Thread for mundane ironists

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1182

Communism

“It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment. Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.” Joseph Stalin

Theoretically as it were.

“There is often talk of human rights, but it is also necessary to talk of the rights of humanity. Why should some people walk barefoot, so that others can travel in luxurious cars? Why should some live for thirty-five years, so that others can live for seventy years? Why should some be miserably poor, so that others can be hugely rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who do not have a piece of bread. I speak on the behalf of the sick who have no medicine, of those whose rights to life and human dignity have been denied.” Fidel Castro

Ideologically as it were.

“Labor in the white skin can never free itself as long as labor in the black skin is branded.” Karl Marx

Let’s run this by the folks in the White House.

“The world would not be in such a snarl, had Marx been Groucho instead of Karl.” Irving Berlin

I guess we’ll never really know.

“In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.” Leon Trotsky

Naturally?

“The truth is, one who seeks to achieve freedom by petitioning those in power to give it to him has already failed, regardless of the response. To beg for the blessing of “authority” is to accept that the choice is the master’s alone to make, which means that the person is already, by definition, a slave.” Larken Rose

By definition? That settles it!

1183

Revenge

“Accomplishments don’t erase shame, hatred, cruelty, silence, ignorance, discrimination, low self-esteem or immorality. It covers it up, with a creative version of pride and ego. Only restitution, forgiving yourself and others, compassion, repentance and living with dignity will ever erase the past.” Shannon L. Alder

And don’t forget it!

“I don’t like it, but my hands are tied. I just want you to know this: if I ever get the chance to betray you, I will. If the opportunity arises to pay you back, I’ll take it. You’ll never be able to trust me.” Darren Shan

Enough said? Only now you have to walk the talk.

“Humm humm haaa. Rahmumm humm haaaa," intoned Opal, finishing her chant. "Peace be inside me, tolerance all around me, forgiveness in my path. Now, Mervall, show me where the filthy human is so that I may feed him his organs.” Eoin Colfer

Leaving no stones unturned.

“To exact revenge for yourself or your friends is not only a right, it’s an absolute duty.” Stieg Larsson

Let’s run this by the girl with the dragon tattoo.

“But men often mistake killing and revenge for justice. They seldom have the stomach for justice.” Robert Jordan

What might that look like here?

Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.” Charles Dickens

And in both cities it turned out.

1184

Determinism

“You know, I have always believed that humans do have some amount of free will. Of course, this free will is absent if your bladder is full or if you want to rush to the toilet to have a dump. But once things are normal, a certain amount of leeway does exist.” Abhaidev

Next up: free will in the kitchen.

“Our interests in life are not always served by viewing people and things as collections of atoms—but this doesn’t negate the truth or utility of physics.” Sam Harris

Start here: https://www.thoughtco.com/how-many-atoms-are-in-human-body-603872

“The conviction that a law of necessity governs human activities introduces into our conception of man and life a mildness, a reverence and an excellence, such as would be unattainable without this conviction.” Albert Einstein

Nope, not in mine.

“Newton, Darwin and Freud introduced determinism into everything they studied: the first into the universe, the second into the living world, and the third into the psyche. All three types of determinism were to be questioned later, and in the same sequence. It all started with Einstein’s denial of Newton’s universe.” Alija Izetbegović

Like it could have started any other way.

"We should rather consider the events, as they happen, with the same eye as we consider the printed word which we read, knowing full well that it was there before we read it.” Arthur Schopenhauer

Why are these things always so grimly obtuse?

“You have not built your mind. And in moments in which you seem to build it—when you make an effort to change yourself, to acquire knowledge, or to perfect a skill—the only tools at your disposal are those that you have inherited from moments past.” Sam Harris

Why are these things always so grimly obtuse?

1185

Hypocrisy

“Where I live, people hate each other with a lovely smile.” Anoir Ou-Chad

Not many places that can’t be.

“Where there is fear, there is no love. Where there is cruelty, there can be no humanity. And where there is hypocrisy, there shall never be divinity.” Anthon St. Maarten

Not many places that can’t be.

“The evil of hypocrisy lies in presenting certain acts as virtues. Hypocrites cannot actually be virtuous, so they create certain things that make them appear virtuous.” Nadine Sadaka Boulos

And around and around and around we go.

“All rebellions are ordinary and an ultimate bore. They are copied out of the same pattern, one much like another. The driving force is adrenaline addiction and the desire to gain personal power. All rebels are closet aristocrats.” Frank Herbert

If only historically.

“I’d often found it funny how the only reason that writers of self-help books were rich and famous was because of selling their self-help books. Whereas, if there was any truth to these books, the person would have to be rich and famous before writing the book and even then the advice in it would be subjective at best. But then people were stupid. And bad taste, as Bukowski said, created many more millionaires than good taste. If you wanted a good example of people’s bad taste, all you needed to do was to consider the most popular book of all time—the Bible.” Keijo Kangur

From The Nihilist, of course.

“Women work very hard to prevent or stop their sons from being manipulated by their women, like their sons’ fathers were or are being manipulated by their sons’ mothers.” Mokokoma Mokhonoana

On average.

1186

Quantum Physics

“If everything is the same thing, then does anything matter?” I insist. He caps his pen, pauses, and finally says, “Well, I suppose it’s the way it’s all arranged that gives it meaning . . . it’s how it’s put together. But then again, in the grand scheme of things . . . no, it probably doesn’t matter in the way we think it does.” Cory Richards

On the other hand, there are hundreds of different [and often conflicting] grand schemes of things. So, really, what are the odds that your own scheme will prevail?

"The Theory of Everything begins with the Universal Energy. This Universal Energy is divided into different amounts, reshaped to become each energy type. These energy types then gather to become the strings, particles, and motions, for all objects in the universe.” Mark Fennell

What could possibly be more obvious? Or, sure, less obvious.

“Everything is quantized except freedom.” Mahdi Mansour

Physics: “conforming to quantum-mechanical rather than classical theory, usually resulting in discrete values for observable quantities, such as energy or angular momentum.”

Feel free – click – to disagree, of course.

“Quantum Power is a form of power that comes from within. It’s about harnessing the immense potential of your thoughts and intentions, not to dominate others, but to create positive change in your life and in the world around you. This internal power is a force for good, driving personal growth, fostering resilience, and enabling you to make meaningful contributions to this world. Quantum Power is a path to human flourishing and wellness, and it is a strong path to achieving your dreams.” Kevin L. Michel

So, how’s that working out for you?

“It’s entirely possible that every time we make a decision, there’s a version of us out there somewhere who made a different choice. An infinite number of versions of ourselves are living out the consequences of every single possibility of our lives.” Taylor Jenkins Reid

Or it’s entirely possible that there’s not.

“The 114 chakras exhibits quantum coherence., through which the body maintains balance endocrine hormone secretion, circadian rhythms and optimal mind-body connections.” Amit Ray

Of course, your own chakras might exhibit something entirely different.
Discuss?

1187

And that is more probable.

1188

Chaos

“Love without boundaries is relentless chaos.” Mitta Xinindlu

Not unlike love with boundaries.

“Mohamed Altahir was exhausted. He had lost count of how many hours he had been awake. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been up for this long, or when there had been this much chaos in such a short time. Their village was a quiet, normal one, and they led quiet, normal lives.” Reem Gaafar

Let’s try to explain this.

“Creativity promises you a mess; making meaning of that mess is the whole world. Sometimes it’s all chaos, a collection of stains.” Robin Brown

Hopefully, not counting what we create here.

“Black holes, blue holes, bottomless bodies of water. Exploding stars, event horizons, a place so dark light can’t get out once it’s in.” Jennifer Niven

Sounds about right, of course. But what does that mean?

“Realistic philosophy sees chaos as the earliest state of disorganized creation, blindly impelled towards the creation of a new order of phenomena of hidden meanings. Blavatsky, for example, asks: ‘What is primordial chaos but the ether containing within itself all forms and all beings, all the seeds of universal creation?’ Plato and the Pythagoreans maintained that this ‘primordial substance’ was the soul of the world, called protohype by the alchemists. Thus, chaos is seen as that which embraces all opposing forces in a state of undifferentiated dissolution. In primordial chaos, according to Hindu tradition, one also meets Amrita—immortality—and Visha—evil and death (9). In alchemy, chaos was identified with prime matter and thought to be a massa confusa from which the lapis would arise; it was related to the colour black. It has also been identified with the unconscious.” Juan Eduardo Cirlot

Let’s take it from here, okay?

“In a moderately well-off society, the people fear chaos more than they fear dictatorship.” Koonchung Chan

Enough said?

1189

Faith

“Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.” Stanislaw Lem

Doesn’t surprise me at all.

“What is it with science these days? Everyone is so quick to believe in it, in all these new scientific discoveries, new pills for this, new pills for that. Get thinner, grow hair, yada, yada, yada, but when it requires a little faith in something you all go crazy.’ He shook his head, ‘If miracles had chemical equations then everyone would believe’.” Cecelia Ahern

How idiotic is that? Go ahead, ask me.

“But for me the sweetest contact with God has no form. I close my eyes, look within, and enter a deep soft silence. The infinity of God’s creation embraces me.” Michael Jackson

So, pick one for Michael:
1] Heaven
2] Hell

“Leap, and the net will appear.” Julia Cameron

God willing, of course.

“If it can be verified, we don’t need faith. Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.” Madeleine L’Engle

So, how big is your own “if”.

“If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.” Blaise Pascal

Next up: the Golden Mean of course.

“I’m a Christian first, and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don’t you ever forget it. You know who else was kind of ‘divisive’ in terms of challenging the status quo and the powers-that-be of his day? Jesus Christ.” Ann Coulter

She’ll always be a “mean-spirited, bigoted conservative” to some though. Just don’ get them started.

1190

Self

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.” May Sarton

Or how fractured and fragmented?

“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.” Ernest Hemingway

Not a chance?

“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.” Franz Kafka

Cue the dungeon?

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” Gabriel García Márquez

Just as I told you. Right?

“A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.” Madeleine L’Engle

The good news? It’s only all the way to the grave. I think.

“My past is everything I failed to be.” Fernando Pessoa

Let’s not go there?

1191

Suicide

“They came close. Oh they came close. Was all set to put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger. But there was a computer glitch. Isn’t that something? A stupid glitch and I had to wait a few days and then I saw the errors of my ways, saw so clearly that I was killing the wrong person. It’s not me that needs killing, it’s them.” Hubert Selby Jr.

Them again!

“I am living in hell from one day to the next. But there is nothing I can do to escape. I don’t know where I would go if I did. I feel utterly powerless, and that feeling is my prison. I entered of my own free will, I locked the door, and I threw away the key.” Haruki Murakami

Virtually, as it were, here.

“Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death—and I refuse suicide.” Albert Camus

In other words, “what is to be done?”

“The debate was wearing me out. Once you’ve posed that question, it won’t go away. I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won’t. Anything I thought or did was immediately drawn into the debate. Made a stupid remark—why not kill myself? Missed the bus—better put an end to it all. Even the good got in there. I liked that movie—maybe I shouldn’t kill myself.” Susanna Kaysen

The existential parameters, let’s call them.

“One of the things that therapists do if you are suicidal, like a trick, is ask you about the future. They want to know what your plans are. Do you want to be the president? Do you want to be a rockstar? They want to know if you want to live later even if you want to die now.” Albert Borris

Your own therapy, however, may be entirely different.

“Committing suicide essentially said to friends and loved ones and the world at large that you were the only thing that mattered, that your problems were hopeless that you deserved to escape from them and to hell with everyone else. Suicide was nothing more than a way to look in the eye of the people who loved you and say, ‘My pain is paramount and I want it to end. The pain you will feel when I am gone, and the guilt you will experience at not having been able to stop me, do not matter to me. I am willing for you to suffer for the rest of your life so that I can take the easy way out of mine’.” Christine Warren

Right, like this actually bears any resemblance to suicide in, say, reality"

1192

Cause and Effect

“Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

He meant correlation, of course.

“Choices made, whether bad or good, follow you forever and affect everyone in their path one way or another.” J.E.B. Spredemann

Yes, even virtually.

“A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well.” Frederick Douglass

And, for some, objectively.

“You are here to make a difference, to either improve the world or worsen it. And whether or not you consciously choose to, you will accomplish one or the other.” Richelle E. Goodrich

Want me to bring this down out of the clouds for you?

“When two things occur successively we call them cause and effect if we believe one event made the other one happen. If we think one event is the response to the other, we call it a reaction. If we feel that the two incidents are not related, we call it a mere coincidence. If we think someone deserved what happened, we call it retribution or reward, depending on whether the event was negative or positive for the recipient. If we cannot find a reason for the two events’ occurring simultaneously or in close proximity, we call it an accident. Therefore, how we explain coincidences depends on how we see the world. Is everything connected, so that events create resonances like ripples across a net? Or do things merely co-occur and we give meaning to these co-occurrences based on our belief system?” Liezi, [Lieh-tzu]

And, if not?

“Burning bridges behind you is understandable. It’s the bridges before us that we burn, not realizing we may need to cross, that brings regret.” Anthony Liccione

Next up: you’re a pyromaniac.

1193

Infinity

“You think the universe was always here?
Douglass, everything has an origin.
Maybe you’re both right. Things don’t get created out of nothing. Creations are made outta ingredients. Even ingredients are made out of ingredients. Think about it: Universes are made of galaxies are made of stars are made of gases are made of atoms are made of quarks are made of universes… for all we know.

Maybe there’s an infinite number of big bangs, each one creating a universe that forms a single quark…which interacts with other quarks to build a larger universe. And then that universe fits inside a singularity that explodes into another big bang becoming another quark. Makes sense, but… it had to start at some point, right? Why?

We’re all basically apes with language and clothes. Maybe we think there has to be a “start” 'cause human brains are just too primitive to comprehend infinity. “Creation” happens, but it’s not a “start”. It’s a coming together of what always was to make what always will be. That’s a lot like the “turtles all the way down”.” Darrin Bell

Uh, new thread?

When two mirrors gaze, each reflecting the other—that’s infinity.” Peter Radley

You tell me: Google Search

“There’s an infinity of things for you to learn.” Blaise Pascal

In, say, 70 odd years?

“We look up
Pulled into the immensity,
Lifted into the limitless—
As if it were a hole
We are falling into,
Up instead of down.
We stand on the earth,
Breathe in the night.
It is all too big.
We go back inside.” Alberto Ríos

Spooky and/or scary enough for you?

“Depth on a plane perpendicular to the axis of the visual cone is infinity—infinity that we can touch with a fingertip.” Sam Taylor

You tell me.

“When the ego burns in the flame of Truth, only the Infinite remains.” Shiva Negi

You tell me.

1194

Theory Of Everything

“In the history of science we have discovered a sequence of better and better theories or models, from Plato to the classical theory of Newton to modern quantum theories. It is natural to ask: Will this sequence eventually reach an endpoint, an ultimate theory of the universe, that will include all forces and predict every observation we can make, or will we continue forever finding better theories, but never one that cannot be improved upon?" Stephen Hawking

Not counting your own, of course, Mr. Objectivist.

“For what man in the natural state or course of thinking did ever conceive it in his power to reduce the notions of all mankind exactly to the same length, and breadth, and height of his own? Yet this is the first humble and civil design of all innovators in the empire of reason.” Jonathan Swift

Uh, cue the clouds?

“There is a good chance that the study of the early universe and the requirements of mathematical consistency will lead us to a complete unified theory within the lifetime of some of us who are around today, always presuming we don’t blow ourselves up first!." Stephen Hawking

To wit: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/

“From the computer to the universe everything is in the binary form, either as material or immaterial force, either as material or immaterial object, the theory of everything.” P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

Bullshit, let’s call it.

“Imparting to the ‘Ruby Philosophy of Illusional Antigravity’, for every stable gravitational pull experienced by any material or immaterial object, there exists an opposite instable gravitational pull experienced by that object, that opposite illusion of gravity is termed as the illusional antigravity” P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

Or delusional?

“Each Thing Matters Because Everything in the Universe is made up of Matter.” Pradip Bendkule

Yep, even the clouds.

1195

Communism

“Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind … when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom. Only conscious organization of social production, in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way, can lift mankind above the rest of the animal.” Friedrich Engels

Theoretically in particular.

“North Korean defectors often find it hard to settle down. It is not easy for somebody who’s escaped a totalitarian country to live in the free world. Defectors have to rediscover who they are in a world that offers endless possibilities. Choosing where to live, what to do, even which clothes to put on in the morning is tough enough for those of us accustomed to making choices; it can be utterly paralyzing for people who’ve had decisions made for them by the state their entire lives.” Barbara Demick

Start here: Escape from Freedom: Fromm, Erich: 9780805031492: Amazon.com: Books

“The same rightists who decades ago were shouting, ‘Better dead than red!’ are now often heard mumbling, ‘Better red than eating hamburgers’.” Slavoj Žižek

I’m clearly missing something here. A little help please.

“The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.” Hilaire Belloc

Though only historically…so far.

“Someone that you have deprived of everything is no longer in your power. He is once again entirely free.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn

In the gulags perhaps?

“Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution.” Karl Marx

Knock, knock, who’s there?

1196

Biggy after reading “on a supposed right to lie because of philanthropic concerns” by Kant:

Inside me: I could tell you that, but then I’d have to kill you.

Outside me: Best to lie then… unless it’s to everyone.

Inside me: Right…lying to one person lies to all of humanity, even if the murderer only intends to kill one person.

Outside me: Killing one person is definitely better rather than killing every person. Maybe it’s the same with lying?

Inside me: What’s worse, lying to everyone or killing everyone?

Outside me: What’s best, telling everyone the truth or saving everyone’s lives?

Inside me: If I let you in, are you gonna kill me or everyone?

Outside me: You wouldn’t believe me if I told you I was gonna save you or the world.

Both: scratches head, brain explodes

1197

Revenge

“Let the flames begin!" Hayley Williams

The ultimate revenge! You know, if you’re a Christian.

“We are humiliated and disillusioned once again by our own countrymen because they attempt to trample on us, which increases our isolation and unimportance.” Dorlies von Kaphengst Meissner Rasmussen

And not just here in America anymore.

“May the fleas of a thousand camels invade the crotch of the person that ruins your day. And may their arms be too short to scratch” Keisha Keenleyside

Let’s name names. Here, I mean.

“There is nothing worse than having an enemy who is a total loser. It’s incredibly frustrating when seeking revenge against one, because you come to the realization that there is really nothing you can do to make the person’s life worse than it already is.” Ashly Lorenzana

I’d think of something.
You too?

“But men often mistake killing and revenge for justice. They seldom have the stomach for justice.” Robert Jordan

Their men [and women], of course, not ours.

“The telegram was sealed – an old-fashioned touch, I thought, but then I’d never had a telegram before. I took my time opening it. I said nothing.” Michael Wyndham Thomas

Why, you’re probably wondering.

1198

Determinism

“Choices, efforts, intentions, and reasoning influence our behavior—but they are themselves part of a chain of causes that precede conscious awareness and over which we exert no ultimate control. My choices matter—and there are paths toward making wiser ones—but I cannot choose what I choose. And if it ever appears that I do—for instance, after going back and forth between two options—I do not choose to choose what I choose. There is a regress here that always ends in darkness. I must take a first step, or a last one, for reasons that are bound to remain inscrutable.” Sam Harris

Inevitably? Or, perhaps, close enough to it?

“Speaking from personal experience, I think that losing the sense of free will has only improved my ethics—by increasing my feelings of compassion and forgiveness, and diminishing my sense of entitlement to the fruits of my own good luck.” Sam Harris

Once again: “free will determinism.”
Unless, perhaps – click – I’m wrong.

“On a philosophical level, it struck me as an operational way to define free will, in a way that allowed you to reconcile free will with determinism. The system is deterministic, but you can’t say what it’s going to do next.” J. Doyne Farmer

And only on a philosophical level?

“That is to say that at the heart of existence is that double negation, ‘one can not, not’.” Verena Andermatt Conley

Right, the very heart of existence.

“A superficial understanding of science can lead to the assumption that the universe plays out like clockwork. As if the initial conditions were set up in the beginning, then someone hit the go button and everything since has followed in a predetermined manner. This again, is a mechanistic view. Those who make this assumption, without realizing it, are modelling the universe as a machine, as if there were nothing more to it than the straight forward Newtonian mechanisms of clockwork. They assume reality to be nothing but a cascade of atoms bumping into one another like a line of dominoes falling eternally in what could be called ‘the billiard ball model’ of reality.” Jax Pax

His guess is as good as any other, I suppose.

"We are doomed to endlessly enact patterns of behaviour not of our own creation; not of anyone’s creation really, until some seismic shift in the cultural equivalent of tectonic plates lands us somehow in a new, equally inexplicable arrangement.” David Graeber

Doomed. That can’t be good.

1199

I really don’t know how you manage to choose such cool quotes, it’s like it’s completely random sometimes, but of course it isn’t.

1200

Hypocrisy

“Be careful of the person who has let ‘do as I say, not as I do’ seep into their character, as they will almost certainly corrupt the trust you grant them.” Charles F. Glassman

No shit?

“I have more respect for a man who let me know where he stands, even if he’s wrong, than the one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil.” Malcolm X

Right, sure he did.

“Society won’t stand for it.
It’s not society, You’re the one who won’t stand for it - right?
If you do such a thing society will make you suffer for it.
It’s not society. It’s you, isn’t it?
Before you know it, you’ll be ostracized by society.
It’s not society. You’re going to do the ostracizing, aren’t you?” Osamu Dazai

I’ll bet that takes some of us back.

“I feel, think and behave the same, whether I am talking to a president of a nation, a scholar, a janitor or a sex worker. I have nothing to hide and nothing to gain, hence I have no need for pretense.” Abhijit Naskar

He kept telling himself that, of course.

“Do not require standards for others you do not yourself obey.” C.A.A. Savastano

What’s the fun in that?

“…and the reason why it took them so long to impeach him… or to start an impeachment trial, is because they had to find a crime that Trump committed that they were not also complicit in.” Jimmy Dore

The two-party system some stilll call it.

1201

Cause and Effect

“Unable to attribute misfortune to chance, unable to accept their ultimate insignificance within the greater scheme, the people looked for monsters in their midst.” Bernard Beckett

That would be me here, of course.

“Man doeth this and doeth that from the good or evil of his heart; but he knows not to what end his sense doth prompt him; for when he strikes he is blind to where the blow shall fall, nor can he count the airy threads that weave the web of circumstance. Good and evil, love and hate, night and day, sweet and bitter, man and woman, heaven above and the earth beneath–all those things are needful, one to the other, and who knows the end of each?” H. Rider Haggard

Next up: one to the other here.

“Consequences,” said Gamache. “We must always consider the consequences of our actions. Or inaction. It won’t necessarily change what we do, but we need to be aware of the effect.” Louise Penny

Unless, perhaps, you’re a sociopath.

"When I try to reconstruct the place that I was, at that point in my life, to figure out how I got there, to that punch, to that bed, to that girl—I can’t. I can see where some bad decisions led to some other bad decisions, but I can’t get all the way there; it’s like I imagine a curve, where I’m dropping lower and lower down, and then I’m off the radar screen, invisible, and then, after some time goes by, the line is rising, visible again, and I don’t know what happened in between.” Kristen Roupenian

In other words, dasein all the way down. Or, at least, all the way to the grave.

“Because reasoning about causes and effects is a very difficult thing, and I believe the only judge of that can be God. We are already hard put to establish a relationship between such an obvious effect as a charred tree and the lightning bolt that set fire to it, so to trace sometimes endless chains of causes and effects seems to me as foolish as trying to build a tower that will touch the sky.” Umberto Eco

Now all we need are a few actual contexts.

“To some extent the romantic condemnation of rationality stems from the very effectiveness of rationality in uplifting men from primitive conditions.” Robert M. Pirsig

Not counting value judgments, he insisted.