Stephanie Silver

“television in virtually every living room. Apparently some quirk in human nature allows even the most unspeakable acts of evil to become banal within minutes, provided only that they occur far enough away to pose no personal threat.”
― Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust Of World War II

“Power gained through bloodshed will drown its wielder in its own river. Those who play God forget they too are mortal until death knocks, unmerciful and unstoppable, reminding them that no throne can shield a decaying soul.”
― Pierre Lagrenat

“My conclusion: It was just that Joel, Elliot, Sheryl, and Mark didn’t give a fuck. Joel was a veteran of George W. Bush’s White House. An issue in Syria would be met by a wave of his hand and, “Drop a bomb on it. I don’t care.” A joke, but also who he was. He was the man in charge of those countries for Facebook. And when it came to Myanmar, those people just didn’t matter to him. He couldn’t be bothered. There was no greater principle ever offered. People outside big companies sometimes wonder and speculate about how these sorts of decisions happen. This is how it happened at Facebook. And it wasn’t just Joel. None of the senior leaders—Elliot or Sheryl or Mark—thought about this enough to put in place the kinds of systems we’d need, in Myanmar or other countries. They apparently didn’t care. These were sins of omission. It wasn’t the things they did; it was the things they didn’t do.”
― Sarah Wynn-Williams, Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

“The greatest danger to the State is independent intellectual criticism; there is no better way to stifle that criticism than to attack any isolated voice, any raiser of new doubts, as a profane violator of the wisdom of his ancestors.”
― Murray N. Rothbard, Anatomy of the State