125
" ON GETTING DRUNK:" Those who are Christians are to see to it that they are grateful for grace and redemption and conduct themselves modestly, moderately, and soberly, so that one does not go on living the swinish life that goes on in the filthy world...." " ...In my time it was considered a great shame among the nobility [drunkenness]. Now they are worse than the citizens and peasants;...We preach, but who stops it? Those who should stop it do it themselves; the princes even more. Therefore Germany is a land of hogs and a filthy people which debauches its body and its life. If you were going to paint it, you would have to paint a pig. " This gluttony is inundating us like an ocean....We are the laughingstock of all the other countries, who look upon us as filthy pigs;...It is possible to tolerate a little elevation, when a man takes a drink or two too much after working hard and when he is feeling low. This must be called a frolic. But to sit day and night, pouring it in and pouring it out again, is piggish. This is not a human way of living. not to say Christian, but rather a pig's life." - Martin Luther "
131
" Remember: knowing originates on the inside, knowledge on the outside. Certain facts and concepts may change, come into being, disappear, or be replaced, but what it is to be a human being will never really be all that different. Every person to ever live, now and the whole of history, has had a rich and elaborate world of inner experience, but it has mainly been flesh upon the same skeleton. We are all
born, come to terms with the world, and then come to terms with coming to terms with the world, as we go through the stages of puberty, old age, death and
making sense of it all in between. We all live the same process in different ways. Some live it longer than others and some cover more ground. But that's it. "
― Oli Anderson , Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness
139
" Ending up with that gigantic outsized brain must have taken some sort of runaway evolutionary process, something that would push and push without limits.
And today's scientists had a pretty good guess at what that runaway evolutionary process had been.
Harry had once read a famous book called Chimpanzee Politics. The book had described how an adult chimpanzee named Luit had confronted the aging alpha, Yeroen, with the help of a young, recently matured chimpanzee named Nikkie. Nikkie had not intervened directly in the fights between Luit and Yeroen, but had prevented Yeroen's other supporters in the tribe from coming to his aid, distracting them whenever a confrontation developed between Luit and Yeroen. And in time Luit had won, and become the new alpha, with Nikkie as the second most powerful...
...though it hadn't taken very long after that for Nikkie to form an alliance with the defeated Yeroen, overthrow Luit, and become the new new alpha.
It really made you appreciate what millions of years of hominids trying to outwit each other - an evolutionary arms race without limit - had led to in the way of increased mental capacity.
'Cause, y'know, a human would have totally seen that one coming. "
― Eliezer Yudkowsky , Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
140
" Drake's whip hand spun Diana like a top.
She cried out. That sound, her cry, pierced Caine like an arrow.
Diana staggered and almost righted herself, but Drake was too quick, too ready.
His second strike yanked her through the air. She flew and then fell.
“Catch her!” Caine was yelling to himself. Seeing her arc as she fell. Seeing where she would hit. His hands came up, he could use his power, he could catch her, save her. But too slow.
Diana fell. Her head smashed against a jutting point of rock. She made a sound like a dropped pumpkin.
Caine froze.
The fuel rod, forgotten, fell from the air with a shattering crash.
It fell within ten feet of the mine shaft opening. It landed atop a boulder shaped like the prow of a ship.
It bent, cracked, rolled off the boulder, and crashed heavily in the dirt.
Drake ran straight at Caine, his whip snapping. But Jack stumbled in between them, yelling, “The uranium! The uranium!”
The radiation meter in his pocket was counting clicks so fast, it became a scream.
Drake piled into Jack, and the two of them went tumbling.
Caine stood, staring in horror at Diana. Diana did not move. Did not move. No snarky remark. No smart-ass joke.
“No!” Caine cried.
“No!”
Drake was up, disentangling himself with an angry curse from Jack.
“Diana,” Caine sobbed.
Drake didn’t rely on his whip hand now, too far away to use it before Caine could take him down. He raised his gun. The barrel shot flame and slugs, BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.
Inaccurate, but on full automatic, Drake had time. He swung the gun to his right and the bullets swooped toward where Caine stood like he was made of stone.
Then the muzzle flash disappeared in an explosion of green-white light that turned night into day. The shaft of light missed its target. But it was close enough that the muzzle of Drake’s gun wilted and drooped and the rocks behind Drake cracked from the blast of heat.
Drake dropped the gun. And now it was Drake’s turn to stare in stark amazement. “You!”
Sam wobbled atop the rise. Quinn caught him as he staggered.
Now Caine snapped back to the present, seeing his brother, seeing the killing light.
“No,” Caine said. “No, Sam: He’s mine.”
He raised a hand, and Sam went flying backward along with Quinn.
“The fuel rod!” Jack was yelling, over and over. “It’s going to kill us all. Oh, God, we may already be dead!”
Drake rushed at Caine. His eyes were wide with fear. Knowing he wouldn’t make it. Knowing he was not fast enough.
Caine raised his hand, and the fuel rod seemed to jump off the ground.
A javelin.
A spear. He held it poised. Pointed straight at Drake.
Caine reached with his other hand, extending the telekinetic power to hold Drake immobilized.
Drake held up his human hand, a placating gesture. “Caine…you don’t want to…not over some girl. She was a witch, she was…”
Drake, unable to run, a human target. The fuel rod aimed at him like a Spartan’s spear.
Caine threw the fuel rod. Tons of steel and lead and uranium.
Straight at Drake. "
― Michael Grant , Hunger (Gone, #2)