Our only real hope for democracy is that we get the money out of politics entirely and establish a system of publicly funded elections.

Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.

The Ottoman Empire . . . The rulers in Turkey were fortunately so corrupt that they left people alone pretty much - were mostly interested in robbing them - and they left them alone to run their own affairs . . . with a lot of local self determination.

States are violent to the extent that they have the power to act in the interests of those with domestic power

What can realistically be done depends on the historical moment. The same is true with regard to the agents.

At the peak of the so-called great success of neoliberal economics, in 2007, right before the crash, non-supervisory workers were at wages considerably lower than in 1979, when the neoliberal assault was taking off. That perfectly naturally causes resentment and fear, and combines with a tendency to blame the most vulnerable.

If there are lessons to be drawn from the sciences, then that should be the concern of everyone, including scientists to the extent that they can make a contribution.