01UndatedThinking is a human feature. Will AI someday really think? That's like asking if submarines swim. If you call it swimming then robots will think, yes.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
02UndatedThe two main criminals are France and the United States. They owe Haiti enormous reparations because of actions going back hundreds of years. If we could ever get to the stage where somebody could say, 'We're sorry we did it,' that would be nice. But if that just assuages guilt, it's just another crime. To become minimally civilized, we would have to say, 'We carried out and benefited from vicious crimes. A large part of the wealth of France comes from the crimes we committed against Haiti, and the United States gained as well. Therefore we are going to pay reparations to the Haitian people.' Then you will see the beginnings of civilization.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
03UndatedSmall differences in a system of great power can have enormous consequences. [Source: Al Jazeera 'Upfront' interview]Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
04UndatedI think maybe the classic formulation was by David Hume in "Of the First Principles of Government," where he pointed out that "Force is always on the side of the governed." Whether it's a military society, a partially free society, or what we - not he - would call a totalitarian state, it's the governed who have the power. And the rulers have to find ways to keep them from using their power. Force has its limits, so they have to use persuasion. They have to somehow find ways to convince people to accept authority. If they aren't able to do that, the whole thing is going to collapse.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
05UndatedLook, part of the whole technique of disempowering people is to make sure that the real agents of change fall out of history, and are never recognized in the culture for what they are. So it's necessary to distort history and make it look as if Great Men did everything - that's part of how you teach people they can't do anything, they're helpless, they just have to wait for some Great Man to come along and do it for them.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
06UndatedThe missile crisis "was the most dangerous moment in human history," Arthur Schlesinger commented in October 2002 at a conference in Havana on the fortieth anniversary of the crisis, attended by a number of those who witnessed it from within as it unfolded. Desision-makers at the time undoubtedly understood that the fate of the world was in their hands. Nevertheless, attendees at the conference may have been shocked by some of the revelations. They were informed that in October 1962 the world was "one word away" from nuclear war. "A guy named Arkhipov saved the world," said Thomas Blanton of the National Security Archive in Washington, which helped organize the event. He was referring to Vasil Arkhipov, a Soviet submarine officer blocked an order to fire nuclear-armed toredoes in October 27, at the tensest moment of the crisis, when te submarines were under attack bu US destroyers, A devastating response would have been a near certainty, leading a major war. Pg 74, Penguin PublicationNoam Chomsky / quote ↗
07UndatedThe smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
08UndatedIt’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
09UndatedOptimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
10Undated...if you ask me whether or not I'm an atheist, I wouldn't even answer. I would first want an explanation of what it is that I'm supposed not to believe in, and I've never seen an explanation.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
11UndatedWillingness to be puzzled is a valuable trait to cultivate, from childhood to advanced inquiry.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
12UndatedThe kind of work that should be the main part of life is the kind of work you would want to do if you weren't being paid for it. It's work that comes out of your own internal needs, interests and concerns.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
13UndatedThe social system is taking on a form in which finding out what you want to do is less and less of an option because your life is too structured, organised, controlled and disciplined.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
14UndatedIt is probable that the most inhuman monsters, even the Himmlers and the Mengeles, convince themselves that they are engaged in noble and courageous acts.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
15UndatedIn rational inquiry, we idealize to selected domains in such a way (we hope) as to permit us to discover crucial features of the world. Data and observations, in the sciences, have an instrumental character. They are of no particular interest in themselves, but only insofar as they constitute evidence that permits one to determine fundamental features of the real world, within a course of inquiry that is invariably undertaken under sharp idealizations, often implicit and simply common understanding, but always present.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
17Undated... if we adopt the principle of universality: if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others -- more stringent ones, in fact -- plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evilNoam Chomsky / quote ↗
19UndatedOur ignorance can be divided into problems and mysteries. When we face a problem, we may not know its solution, but we have insight, increasing knowledge, and an inkling of what we are looking for. When we face a mystery, however, we can only stare in wonder and bewilderment, not knowing what an explanation would even look like.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
20UndatedA very, in a sense, terrifying aspect of our society, and other societies, is the equanimity and the detachment with which sane, reasonable, sensible people can observe [war]. I think that's more terrifying than the occasional Hitler or LeMay or other that crops up. These people would not be able to operate were it not for this apathy and equanimity...and therefore I think that it's, in some sense, the sane and reasonable and tolerant people who share a very serious burden of guilt that they very easily throw on the shoulders of others who seem more extreme and violent.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
21Undated...the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
22UndatedReigning doctrines are often called a "double standard".The term is misleading.It is more accurate to describe them as a single standard,clear and unmistakable,the standard that Adam Smith called the "vile maxim of the masters of mankind: ...All for ourselves,and nothing for other people." Much has changed since his day,but the vile maxim flourishes.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
23UndatedCorporations barely pay taxes. The corporate tax rate is already very low, but corporations have worked out an array of complicated techniques so they often don't have to pay taxes at all... The scale of sheer robbery by corporate power is enormous.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
24Undated[W]e have a democracy that uses free elections to put in place known obstructionists, and a media that disproportionately gives a forum to economically driven ideology over sound science.Noam Chomsky / quote ↗
