Carolina C santos > Recent Status Updates

"One of the defining features that drives an empire's rapid accumulation of wealth is its ability to pay very little or nothing at all to reap the economic benefits of a broad base of human labor."

"Since its conception, the development and use of AI has been propelled by tantalizing dreams of modernity and shaped by a narrow elite with the money and influence to bring forth their conception of technology. "

"Americans used to be able to choose where to live, but moving toward opportunity is now, largely, a privilege of the economic elite."

"É preciso ir longe, pelo menos uma vez na vida, para descobrir o prazer de estar de volta. Para separar o supérfluo do essencial, saber quem são as pessoas que nos fazem falta. É preciso completar a travessia para descobrir que o sentido de toda viagem está no ponto de partida."

"não foi preciso ter coragem para chegar aqui. Foi preciso acreditar, caminhar, arriscar, renunciar, aprender, me arrepender, insistir e tentar de novo, de outro jeito. O primeiro perigo estava em ficar no lugar de onde eu vim, renunciar à pequena possibilidade do sonho e, todo dia, tomar a mesma decisão de adiar a descoberta de mim mesma."

"Esses que assistem pela primeira vez ao nosso voo solo acham que lutamos contra a distância, contra o ar, contra o mar. Eles jamais entenderão que o grande desafio foi, enfim, desatracar."

"Não poderia adicionar que, em tão pouco tempo, o que parecia um sonho seria um gesto comum. Quando tracei a rota da viagem, meus destinos eram palavras dispersas em cartas marinhas. Eram desenhos, cores, medidas, desejos de onde surgiram caminhos. Eram enigmas, enganos. Não previ carinhos, calores, amigos, apegos, amores. Enquanto atraco na terra, ela vira a dona dos meus planos."

"Human society, in this view, is founded on the collective repression of our baser instincts, which becomes all the more necessary when humans are living in large numbers in the same place."

"the small patch of refrigerator door in contact with the magnet is holding off the entire earth. Furthermore, the magnetic force, caused by the circular motion of the charged particles inside the magnet, is itself much weaker than the electric force."

"In an age of greed and selfishness, the public library stands as an enduring monument to the values of cooperation and sharing. In an age where global corporations stride the earth, the public library remains firmly rooted in the local community. In an age of widespread cynicism and distrust of government, the 100 percent tax-supported public library has virtually unanimous and enthusiastic support."

"The ideal chopped-salad customer is himself efficient: he needs to eat his twelve-dollar salad in ten minutes because he needs the extra time to keep functioning within the job that allows him to afford a regular twelve-dollar salad in the first place."

"When our actions begin to integrate with our beliefs, when we are doing some of the work that we know needs to be done, we have less need for the various doubles our culture offers up disguised as a good life."

"The idea that each one of us has a look alike walking around somewhere means that no one is quite special or unique as we might have imagined ourselves to be."

"What Du Bois and Césaire tried to tell us is that culture, language, science, and economy are no protection against genocide - all it takes is sufficient military force wielded by a power willing to denounce your culture as savage and declare you brutes."

"This is surely why the Bannons of the world, bankrolled by a rotating cast of billionaires, love conspiracy theories, whether they personally believe them or not: they reliably shift attention away from the scandals we know about and that many have already painstakingly proved, and focus us, perennially, on something more explosive, something that is on the verge of being proved, but never quite yet."

"The horror of the society that flips fascist from within - without the aid of a foreign invasion - lies precisely in this unsettling feeling of familiarity. When that ferocious force is conjured up to wage war on a portion of the domestic population, there are no outsiders to blame. It's the nice, normal people down the street who turn out to be capable of monstrosity."

"Unlike their mothers, they denied the value of things they nonetheless felt obligated to do without knowing why."

"Busy, rich people become desensitized to the value of idleness and activities that do not revolve around material goods and status."

"One of the reasons why some super-rich people feel the government should stay small is a stunningly deep-seated, class-based prejudice that informs how they regard themselves as the rightful leaders as evidenced by the fact that they are rich."

"Our reconciliation has not only changed her future, it has also transformed our past."

"What aren't we building when we are building our brands?"

"Everyone assumed that in a more open, interconnected world, democracy and liberal ideas would spread to the autocratic states. Nobody imagined that autocracy and iliberalism would spread to the democratic world instead."

"O prejuízo que a ditadura causou ao país com as perseguições aos cientistas é incalculável.Quando ouço, hoje em dia, jovens falando na volta dos militares ao poder, fico pensando como seria importante esclarecê-los sobre as consequências amplas e profundas de uma vida sob o tacão ditatorial. O país retrocede não só nos direitos da cidadania, mas também no conhecimento, na inovação, na cultura e no avanço científico.

"Depois do golpe de 1964, enfrentávamos não só a perseguição política implacável, mas também um triunfo provisório do falso moralismo, da mesquinhez provinciana, do ressentimento da classe média contra as mudanças dos costumes."

"A gentileza poderia melhorar o mundo. Se os homens cultivassem a gentileza seria possível atentar um pouco tudo quanto a vida tinha de áspero e brutal."