I get drawn in when I feel there is something deep and mysterious going on beneath the surface of something.
Steven PinkerProbably Hobbes got it right when he said that a leviathan, a third party with a monopoly on the use of legitimate use of force in a territory, might be among the biggest violence reduction techniques ever invented.
Steven PinkerThe doctrine of the sacredness of the soul sounds vaguely uplifting, but in fact is highly malignant. It discounts life on earth as just a temporary phase that people pass through, indeed, an infinitesimal fraction of their existenceโฆthe gradual replacement of lives for souls as the locus of moral value was helped along by the ascendency of skepticism and reason
Steven PinkerEquality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group.
Steven Pinker