Social quotes
From Motley Bytes Wiki
Contents
Dietrich_Bonhoeffer
Stupidity Social
“We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them. We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who live in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem.”
- Source: From the paper “An Account at the Turn of the Year 1942-1943” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, contained within the book “Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Volume 8: Letters and Papers from Prison” edited by John W. Gruchy, et al. Published in 2009 by Fortress Press.
- Keywords: Stupid_quotes Discover_quotes Surprise_quotes Particular_quotes Situation_quotes Impression_quotes Gain_quotes Congenital_quotes Defect_quotes Certain_quotes Circumstance_quotes People_quotes Made_quotes Allow_quotes Happen_quotes Isolate_quotes Other_quotes Live_quotes Solitude_quotes Manifest_quotes Less_quotes Frequent_quotes Individual_quotes Group_quotes Incline_quotes Condemn_quotes Social_quotes Seem_quotes Psychology_quotes Sociology_quotes Problem_quotes
Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi
Culture Shields
“One of the major functions of every culture has been to shield its members from chaos, to reassure them of their importance and ultimate success…. An unrealistic trust in the shields, in the cultural myths, can lead to equally extreme disillusion when they fail... The shields that have worked in the past — the order that religion, patriotism, ethnic traditions, and habits instilled by social classes used to provide — are no longer effective for increasing numbers of people who feel exposed to the harsh winds of chaos.”
- Source: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience“, chapter “The Shields of Culture”, page 11. Original content published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics in 1990. Kindle edition published by Harper Collins in 2008. ISBN: 978-0061876721.
- Keywords: Major_quotes Function_quotes Culture_quotes Shield_quotes Member_quotes Chaos_quotes Reassure_quotes Important_quotes Ultimate_quotes Success_quotes Unrealistic_quotes Trust_quotes Myth_quotes Lead_quotes Disillusion_quotes Fail_quotes Work_quotes Past_quotes Order_quotes Religion_quotes Patriotism_quotes Ethnic_quotes Habit_quotes Instill_quotes Social_quotes Class_quotes Provide_quotes Effective_quotes Increase_quotes Number_quotes People_quotes Feel_quotes Expose_quotes Harsh_quotes Wind_quotes
Samuel_C_Florman
Enlightenment
“Ever since the days of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, men had been tantalized by the thought that social and moral truths existed, just like scientific truths, and could be discovered by the application of ‘right reason.’”
- Source: From the book “The Existential Pleasures of Engineering” by {Samuel C. Florman}. Second edition published in 1994 by {St. Martin's Press}, New York, NY. First edition published in 1976. Kindle edition published in 2023. E-book ISBN 978-1466842366. Chapter 1, page 7.
Social Responsibility
“For if ever there was a group dedicated to — obsessed with — morality, conscience, and social responsibility, it has been the engineering profession. Practically every description of the practice of engineering has stressed the concept of service to humanity.”
- Source: From the book “The Existential Pleasures of Engineering” by {Samuel C. Florman}. Second edition published in 1994 by {St. Martin's Press}, New York, NY. First edition published in 1976. Kindle edition published in 2023. E-book ISBN 978-1466842366. Chapter 3, page 19.
Yuval_Noah_Harari
Origins of Order
“Being truthful about the origins of our social order makes it easier to make changes in it... But such truthfulness comes at a price. Acknowledging the human origins of the social order makes it harder to persuade everyone to agree on it.”
- Source: Yuval Noah Harari writing in his book ‘Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI’. Published in 2024 by Random House. Kindle edition. Chapter 2 page 36. ISBN 978-0593734247.
Karl_Marx
Feminine Ferment
“Everyone who knows anything of history also knows that great social revolutions are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress may be measured precisely by the social position of the fair sex (plain ones included).”
- Source: Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, dated 12 December 1868.
Herbert_Simon
Invisible Hand
“In examining the processes of social coordination, economics has given top billing sometimes almost exclusive billing to the market mechanism. It is indeed a remarkable mechanism... The optimality theorems stretch credibility, so far as real-world markets are concerned, because they require substantive rationality of the kinds we found implausible in our examination of the theory of the firm. Markets populated by consumers and producers who satisfice instead of optimizing do not meet the conditions on which the theorems rest.”
- Source: Simon, H. A. (1996). The Sciences of the Artificial (Third Edition). Computers & Mathematics with Applications (3rd ed., Vol. 33). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN: 9780585360102. Retrieved 2018-08-23 from https://monoskop.org/images/9/9c/Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed.pdf. Chapter 2, page 32-33.
- Keywords: Examination_quotes Process_quotes Social_quotes Coordination_quotes Economics_quotes Top_quotes Bill_quotes Exclusive_quotes Market_quotes Mechanism_quotes Optimal_quotes Theory_quotes Stretch_quotes Credible_quotes Reality_quotes World_quotes Substance_quotes Rational_quotes Plausible_quotes Examination_quotes Firm_quotes Population_quotes Consumer_quotes Producer_quotes Satisfice_quotes Optimization_quotes Condition_quotes Invisible_quotes Hand_quotes
Design without Final Goals
“In the discussion of discovery processes. We saw there that search guided by only the most general heuristics of ‘interestingness’ or novelty is a fully realizable activity. This kind of search, which provides the mechanism for scientific discovery, may also provide the most suitable model of the social design process.”
- Source: Simon, H. A. (1996). The Sciences of the Artificial (Third Edition). Computers & Mathematics with Applications (3rd ed., Vol. 33). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN: 9780585360102. Retrieved 2018-08-23 from https://monoskop.org/images/9/9c/Simon_Herbert_A_The_Sciences_of_the_Artificial_3rd_ed.pdf. Chapter 6, page 162.
- Keywords: Discussion_quotes Discovery_quotes Process_quotes Search_quotes Guide_quotes Generality_quotes Heuristic_quotes Interest_quotes Novelty_quotes Full_quotes Realizable_quotes Activity_quotes Kind_quotes Provide_quotes Mechanism_quotes Science_quotes Suitability_quotes Model_quotes Social_quotes Design_quotes
Shannon_Vallor
AI Longtermism
“What longtermists and effective altruists have in common... is the utilitarian view that morality is a happiness optimization problem, a matter of running the numbers. Conveniently for AI enthusiasts... For a virtue ethicist like me, there are profound dangers and moral errors in any view of morality that separates it from humane feeling, relational bonds, and social context, reducing it to a mere computation of net happiness units.”
- Source: From the book “The AI Mirror” by Shannon Vallor. Published 2024 by Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0197759066. Chapter 3, page 77.
- Keywords: AI_quotes Artificial_quotes Intelligence_quotes Longtermism_quotes Effective_quotes Altruist_quotes Common_quotes Utilitarian_quotes View_quotes Morality_quotes Happiness_quotes Optimization_quotes Problem_quotes Matter_quotes Run_quotes Number_quotes Convenient_quotes Enthusiast_quotes Virtue_quotes Ethicist_quotes Profound_quotes Danger_quotes Moral_quotes Error_quotes Separate_quotes Human_quotes Feel_quotes Relational_quotes Bond_quotes Social_quotes Context_quotes Reduce_quotes Mere_quotes Computation_quotes Net_quotes Unit_quotes
Gerald_Weinberg
Programming Not Individual
“But there is much evidence, as we shall see presently, to argue that the proper study of programming is done at the level of the programming social unit. Not that the individual level is unimportant, but we might start by asking why, if the average programmer spends two-thirds of his time working with other people rather than working alone (yes, it's true!), that 99 percent of the studies have been on individual programmers.”
- Source: Chapter 3. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
- Keywords: Evidence_quotes Programming_quotes Society_quotes Group_quotes Team_quotes Organization_quotes Level_quotes Individual_quotes Importance_quotes Programmer_quotes Time_quotes Productivity_quotes Research_quotes Study_quotes Social_quotes Unimportant_quotes Why_quotes Average_quotes People_quotes Coordination_quotes Cooperation_quotes
Too Smart for Programming
“It is possible to be too smart for programming — if the person is not smart enough to use his intelligence to modify his social behavior and methods of communication.”
- Source: Chapter 5. Weinberg, G. M. (2011). The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver anniversary edition) | 1971. Weinberg & Weinberg.
E_O_Wilson
Self-Knowledge
“Self-knowledge will reveal the elements of biological human nature from which modern social life proliferated in all its strange forms.”
- Source: Chapter 4 (Emergence). On Human Nature (1978). On Human Nature; written by Edward O. Wilson; first edition; published in 1978 by Cambridge University Press; ISBN 0674634411.
