Robert

“If we don’t address the root suffering of Americans, even if you took every opioid pill away, that suffering will manifest into another social and public health problem,” he told us. “If we want to end, truly end the opioid crisis, we need to understand the basic causes of suffering and pain in America.”
― Nicholas D Kristof, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope

“No matter what you call it – game theory, postmodernism or memetics – the dynamics of history are not directed towards enhancing human well-being. There is no basis for thinking that the most successful cultures in history are necessarily the best ones for Homo sapiens. Like evolution, history disregards the happiness of individual organisms.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“the battle between Democrats and Republicans each election cycle now came down to whether America’s squeezed middle class was more likely to identify the wealthy and powerful or the poor and minorities as the reason they weren’t doing better. I didn’t want to believe that this was all our politics had to offer. I hadn’t run simply to fan anger and allocate blame. I had run to rebuild the American people’s trust—not just in the government but in one another. If we trusted one another, democracy worked.”
― Barack Obama, A Promised Land

“One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind