When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.
Even in dying, a Thennanin ship was reputed to be not worth putting out of its misery. In battle they were slow, unmaneuverable—and as hard to disable permanently as a cockroach.
Generalization is a natural human mental process, and many generalizations are true—in average. What often does promote evil behavior is the lazy, nasty habit of believing that generalizations have an...
While I have the floor, here's a question that's been bothering me for some time. Why do so few writers of heroic or epic fantasy ever deal with the fundamental quandary of their novels . . . that so...
À l’intérieur, il se sentait un creux immense et douloureux, comme s’il avait eu le cœur pris dans un étau de glace. Rien ne semblait pouvoir bouger en lui, au risque de briser quelque chose de chance...
How can we set up a system which encourages individuals to strive and excel, and yet which shows some compassion to the weak, and weeds out madmen and tyrants?
The dream is so pleasant: to extend a limited sub-portion of yourself into a simulated world and pretend for a while that you are blissfully less. Less than an omniscient being.
Only people with full stomachs become environmentalists.
Self-righteousness is an especially heady condition that all of us have experienced at one time or another. Those who are honest will admit there is something sickly-sweet and alluring about knowing y...
If humanity has one majestic talent, it’s an almost infinite capacity to get used to the Next Big Thing … then take it for granted.
In other words, bright people with too much time on their hands, overly influenced by notions they found in old Earth books.
The three basic material rights -- continuity, mutual obligation, and the pursuit of happiness.
The towering standing wave that composes the symphony of thought.
Your neighbors are not all sheep. Your political opponents are not all evil or fools. Try talking to those you despise. They are your fellow citizens. And together, we are not lesser than any "greates...
That’s not how human psychology works. No, we tend to do lots of things without knowing why. We need excuses, though, so we rationalize! If an obvious reason for our behavior isn’t readily available,...
Analog, or Asimov's Magazine, or The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
The best means to an end are not always those that appear most direct.
Way back, about a century ago, physicist Enrico Fermi and his colleagues, taking a lunch break from the Manhattan Project, found themselves discussing life in the cosmos. Some younger scientists claim...
He approached the great glass barrier dividing the room, and the speaker at the end of the table. Cyclops? he whispered, stepping closer, clearing his tight throat, Cyclops, it's me, Gordon. The glow...
Look. Studies show FEAR sets attitudes/tolerance to change. Fearful people reject foreign, alien, strange. Circle wagons. Pull in horizons. Horizons of time. Of tolerance. Of risk. Of Dreams.
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