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Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future QUOTES

Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future QUOTES

1 " We are not going to reduce energy capture unless catastrophe forces us to—which means that the only way to avoid running out of resources, poisoning the planet, or both, will be by tapping into renewable, clean power. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

2 " By 1870, Britain’s steam engines generated 4 million horsepower, equivalent to the work of 40 million men, who—if industry had still depended on muscles—would have eaten more than three times Britain’s entire wheat output. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

3 " All this comes under the heading of what the journalist Thomas L. Friedman has called “the really scary stuff we already know.” Much worse is what he calls “the even scarier stuff we don’t know.” The problem, Friedman explains, is that what we face is not global warming but “global weirding.” Climate change is nonlinear: everything is connected to everything else, feeding back in ways too bewilderingly complex to model. There will be tipping points when the environment shifts abruptly and irreversibly, but we don’t know where they are or what will happen when we reach them. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

4 " Success creates new problems; solving them creates still newer problems. Life, as they say, is a vale of tears. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

5 " History, n. An account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

6 " around 11,000 BCE an elderly woman was buried at ‘Ain Mallaha with one hand resting on a puppy, both of them curled up as if asleep. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

7 " It is not that there is no food,” one commissar insisted. “There is plenty of grain, but 90 percent of the people have ideological problems. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

8 " Western civilization is essentially an amalgam of intellectual constructs which were designed to further the interests of their authors. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

9 " A rather unpleasant genetic study has suggested that human body lice, which drink our blood and live in our clothes, evolved around fifty thousand years ago as a little bonus for the first fashionistas. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

10 " What all this adds up to is the conclusion that Western rule by 2000 was neither a long-term lock-in nor a short-term accident. It was more of a long-term probability. It "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

11 " We have been cursed to live in interesting times. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

12 " Yet from almost the first moment factories filled England’s skies with smoke, European intellectuals realized that they had a problem. As problems went, it was not a bad one: they appeared to be taking over the world, but did not know why. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

13 " Politicians and advertisers have turned misleading us with statistics into a fine art. Already "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

14 " Neither politicians nor statistics always lie; it is just that there is no such thing as a completely neutral way to present either policies or numbers. Every "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

15 " One grave of around 6000 BCE held an eight-hole flute, capable of playing any modern melody. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

16 " the Romans first neutralized Greek philosophy, then turned Christianity into a prop for their empire. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

17 " Piracy paid: Drake’s backers realized a 4,700 percent return on their investment, and using just three-quarters of her share Queen Elizabeth cleared England’s entire foreign debt. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

18 " Evolution selects for what we call common sense. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

19 " China can fairly be said to have developed the most rational selection processes for state service known to history. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

20 " The great question for our times is not whether the West will continue to rule. It is whether humanity as a whole will break through to an entirely new kind of existence before disaster strikes us down—permanently. "

― , Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future