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When time permits, I try to see interesting people in the cities I visit. In Seattle, I met Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, who is shy in personality but flamboyant in his philanthropy.
Steven Pinker
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Steven Pinker
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 18
Anthropologist
Linguist
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
Psychologist
University Teacher
Montreal
Quebec
Steven Arthur Pinker
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Microsoft
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Interesting
Shy
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Flamboyant
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Visit
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Paul
Allen
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Seattle
More quotes by Steven Pinker
Of course the theory of evolution would be vacuous if it offered a glib explanation for every inexplicable act.
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I have never been a fan of science fiction. For me, fiction has to explore the combinatorial possibilities of people interacting under the constraints imposed by our biology and history. When an author is free to suspend the constraints, it's tennis without a net.
Steven Pinker
Though knowledge itself increasingly ignores boundaries between fields, professors are apt to organize their pedagogy around the methods and history of their academic subculture rather than some coherent topic in the world.
Steven Pinker
Language mavens commonly confuse their own peeves with a worsening of the language.
Steven Pinker
Language is a window into human nature, but it is also a fistula, an open wound through which we're exposed to an infectious world.
Steven Pinker
We can shape events in each other's brains with exquisite precision.
Steven Pinker
We are visual creatures. Visual things stay put, whereas sounds fade.
Steven Pinker
If anything, Powerpoint, if used well, would ideally reflect the way we think.
Steven Pinker
Most wars are not fought over shortages of resources such as food and water, but rather over conquest, revenge, and ideology.
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No matter how inured you get to atrocities, you're still always stunned and shocked by how cruel and wasteful Homo sapiens can be.
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I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.
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With violence, as with so many other concerns, human nature is the problem, but human nature is also the solution.
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As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty.
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The art of photography is all about directing the attention of the viewer.
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Just as blueprints don't necessarily specify blue buildings, selfish genes don't necessarily specify selfish organisms. As we shall see, sometimes the most selfish thing a gene can do is build a selfless brain. Genes are a play within a play, not the interior monologue of the players.
Steven Pinker
The world has far too much morality.
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My laptop has freed me to travel.
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In the past two decades anthropologists have gathered data on life and death in pre-state societies rather than accepting the warm and fuzzy stereotypes. What did they find? In a nutshell: Hobbes was right, Rousseau was wrong.
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Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't believe in reason.
Steven Pinker
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
Steven Pinker