We think we wish to join the wild animals in the jungle but will not tolerate the wild animals in our kitchens. There are too many ants, we think, reaching for the spray, when it is equally true that there are too many humans.
“Artists are people who are not at all interested in the facts—only in the truth. You get the facts from outside. The truth you get from inside.”
― The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy
― The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy
“I’ve always heard that it’s better to give than to receive, but someone has to receive, and I’ve learned to do it.”
― Ten Million Steps: Nimblewill Nomad's Epic 10-Month Trek from the Florida Keys to Québec
― Ten Million Steps: Nimblewill Nomad's Epic 10-Month Trek from the Florida Keys to Québec
“Vähehaaval sain aru, et maailm ei ole niisugune, nagu see paistab, vaid selline, nagu sina oled.”
― Å gå. Ett skritt av gangen
― Å gå. Ett skritt av gangen
“Max Planck once remarked that new scientific truths don’t replace old ones by convincing established scientists that they were wrong; they do so because proponents of the older theory eventually die, and generations that follow find the new truths and theories to be familiar, obvious even. We are optimists. We like to think it will not take that long.
In fact, we have already taken a first step. We can see more clearly now what is going on when, for example, a study that is rigorous in every other respect begins from the unexamined assumption that there was some ‘original’ form of human society; that its nature was fundamentally good or evil; that a time before inequality and political awareness existed; that something happened to change all this; that ‘civilization’ and ‘complexity’ always come at the price of human freedoms; that participatory democracy is natural in small groups but cannot possibly scale up to anything like a city or a nation state.
We know, now, that we are in the presence of myths.”
― The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
In fact, we have already taken a first step. We can see more clearly now what is going on when, for example, a study that is rigorous in every other respect begins from the unexamined assumption that there was some ‘original’ form of human society; that its nature was fundamentally good or evil; that a time before inequality and political awareness existed; that something happened to change all this; that ‘civilization’ and ‘complexity’ always come at the price of human freedoms; that participatory democracy is natural in small groups but cannot possibly scale up to anything like a city or a nation state.
We know, now, that we are in the presence of myths.”
― The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
“One might ask, how could that most basic element of all human freedoms, the freedom to make promises and commitments and thus build relationships, be turned into its very opposite: into peonage, serfdom or permanent slavery? It happens, we’d suggest, precisely when promises become impersonal, transferable – in a nutshell, bureaucratized.”
― The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
― The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
Liam’s 2025 Year in Books
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