Ramez Naam > Quotes

“The world has a very serious problem, my friend' Shiva went on. 'Poor children still die by their millions. Westerners and the global rich -- like me -- live in post-scarcity society, while a billion people struggle to get enough to eat. And we're pushing the planet towards a tipping point, where the corals die and the forests burn and life becomes much, much harder. We have the resources to solve those problems, even now, but politics and economics and nationalism all get in the way. If we could access all those minds, though...”
― Ramez Naam, Crux

“Playing God is actually the highest expression of human nature. The urges to improve ourselves, to master our environment, and to set our children on the best path possible have been the fundamental driving forces of all of human history. Without these urges to ‘play God’, the world as we know it wouldn’t exist today.”
― Ramez Naam, More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement

“Do you think that a billion people knowing your face makes you special?
It doesn't.”
― Ramez Naam, Crux

“To understand the future course of this war, one need only look at the history of the War on Drugs and the War on Terror. Like those two manufactured "wars", this one will be never-ending, freedom-destroying, counterproductive, and ultimately understood to have caused far more damage than the supposed threat it was aimed at ever could have.”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“We’re all born dying, someone had said. What matters is only how we spend the instant we’re given.”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“We think of ourselves as individuals, but all that we have accomplished, and all that we will accomplish, is the result of groups of humans cooperating. Those groups are organisms in their own rights.”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“Buddhism suits me 'cuz nobody's in charge. Nobody's decidin' for me if I'm good or bad, goin' to heaven or hell. It's just me workin' on my head, you workin' your head, the friggin' Dalai Lama workin' on his head.”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss stares also into you.”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“I think it's all that's holding me together," Kade said. "Then perhaps you should fall apart," Ananda replied.”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“Every attempt through history to limit the definition of humanity has been a prelude to the subjugation, degradation, and slaughter of innocents.”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“To understand a thing is to gain the power to change it. ”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“Organic farming is environmentally friendlier to every acre of land. But it requires _more_ acres. The trade-off is a harsh one. Would we rather have pesticides on farmland and nitrogen runoffs from them? Or would we rather chop down more forest?

How much more forest would we have to chop down? If we wanted to reduce pesticide use and nitrogen runoff by turning all of the world’s farmland to organic farming, we’d need about 50 percent more farmland than we have today. Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug, whose work helped triple crop yields over the last fifty years and arguably saved billions from starvation, estimates that the world would need an _additional_ 5 to 6 billion head of cattle to produce enough manure to fertilize that farmland. There are only an estimated 1.3 billion cattle on the planet today.

Combined, we’d need to chop down roughly half of the world’s remaining forest to grow crops and to graze cattle that produce enough manure to fertilize those crops. Clearing that much land would produce around 500 billion tons of CO2, or almost as much as the total cumulative CO2 emissions of the world thus far. And the cattle needed to fertilize that land would produce far _more_ greenhouse gases, in the form of methane, than all of agriculture does today, possibly enough to equal all human greenhouse gases emitted from all sources today.

That’s not a viable path.”
― Ramez Naam, The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet

“in a surveillance state it was vital to reserve the ability to turn a blind eye to certain people at certain times.”
― Ramez Naam, Apex

“The past was read-only.”
― Ramez Naam, Crux

“He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss stares also into you.”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“It did something to the temporal lobe, one of the circuits involved in religious experience. It was supposed to put people closer to God. It did that. It also made them slaves.”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“It was a toss-up which was more pointless: Arguing with an algorithm or talking back to his mother.”
― Ramez Naam, Apex

“But Nita had always seen having a child as selfish. Why bring another soul into this world, she'd say, when there are so many out there that need our help?”
― Ramez Naam, Crux

“Luxuries and indulgences were distractions from true greatness, tawdry and ephemeral baubles that dissipated energy that could be directed toward more meaningful and durable accomplishments in the world around him.”
― Ramez Naam, Crux

“We think of ourselves as individuals, but all that we have accomplished, and all that we will accomplish, is the result of groups of humans cooperating. Those groups are organisms in their own rights. We are their components.” He’s”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“But remember, anger cannot be fought with anger. Rage cannot be fought with rage. No amount of signal processing can cancel out suffering, or craving, or aversion. If you want to help a mind – or a world – find peace, do exactly that. Help it find peace.”
― Ramez Naam, Apex

“Hard work guarantees you nothing. But laziness assures failure. Work hard, or you have only yourself to blame.”
― Ramez Naam, Apex

“In seeking to uncover the causes of an event, ask yourself: who stands to benefit from it?”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “Those who would sacrifice essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“What I mean is that we all exists as parts of groups and collectives larger than ourselves. Tribes. Communities. Organizations. Institutions. Families. Nations. We think of ourselves as individuals, but all that we have accomplished, and all that we will accomplish, is the result of groups of humans cooperating. Those groups are organisms in their own rights. We are their components.”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“Funny how the experience of one person could have such an impact on billions of others. Pryce wondered what that said about the way the world was run. Nothing good, she was sure of that. All politics is personal, Pryce thought. It turns out all policy is personal, too.”
― Ramez Naam, Apex

“Breathe. Slow. Observe. Break the link between sensation and reaction. Breathe into the gap between them. Blind reaction is attachment. Blind reaction is slavery. Freedom exists in the gap. Choice exists in the gap.”
― Ramez Naam, Apex

“People don’t demand a say in how they’re governed because they want to be rich. They demand it when they already are rich and crave something more.”
― Ramez Naam, Apex

“Like Einstein, Kade thought. The problems we currently face can’t be solved at the level of thinking that created them.”
― Ramez Naam, Nexus

“And Kade understood why. They were a tribal species. They’d evolved in a world where a few dozen men and women made up a tribe, and virtually all others were enemies, threats. They lacked the cognitive capabilities necessary to collaborate on this scale. They’d done their best with democracy, with capitalism, but those had reached their limit long ago. They’d been corrupted, twisted to the interests of a few individuals, when the greatest problems the world faced were problems of collective interest. He”
― Ramez Naam, Crux