It's all too easy to dismiss the future. People confuse what's impossible today with what's impossible tomorrow.
George M. ChurchRead
Anytime you see somebody keeping a secret, that's symptomatic that something's wrong with the society around them. That means there's discrimination or worse.
Interpretation
Secrets often indicate deeper societal issues, such as discrimination or injustice.
This quote by George M. Church suggests that when individuals feel the need to keep secrets, it reflects broader systemic problems within society. The act of hiding information typically arises from a fear of discrimination or other negative consequences, highlighting the importance of transparency and open communication in a healthy society.
In practice
Use this quote in a discussion about the importance of transparency in governance.
It's all too easy to dismiss the future. People confuse what's impossible today with what's impossible tomorrow.
You can't just hoard your ideas inside the ivory tower. You have to get them out into the world.
Clearly, we are a species that is well connected to other species. Whether or not we evolve from them, we are certainly very closely related to them. A series of mutations could change us into all kinds of intermediate species. Whether or not those intermediate species are provably in the past, they could easily be in our future.
We have a love affair with the idea of the 'natural,' even though we, as a species, are about as unnatural as you can imagine.
At some point, someone will come up with an airtight argument as to why they should have a cloned child. At that point, cloning will be acceptable.
Most people are excited about themselves. Personal genome will deliver for inexpensively something about science to which you can relate. Just like computers are becoming something to which you can relate. It should be even easier to relate to your own biology, and I hope that will be one of the ways we get broader literacy in science.
Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.
Human beings are religious animals.
People like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.
Good people can't out-think evil, cause evil thinks of things good folks can't think of.
Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever?
What is the Absolute? Something that appears to us in fleeting experiences--say, through the gentle smile of a beautiful woman, or even through the warm caring smile of a person who may otherwise seem ugly and rude. In such miraculous but extremely fragile moments, another dimension transpires through our reality. As such, the Absolute is easily corroded;it slips all too easily through our fingers and must be handled as carefully as a butterfly
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