Sublime

Carl Sagan’s more famous ideas (or sound bites): that we are living through humanity’s “technological adolescence,” in possession of new power but not yet possessed of the maturity to wield that power well.

Via this quest for status, “the first true steps are taken from barbarism to culture, which in fact consists in the social worthiness of man.” Thus commences “a continued process of enlightenment” as “all man’s talents are now gradually developed, his taste cultivated.”

One person can indeed change the world, but the change is most often carried out through other people.

When human beings pool their resources they become truly powerful.

certain gene pools have flourished because true altruism has come into existence, at levels of life (organisms, ecologies, communities, cultures) that genetic codes cannot directly determine.

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