you examine how these myriad factors intertwine, from genetics and evolution to the proteins synthesized mere minutes ago, you see a continuous arc. In my view, there's no room in this intricate web for free will.”— Robert Sapolsky
The quote archive
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
The physical world isn't going away. We are a physical species. While digitisation is enabling incredible things – the best companies seem to be combining the physical and digital; they seem to understand what it means when products and services are connected.
— Robert E. SiegelNPR Host and Senior News Correspondent for Over Three Decades
Fundamentally, we must slow-down the process of change. We should recognise that most change is not progress- and therefore, it is in our interests to slow down without interfering too much with actual solution making.
— Bret WeinsteinEvolutionary biologist and podcaster known for critical COVID-19 vaccine commentary
We are in an era of hyper-novelty. The rate of change of the novelty we face is so fast that it has outstripped our evolutionary capacity to keep up.
— Bret WeinsteinEvolutionary biologist and podcaster known for critical COVID-19 vaccine commentary
We live downstream of a very high-quality tool for manipulating each other in a collaborative way, which has been augmented by the perverse incentives surrounding manipulating each other in a hostile way. The explosion in the number of people who are interacting with each other has- today- made the problem effectively unsolvable.
— Bret WeinsteinEvolutionary biologist and podcaster known for critical COVID-19 vaccine commentary
At a point, we developed language sophisticated enough to transmit abstract ideas with precision from one mind to another. That enables high quality parallel processing of problems such that we literally have emergent cognition. When people gather, they talk about difficult puzzles they face, and the product of their thinking exceeds the sum of their individual capacity to reason through it.
— Bret WeinsteinEvolutionary biologist and podcaster known for critical COVID-19 vaccine commentary
The thing that makes us so unique is that we, unlike most every other species, have no niche. A niche is an opportunity which a species exploits- and our niche is niche switching. We move from one niche to another, even without major changes to our physical biology.
— Bret WeinsteinEvolutionary biologist and podcaster known for critical COVID-19 vaccine commentary
We have a growing inequality of rationality. At the top, we've never been so rational – we've accomplished technological miracles… we sequenced the COVID-19 genome in days and deployed vaccines in under a year… we're travelling to space.
— Steven PinkerCognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature
The laws of cause and effect which govern our universe don't care about our beliefs – so we'd better find out what those laws are and try and align our beliefs to them to eliminate guesswork.
— Steven PinkerCognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature
Rationality applies whether you believe in it or not. One idea follows from another – or it doesn't – and if you want some of your beliefs to lead to other beliefs, you have no choice but to be rational.
— Steven PinkerCognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature
Truth is an aspiration which none of us can ever know that we have attained. Nobody has a pipeline to the truth; nobody is imbued with divine revelation. We seek truth through institutions like science, journalism, governance, justice systems and record keeping.
— Steven PinkerCognitive Scientist & Psychologist Known for Research on Language and Human Nature
When I look at my own life- the things that I'm most embarrassed about are the moments where I acted, or didn't act, because of fear. The moments I'm most proud of are those where I acted with some semblance of courage.
— Ryan HolidayAuthor & Stoicism Expert; Marketer & Media Strategist
Our world today is not only superficial, but also very cynical, almost to the point of nihilism. There's a cynicism that masquerades as intelligence, but which- in reality- is a form of despair, a kind of excuse for not having to do anything.
— Ryan HolidayAuthor & Stoicism Expert; Marketer & Media Strategist
Courage is not the opposite of fear, rather it is the triumph over fear. There is nothing courageous about a guaranteed outcome, right? Courage is being yourself in a world where everyone tries to be like everyone else.
— Ryan HolidayAuthor & Stoicism Expert; Marketer & Media Strategist
Fear just finds a new thing to be scared of. People are worried about having mean things said about them on twitter… they're worried about losing their jobs… and yes, all those things suck, and could happen, but it's not the same as being tied-up and roasted at the stake!
— Ryan HolidayAuthor & Stoicism Expert; Marketer & Media Strategist
My advice is to grab hold of people that are close to you and lean on them heavily. That's how we're designed to work!
— Steve PetersPsychiatrist and author of "The Chimp Paradox
The rules of the brain are such that the chimp can freeze our brain, freezing the human out and can make decisions on our behalf.
— Steve PetersPsychiatrist and author of "The Chimp Paradox