Quotes and Notes

Blips of interest worth quoting and noting through books and conversations

[therobwatson]

https://soundcloud.com/the_rob_w/catching-neil-degrasse-tyson-swearing

[therobwatson]

https://soundcloud.com/the_rob_w/a-one-in-punch-sam-harris

[therobwatson]

https://soundcloud.com/the_rob_w/excerpt-eric-weinstein-describes-the-effect-of-elite-rent-seeking

[therobwatson]

https://soundcloud.com/the_rob_w/duncan-trussell-asks-a-tough-question

[therobwatson]

https://soundcloud.com/the_rob_w/ai-self-help-frenemies-excerpt-from-joe-rogan-exp-804-with-sam-harris

[therobwatson]

https://soundcloud.com/the_rob_w/sam-harris-on-outsmarting-general-ai

[therobwatson]

https://soundcloud.com/the_rob_w/neil-degrasse-tyson-on-earthlings-aliens-and-seti

[therobwatson]

https://soundcloud.com/the_rob_w/scott-reitz-excerpt-from-waking-up-podcast

[therobwatson]

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Thomas Jefferson

[therobwatson]

Short List for Aspiring Vegetarians

Engine 2 Diet

Recipes and information from a former Texas Fire Fighter who is the son of the cardiologist Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn.  Dr. Esselstyn is featured in the documentary Forks Over Knives.

Dr. McDougall’s Quick & Easy Cookbook

John A. McDougall, M.D., has been studying, writing, and speaking out about the effects of nutrition on disease for over 30 years.  ‘Speaking out’ may be best summed up in this comparison video “Low Carb vs. Plant-Based”

Brand New Vegan: A good source of recipes.

Klunker’s Kitchen: Another source of good recipes.

You may also want to check out Joe Cross’ documentary “Fat Sick and Nearly Dead”

[therobwatson]

https://soundcloud.com/therobwatson/alan-kay-edited-excerpt-from-alone-season-1-episode-10

[therobwatson]

https://soundcloud.com/therobwatson/alan-kay-edited-excerpt-from-alone-season-1-episode-10

[therobwatson]

Most people will never earn as much in an hour as they can save by negotiating effectively for one minute.

R. R. Covic

[therobwatson]

Final Words From ‘Letters to a Young Contrarian’

An early tutor of mine in radical journalism, the late James Cameron, once confessed that every time he addressed the typewriter he thought to himself: "Today is the day they are going to find me out".... I am consoled, when I suffer this very same apprehension, by the thought that the pope and the queen and the president all wake up every morning with a similar gnawing fear. Or that, if they do not, they deserve to be doubted and distrusted even more, if that were possible, than I doubt and distrust them now.

Have a lived life instead of a career. Put yourself in the safekeeping of good taste. Lived freedom will compensate you for a few losses.... If you don't like the style of others, cultivate your own. Get to known the tricks of reproduction, be a self-publisher even in conversation, and then the joy of working can fill your days.          -George Konrad

I loved these passages so much because I felt that they are so relevant to the struggles that I, personally, go through as a college student about to enter the real world, and I'm sure other students do as well. I feel like, today, so much effort is put in to be the person we think we "should" be. We take the classes we should, choose the major we think we should, take jobs we think we should because they'll improve our resume, even smaller things like picking out an outfit or choosing which words to speak seem to be fueled by these strange impersonal motives. But what I got out of this chapter is that living freely is the only way to live, and certainly the first step to becoming a young contrarian.

- Christopher Hitchens

[therobwatson]

... In some ways I feel sorry for racists ... because they so much miss the point of being human, and deserve a sort of pity.  But then I harden my heart, and decide to hate them all the more, because of the misery they inflict and because of the contemptible excuses they advance for doing so.  It especially annoys me when racists are accused of "discrimination."  The ability to discriminate is a precious faculty; by judging all members of one "race" to be the same, the racists precisely shows himself incapable of discrimination.

Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian

[therobwatson]

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject

Winston Churchill

[therobwatson]

If that ritual was just signifying, y'know: let's all get up in the morning and consider how profound human consciousness is, and consider our togetherness on this rock spinning through empty space, and realize that we just have this common project of making the world beautiful -- if that was what that meant, right ... I would be totally on board with the experience of participating in that.  I'm totally empathetic there.

Sam Harris, Joe Rogan Experience 641