Language is too complex for a computer to understand. It's not going to be able to make sense of what people are saying en masse. We need a new type of discipline that puts together computer scientists and social scientists, who can add context to th...
For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.
In the 21st century when few of us stay in the same job all our lives, I would like to think there was flexibility so teachers could become social workers, or foster carers become teachers.
If we weren't born with anti-social passions - narcissism, envy, lust, meanness, greed, hunger for power, just to name the more obvious - why the need for so many laws, whether religious or secular, that govern behavior?
Many young activists tend to resist spirituality, thinking that religion has nothing to do with social change and is, in fact, part of the problem.
Justice is a social construct. It’s well known that the physical universe isn’t fair. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to decide which is more provoking: good people suffering or evil people prospering.
President Obama's version of America is a divided one - pitting us against each other based on our income level, gender, and social status. His policies have failed! We are not better off than we were 4 years ago, and no rhetoric, bumper sticker, or ...
The fact that, for so many generations, ordinary, everyday Americans came out of the closet and told their family and friends about who they are has laid the foundation for public sentiment to change. They got comfortable in their own skins to be abl...
The significance of the crucifixion is not only what God does for us; consistently throughout the New Testament the crucifixion is portrayed as the pattern that we are to follow. It is a model of social behavior toward the other as well as a statemen...
I do think culture is an argument, and that was part of the way I was brought up. People at a social occasion in Ireland will start shouting and arguing. When the Yeats family lived in Bedford Park, they had to go round to the neighbours to say, 'You...
Studying doesn't have to happen in a silo. It can be a social experience. You can engage with your friends and family to find out the answer to a tough question or have someone explain it to you. You can also study anywhere you happen to be and on an...
The hazing experience and then the subsequent participation in the group forces its members to maintain the status quo and traditions at all costs. It demands mindlessness and unquestioned loyalty, resulting in boring people who have little ability t...
Since I did the SK Project and I partner with the United Nations World Food Program, I got a lot of different feedback from people online. Through social networks and through the Twitter. I read the comments and see 'em saying, 'People hungry here, F...
Everybody is bound by some social rules. But I think that artists need some kind of freedom to explore their minds and that some of them tend to take that freedom to live a little more openly or a little more dangerously, sometimes a lot more self-de...
For decades, the Arab states have seemed exceptions to the laws of politics and human nature. While liberty expanded in many parts of the globe, these nations were left behind, their 'freedom deficit' signaling the political underdevelopment that acc...
I think there is a heritage which I'm proud of, which is a fight for democracy, a fight for social justice, a fight for freedom. My grandfather went to jail or exile six times in his life, fighting for his principles for democracy, or for his country...
What we have at present is a system of loss socialism. Whatever goes wrong is shouldered by the general public and anything that works is privatised. Worshippers of market freedom have suspended the most important economic principle: Risk and liabili...
When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward - or go back. He who now talks about the 'freedom of the press' goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism.
Next time you open the paper, and you see an intellectual property decision, a telecoms decision, it's not about something small and technical. It is about the future of the freedom to be as social beings with each other, and the way information, kno...
Sociologists well understand that chaos at home causes violent behavior, educational failure and social alienation among children. Yet, many of us in America stay far, far away from this topic. That in itself is a national scandal. Bad parenting is g...
It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class securit...
