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Patients are both terrified and ignorant. How are they to know whether the surgeon is competent or not? They will try to overcome their fear by investing the surgeon with superhuman abilities.
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Tanja Berg
“When a thousand people believe some made-up story for one month, that’s fake news. When a billion people believe it for a thousand years, that’s a religion, and we are admonished not to call it “fake news” in order not to hurt the feelings of the faithful (or incur their wrath). Note, however, that I am not denying the effectiveness or potential benevolence of religion. Just the opposite. For better or worse, fiction is among the most effective tools in humanity’s tool kit. By bringing people together, religious creeds make large-scale human cooperation possible. They inspire people to build hospitals, schools, and bridges in addition to armies and prisons. Adam and Eve never existed, but Chartres Cathedral is still beautiful.”
― 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
― 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
“That man-made climate change is real, and potentially an existential threat to many communities around the world and many aspects of civilisation, is so well established as a scientific fact by this point that it seems kind of dull to run over the evidence again.”
― Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up
― Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up
“Humans see patterns in the world, we can communicate this to other humans, and we have the capacity to imagine futures that don’t yet exist: how if we just changed this thing, then that thing would happen, and the world would be a slightly better place. The only trouble is … well, we’re not terribly good at any of those things. Any honest assessment of humanity’s previous performance on those fronts reads like a particularly brutal annual review from a boss who hates you. We imagine patterns where they don’t exist. Our communication skills are, uh, sometimes lacking. And we have an extraordinarily poor track record of failing to realise that changing this thing will also lead to the other thing, and that even worse thing, and oh God no now this thing is happening how do we stop it.”
― Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up
― Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up
“Even if popular culture has long enjoyed turning him into an object of mockery, we still tend to believe that the Nazi machine was ruthlessly efficient, and that the great dictator spent most of his time...well, dictating things. So it’s worth remembering that Hitler was actually an incompetent, lazy egomaniac and his government was an absolute clown show. In fact, this may even have helped his rise to power, as he was consistently underestimated by the German elite. Before he became chancellor, many of his opponents had dismissed him as a joke for his crude speeches and tacky rallies. He was a “pathetic dunderhead” according to one magazine editor; another wrote that his party was a “society of incompetents” and that people should not “overestimate the fairground party.”
― Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up
― Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up
“First, if you want reliable information, pay good money for it. If you get your news for free, you might well be the product.”
― 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
― 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Our Shared Shelf
— 223246 members
— last activity Dec 16, 2025 12:22AM
OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM. Dear Readers, As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading ...more
The American Novel Since 1945
— 321 members
— last activity Oct 16, 2025 01:22PM
Yale posted a series of lectures entitled, "The American Novel Since 1945." This group will follow this lecture series. Your Host: Lisa of Troy (htt ...more
HORROR or HEAVEN
— 746 members
— last activity 9 hours, 20 min ago
Welcome to Horror or Heaven, a reading group combining horror, science fiction, thrillers, mystery and more. Dig yourself a grave and explore the d ...more
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