Chris

“Societies would _not_ be better off if everyone were like Mr Spock, all rationality and no emotion. Instead, a balance - a teaming up of the internal rivals - is optimal for brains. ... Some balance of the emotional and rational systems is needed, and that balance may already be optimized by natural selection in human brains.”
― David Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

“There is a looming chasm between what your brain knows and what your mind is capable of accessing.”
― David Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

“Why should the spread of ideas and people result in reforms that lower violence? There are several pathways. The most obvious is a debunking of ignorance and superstition. A connected and educated populace, at least in aggregate and over the long run, is bound to be disabused of poisonous beliefs, such as that members of other races and ethnicities are innately avaricious or perfidious; that economic and military misfortunes are caused by the treachery of ethnic minorities; that women don't mind to be raped; that children must be beaten to be socialized; that people choose to be homosexual as part of a morally degenerate lifestyle; that animals are incapable of feeling pain. The recent debunking of beliefs that invite or tolerate violence call to mind Voltaire's quip that those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
― Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

“Evolve solutions; when you find a good one, don't stop.”
― David Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain