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Nicht den Tod sollte man fürchten, sondern daß man nie beginnen wird, zu leben.

Marcus Aurelius

"Selbstbetrachtungen"

You could admit you were wrong.
You could apologize to your children.
You could slow down.
You could fasten your seat belt.

Chris Korda

"Less"

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

Plato

Der Prüfstein trügt dich nie: Gut ist, was wohl dir tut,
und das ist schlimm, o Herz, wobei dir schlimm zumut.

Friedrich Rückert

We should stop calling feminists 'feminists' and just start calling people who are not feminist 'sexist,' and then everyone else is just a human. You are either a normal person or a sexist. People get a label when they're bad.

Maisie Williams

Haben wir das verdient? Ich fürchte ja. Denn auch jene, die jetzt erschrocken sind, die sich schämen, als Deutsche identifiziert zu werden, die vor einem verschäubleten Europa nicht minder Angst haben als die Menschen in den „peripheren“ südlichen Regionen dieser vermaledeiten Eurozone, die von Europa weiter entfernt ist als wir je in unserer Geschichte waren, müssen sich fragen lassen, wie sie das geschehen haben lassen können, wie aus nationalistischem Geifer, herzloser Interessenpolitik und schierem Opportunismus eine Politik entstehen konnte, die anti-demokratisch, anti-europäisch und antisozial zugleich genannt werden darf. Die Politik der Merkel-Regierung ist schlimm genug; das propagandistische Grundrauschen, das sie begleitet aber ist eines zivilisierten Europäers absolut unwürdig.

Georg Seeßlen

Die Rückkehr des »hässlichen Deutschen«

Nixon was also operating at the height of the Cold War, when there may have been a legitimate right to more control over what the press can and can't say or release.

Obama is operating at the height of what? Asymmetric warfare where we're basically beating third world peasants into submission. Or maybe the War on Drugs where we're basically beating first world peasants into submission and slavery, whilst turning a complete blind eye to what's only comparable to genocide in a country we share a border with.

What our government is trying to do is on par with returning us to serfdom. I keep hearing that things are supposed to get better, but it's important to remember; freedom comes after the blade of a guillotine.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5924330

The exterior things touch the soul in no way. They have no access to it and neither can change the mood of the soul nor move it. Rather it gives itself its mood and movement, and according to its judgements that it makes about its own dignity, it also values the exterior objects higher or lower.

Marcus Aurelius

Unreason and anti-intellectualism abominate thought. Thinking implies disagreement; and disagreement implies nonconformity; and nonconformity implies heresy; and heresy implies disloyalty — so, obviously, thinking must be stopped. But shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom.

Adlai Stevenson

"A Call to Greatness" (1954)

Everyone has an internal eye. It always watching. It has been slowly constructed by society at large and by your friends and family, and it checks you for unacceptable behaviour. If you have had it around for long enough, you actually start to believe that the eye is you, and that you’re “being reasonable” or some other rationalization.

But the eye isn’t you at all. It is a prison, and you have justified its existence by obeying it. It’s strong because you let it be strong.

But the secret, the part that’s amazing, is that it can’t do anything to stop you, even if it wanted to. It’s an eye. It can only watch. The rest of you is free to act as you wish.

Julien Smith

"The Complete Guide to Not Giving a Fuck"

The political divide about surveillance is about whether or not the ends justify the means. I believe they don’t, or rather that those who focus on the immediate benefits of surveillance are myopic to its other effects on society. Those people by the way are well meaning – always keep Hanlon’s Razor in mind : never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. What it means about surveillance is that we don’t need to have intent to create a fascist regime – we can just sleepwalk into it.

Jean-Marc Liotier

http://serendipity.ruwenz ... -pas-illegal-cest-a-legal

If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.

Catherine Aird

[..] the world today is not the world of yesterday. A capitalist oligarchy runs the world and forces us to consume in order to keep the gears of this rotten society on track. As such, the biggest market for video game consumption today is the mobile one. It is a market of poor souls forced to compulsively consume digital content in order to forget the misery of their everyday life, commute, or just any other brief free moment they have that they are not using to produce goods or services for the ruling class. These individuals need to keep focusing on their video games (because not doing so will fill them with tremendous existential angst), so they go as far as spending money on them to extend their experience, and their preferred way of doing so is through in-app purchases and virtual currency.

But what if someone were to find a way to edit the saved games and assign the items and currency without effort? That would be terrible, because it would help players consume the content much faster, and therefore run out of it sooner than expected. If that happens, they will have nothing that prevents them from thinking, and the tremendous agony of realizing their own irrelevance would again take over their life.

No, we definitely do not want that to happen, so let's see how to encrypt savegames and protect the world order.

https://github.com/godote ... b749f46af597e85e25cf2955a

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

George Bernard Shaw

[..] wenn die Weltgeschichte nicht so beschissen wäre, wäre es eine Lust zu leben. Dies ist's aber auf jeden Fall. Der Meinung war ich sogar in Gurs, wo ich mir die Frage [ob man sich das Leben nehmen solle] ernsthaft vorlegte und spaßhaft beantwortete.

Hannah Arendt

Brief an Kurt Blumenfeld (1952)

Auch mir ist manchmal danach zu Mute, die Waffen zu strecken. Aber, allen Gewalten zum Trotz! Es geht ja im Leben immer auf und ab. Man muss nur warten können. Ich werde versuchen, mich nicht mit Träumen zufrieden zu geben, mit Schöngeistigkeit und noblen Gesten. Man darf heute nicht sehr weichherzig sein.

Sophie Scholl

17. Juni 1940

Here’s the real reason libertarians hate the idea. The welfare state is a check against servility towards the rich. A strong welfare state would give us the power to say Fuck You to our bosses — this is the power to say “I’m gonna work odd jobs for twenty hours a week while I work on my driftwood sculptures and play keyboards in my chillwave band. And I’ll still be able to go to the doctor and make rent.”

Connor Kilpatrick

http://exiledonline.com/i ... -cool-its-libertarianism/