Some Kind Of Settlement In Kashmir Is Crucial For Both India And Pakistan. It's Also Tearing India Apart With Horrible Atrocities In The Region Which Is Controlled By Indian Armed Forces. This Is Feeding Right Back Into Society Even In The Domain Of Elementary Civil Rights.

-Noam Chomsky

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Some Kind Of Settlement

Noam Chomsky

Topic

Rights

India And Pakistan

Kashmir

More From Noam Chomsky

Andorrans Deserve Much Better Than The Rule Of Superstitious Hysterics And Extreme Authoritarians, Who Try To Instill Obedience To Their Holy Texts And Chosen Divinities - And We Should Not Fail To See That The Terms Are Appropriate, If Anything Too Kind.

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Workers In Different Countries Can Easily Be Played Off Against Each Other.

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The Bible Is One Of The Most Genocidal Books In History.

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There Is No Body Of Theory Or Significant Body Of Relevant Information, Beyond The Comprehension Of The Layman, Which Makes Policy Immune From Criticism.

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Right Now, Huge Numbers Of People Cannot Obtain Even Drinking Water, And The Situation Is Likely To Become Worse With Predicted Climate Change And Failure To Take The Actions That Are Necessary.

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I Have Written Occasionally On Links Between My Scientific Work And Political Thinking, But Not Much, Because The Links Seem To Me Abstract And Speculative.

Thinking

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Concentration Of Executive Power, Unless It's Very Temporary And For Specific Circumstances, Let's Say Fighting World War Two, It's An Assault On Democracy.

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In The Years Of The Reagan-bush Administration Alone, About 1.5 Million People Were Killed By South Africa Just In The Surrounding Countries. Forget What Was Happening In South Africa And Namibia.

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I Don't Want Followers.

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The [barack] Obama Administration Has Pressured Mexico To Keep Them Away From The Mexican Border, So That They Don't Succeed In Reaching The United States. Pretty Much The Same Thing Europeans Have Done To Turks And Syrians.

Mexican Border

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That Intellectuals, Including Academics, Would Become A "new Class" Of Technocrats, Claiming The Name Of Science While Cooperating With The Powerful, Was Predicted By [mikhail] Bakunin In The Early Days Of The Formation Of The Modern Intelligentsia In The 19th Century.

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I Pretend No Originality In Observing That Mass Education Was Motivated In Part By The Perceived Need To "educate Them To Keep Them From Our Throats," To Borrow Ralph Waldo Emerson's Parody Of Elite Fears That Inspired Early Advocates Of Public Mass Education.

Needs

Originality

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Anarcho-syndic Alism Took For Granted That Working People Ought To Control Their Own Work, Its Conditions, The Enterprises In Which They Work, Along With Communities, So They Should Be Associated With One Another In Free Associations, And Democracy Of That Kind Should Be The Foundational Elements Of A More General Free Society.

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You Know, We Have Little Bits Of Understanding, Glimpses, A Little Bit Of Light Here And There, But There's A Tremendous Amount Of Darkness, Which Is A Challenge. I Think Life Would Be Pretty Boring If We Understood Everything. It's Better If We Don't Understand Anything And Know That We Don't, That's The Important Part.

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Challenges

When I Was Ten Years Old I Wanted To Be A Taxidermist For Some Reason, Don't Ask Me Why.

Years

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The Real Invasion Of South Vietnam Which Was Directed Largely Against The Rural Society Began Directly In 1962 After Many Years Of Working Through Mercenaries And Client Groups. And That Fact Simply Does Not Exist In Official American History. There Is No Such Event In American History As The Attack On South Vietnam. That's Gone. Of Course, It Is A Part Of Real History. But It's Not A Part Of Official History.

Real

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As Any Good Teacher Knows, The Methods Of Instruction And The Range Of Material Covered Are Matters Of Small Importance As Compared With The Success In Arousing The Natural Curiosity Of The Students And Stimulating Their Interest In Exploring On Their Own.

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For Us, We Are All Very Different, Our Languages Are Very Different, And Our Societies Are Very Different. But If We Could Extract Ourselves From Our Point Of View And Sort Of Look Down At Human Life The Way A Biologist Looks At Other Organisms, I Think We Could See It A Different Way.

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For Fifty Years, We Heard Nato Is Necessary To Save Western Europe From The Russian Hordes, You Know The Slave State, Stuff I Was Taking About. In 1990-91, No Russian Hordes. Okay, What Happens? Well There Are Actually Visions Of The Future System That Were Presented. One Was [mikhail] Gorbachev. He Called For A Eurasian Security System, With No Military Blocs. He Called It A Common European Home. No Military Blocs, No Warsaw Pact. Just An Integrated Security System With No Conflicts.now The Other Vision Was Presented By George Bush, This Is The "statesman".

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Security Systems

Suppose That Humans Happen To Be So Constructed That They Desire The Opportunity For Freely Undertaken Productive Work. Suppose That They Want To Be Free From The Meddling Of Technocrats And Commissars, Bankers And Tycoons, Mad Bombers Who Engage In Psychological Tests Of Will With Peasants Defending Their Homes, Behavioral Scientists Who Can't Tell A Pigeon From A Poet, Or Anyone Else Who Tries To Wish Freedom And Dignity Out Of Existence Or Beat Them Into Oblivion.

Home

Opportunity

Productive Work

The Us Is A Business-run Huckster Society, And Its Primary Value Is Deceit.

Running

Deceit

Primaries

The United States Is Off The International Spectrum In Religious Extremism.

Religious

United States

Spectrum

There Clearly Is A Serious Race Problem In The Country. Just Take A Look At What's Happening To African American Communities. For Example Wealth, Wealth In African American Communities Is Almost Zero. The History Is Striking.

Country

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Race

Capitalism Would Self-destruct In No Time. So The Business Classes Have Always Demanded Strong, Straight Intervention To Protect The Society From The Destructive Effects Of Market Forces Because They Don't Want Everything Destroyed.

Strong

Self

Class

Personally, I Am Uneasy About The Notion Of "a Politically Engaged University," For Reasons I Wrote About Over 30 Years Ago, At The Height Of Protest And Resistance (reprinted In For Reasons Of State).

Years

Height

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The Labor Movement Can Be Rebuilt, As Has Happened Before After Sharp Declines.

Movement

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Like Most Technology, The Internet Has Mixed Effects. It's A Neutral Instrument.

Technology

Internet

Instruments

I've Already Supported Bernie Sanders In The Primaries.

Primaries

There Is Pakistan's Relationship With Afghanistan Which Will Also Be A Very Tricky Issue In The Coming Years. Then There Is A Large Part Of Pakistan Which Is Being Torn Apart From American Drone Attacks. The Country Is Being Invaded Constantly By A Terrorist Superpower. Again, This Is Not A Small Problem.

Country

Small Problems

Years

Physics And Those Parts Of Other Fields That Grow Out Of Physics - Chemistry, The Structure Of Big Molecules - In Those Domains, There Is A Lot Of Progress. In Many Other Domains, There Is Very Little Progress In Developing Real Scientific Understanding.

Real

Understanding

Progress

Expressing Criticism Of Society Is Not Being A Grouch.

Criticism

Grouches

Passivity May Be The Easy Course, But It Is Hardly The Honorable One.

May

Easy

Honorable

As A Research Tool, The Internet Is Invaluable.

Tools

Research

Internet

The Kind Of Work That Should Be The Main Part Of Life Is The Kind Of Work You Would Want To Do If You Weren't Being Paid For It. It’s Work That Comes Out Of Your Own Internal Needs, Interests And Concerns.

Needs

Want

Kind

There Is Undoubtedly Much To Learn About The Social Uses Of Language, For Communication Or For Other Purposes. But At Present There Is Not Much In The Way Of A Theory Of Sociolinguistics, Of Social Uses Of Languages, As Far As I Am Aware.

Communication

Purpose

Use

If It's Wrong When They Do It, It's Wrong When We Do It.

International Relations

Ifs

Selfish-gene Theory Tells Us Nothing About The Value Of Interacting Through Language.

Selfish

Language

Genes

I Think The Christian Coalition Could Be Extremely Dangerous. We Should Always Be Concerned When Any Group Wants To Impose Their Doctrinal Concerns On All. To An Extent That's What They Are Trying To Do.

Christian

Thinking

Trying

A 1998 Study Was Done In Hebrew By An Israeli Scholar, Yosef Grodzinsky, And The English Translation Of The Title Is Good Human Material. That's What They Wanted Sent To Palestine For Colonization And For The Eventual Conflict That Took Place Some Years Later. These Policies Were Somewhat Complementary To The U.s. Policy Of Pressuring England To Allow Jews To Go To Palestine, But Not Allowing Them Here. The British Politician Ernest Bevin Was Quite Bitter About It, Asking, "if You Want To Save The Jews, Why Send Them To Palestine When You Don't Admit Them?"

Years

Titles

Asking

Thanh Hoa Itself Is A Rich Agricultural Province. Rice Fields, A Pattern Of Many Shades Of Green, Stretch Far Into The Distance Along The Road, Which Also Winds Through Foothills And The Fringes Of Heavy Jungle Where Tigers Are Said To Roam. The Vegetation, Wild Or Cultivated, Is Lush.

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Wind

Patterns

It Was Right After Woodrow Wilson's First Serious Post-world War I Repression, Which Deported Thousands Of People, Effectively Destroyed Unions And Independent Press, And So On. Right After That, The Anti-immigration Law Was Passed That Remained In Place Until The 1960s.

War

Independent

Law

The Development Of Space Technology, Including Space Warfare Today, Is Similar In Its Technological-industrial Significance To The Development Of Navies A Hundred Years Ago.

Technology

Space

Years

At The Beginning Of His Administration, Reagan Tried Set The Basis For American Military Intervention In El Salvador - Which Is About What Kennedy Did When He Came Into Office In Regard To Vietnam. Well, When Kennedy Tried It In Vietnam, It Just Worked Like A Dream. Virtually Nobody Opposed American Bombing Of South Vietnam In 1962. It Was Not An Issue. But When Reagan Began To Talk Of Involving American Forces In El Salvador There Was A Huge Popular Uproar. And He Had To Choose A Much More Indirect Way Of Supporting The Collection Of Gangsters In Power There. He Had To Back Off.

Dream

Military

Issues

History Records Endless Struggles To Enlarge Those Realms, Inspiring Ones; It Also Records Painful Reversals And Setbacks.

Struggle

Records

Painful

Democracy, In Any Rational Form, Also Imposes Conditions On Majority Rule. That's What The Bill Of Rights Is About, For Example.

Rights

Majority Rule

Democracy

The Market Is Regarded As Democratic Because Everybody Has A Vote. Of Course, Some Have More Votes Than Others Because Your Votes Depend On The Number Of Dollars You Have, But Everybody Participates And Therefore It's Called Democratic.

Numbers

Dollars

Vote

China Has Been There For 3,000 Years, Has Contempt For The Barbarians, Is Overcoming A Century Of Domination, And Simply Moves On Its Own. It Does Not Get Intimidated When Uncle Sam Shakes His Fist. That's Scary.

Uncles

Moving

Years

North Korea And China Have Proposed What Sounds Like A Pretty Sensible Option That North Korea Should End Its Development Of Nuclear Weapons, The Us Should Stop Carrying Out Hostile Military Maneuvers On The North Korean Border. The Us Immediately Rejected It. Modernization Program Is A Very Clear Example Of How Security Doesn't Matter. There Is No Gain In Security But Massive Overkill Of The Adversary's Deterrent Capacity. The Only Consequence Of It Is To Elicit The Likelihood Of A Preemptive Attack. And A Preemptive Attack Leads To A Nuclear Winter World.

Military

Winter

World

The Iraq War Was The First Conflict In Western History In Which An Imperialist War Was Massively Protested Against Before It Had Even Been Launched.

War

Iraq

Firsts

The Most Extreme Types, Like Murray Rothbard, Are At Least Honest. They'd Like To Eliminate Highway Taxes Because They Force You To Pay For A Road You May Never Drive On. As An Alternative, They Suggest That If You And I Want To Get Somewhere, We Should Build A Road There And Charge People Tolls On It. Just Try Generalizing That. Such A Society Couldn't Survive, And Even If It Could, It Would Be So Full Of Terror And Hate That Any Human Being Would Prefer To Live In Hell.

Hate

People

Trying

As Long As The General Population Is Passive, Apathetic, Diverted To Consumerism Or Hatred Of The Vulnerable, Then The Powerful Can Do As They Please, And Those Who Survive Will Be Left To Contemplate The Outcome.

Powerful

Long

Hatred

It's Not In Doubt That Tobacco Is Far More Lethal Than Hard Drugs.

Drug

Doubt

Tobacco

The General Principle Is That The Victors Don't Look At Themselves Or Concede Anything. The Defeated Typically Have To, Except When It's Beneficial To The Powerful For Them Not To.

Powerful

Principles

Looks

As Soon As One Identifies, Challenges And Overcomes Illegitimate Power, He Or She Is An Anarchist. Most People Are Anarchists. What They Call Themselves Doesn’t Matter To Me. The World Is Full Of Suffering, Distress, Violence And Catastrophes. Students Must Decide: Does Something Concern You Or Not? I Say: Look Around, Analyze The Problems, Ask Yourself What You Can Do And Set Out On The Work!

People

Challenges

Suffering

In Some Ways, [the Student Anti-sweatshop Movement] Is Like The Anti-apartheid Movement, Except That In This Case Its Striking At The Core Of The Relations Of Exploitation. Much Of This Was Initiated By Charlie Kernaghan Of The Institute For Global Labour And Human Rights.

Impact

Rights

Sweatshops

The Republican Party Among The Public Is A Minority Party.

Party

Minorities

Republican

'reform' Is A Word You Always Aughta' Watch Out For. 'reform' Is A Change That You're Supposed To Like. And Watch It - As Soon As You Hear The Word 'reform', You Should Reach For Your Wallet And See Who's Lifting It.

Reform

Watches

Politician

[for Business After Wwii ] Democracy Means Getting People To Regard Government As An Alien Force That's Robbing Them And Oppressing Them, Not As Their Government. In A Democracy It Would Be Your Government.

Mean

Government

People

Extensive Violations Of Human Rights (torture, Forced Reduction Of Living Standards For Much Of The Population, Police-sponsored Death Squads, Destruction Of Representative Institutions Or Of Independent Unions, Etc.) Are Directly Correlated With Us Government Support. The Linkage Is Not Accidental; Rather It Is Systematic. The Reason Is Obvious Enough. Client Fascism Often Improves The Business Climate For American Corporations, Quite Generally The Guiding Factor In Foreign Policy.

Independent

Violation Of Human Rights

Government

The Intellectual Is An Individual With A Specific Public Role In Society That Cannot Be Reduced Simply To . . A Faceless Professional.

Intellectual

Roles

Individual

There Is A Big Difference Between Tweeting To Your Friend About Something That Is Happening And Having A Real Personal Relationship With People.

Real

Differences

People

The Intellectual World Is Deeply Conformist... We Talk A Lot About The Crimes Of Others. When It Comes To Our Own Crimes, We Are Nationalists In The Orwellian Sense.

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World

Crime

Half The Population Hold That The Government Is Run By A Few Big Interests Looking Out For Themselves, As Polls Regularly Show.

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Government

Population

The Left, In A General Sense, Is Very Much Atomized. We Live In Highly Atomized Societies. People Are Pretty Much Alone; It's You And Your Ipad.

Ipads

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Left

Colombia Was A Big Wheat Producer In The 1950's. That Was Eliminated By What Sounds Like A Nice Plan, Called "food For Peace. " It's A Plan By Which Us Taxpayers Subsidized Us Agribusiness To Send Food To Poor Countries. This, Of Course, Destroyed The Domestic Agricultural Markets Of These Countries, Opening These Markets To Us Agribusiness.

Country

Nice

Sound

Academics Are Not Necessarily Nice People.

Nice

People

Nice People

Unaccountable Private Power Concentrations That Dominate Economic And Social Life Have The Means To Seek To "regiment The Public Mind," And Become "tools And Tyrants" Of Government, In James Madison's Memorable Phrase, As He Warned Of The Threats He Discerned To The Democratic Experiment If Private Powers Were Granted Free Rein.

Memorable

Mean

Government

The New Crimes That The Us And Israel Were Committing In Gaza As 2009 Opened Do Not Fit Easily Into Any Standard Category—except For The Category Of Familiarity.

Israel

Gaza Strip

Fit

If The Naacp Were To Impose A Control Of Something Towards All, Then I Would Staunchly Oppose It.

Naacp

Ifs

If There Are Lessons To Be Drawn From The Sciences, Then That Should Be The Concern Of Everyone, Including Scientists To The Extent That They Can Make A Contribution.

Lessons

Scientist

Should

Armed Attack Has A Definition In International Law. It Means Sudden, Overwhelming, Instantaneous Ongoing Attack.

Mean

Law

Ongoing

[donald Trump] Guru Steve Bannon Is Worse, He's Much Scarier. He Probably Knows What He's Doing.

Guru

Trump

Knows

Nicaragua Dealt With The Problem Of Terrorism In Exactly The Right Way. It Followed International Law And Treaty Obligations. It Collected Evidence, Brought The Evidence To The Highest Existing Tribunal, The International Court Of Justice, And Received A Verdict - Which, Of Course, The U.s. Dismissed With Contempt.

Law

Justice

Nicaragua

Today, The Danger Of Some Sort Of A Nuclear Catastrophe Is Greater Than It Was During The Cold War, And Most People Are Blissfully Unaware Of This Danger.

War

People

Today

There's A Strange Myth Of Anglo-saxonism. When The University Of Virginia Was Founded By Thomas Jefferson, For Example, Its Law School Offered The Study Of "anglo-saxon Law." And That Myth Of Anglo-saxonism Carries Right Over Into The Early Twentieth Century.

School

Virginia

Law

Markets Are Lethal, If Only Because Of Ignoring Externalities, The Impacts Of Their Transactions On The Environment.

Impact

Environment

Transactions

The Best Defense Against Democracy Is To Distract People.

People

Democracy

Defense

There Had Been A Free And Open Election In Haiti In The Early 1990s And President Jean-bertrand Aristide Won, A Populist Priest. A Few Months Later Came The Expected Military Coup - A Very Vicious Military Junta Took Over, Of Which The United States Was Passively Supportive. Not Openly, Of Course, But Haitians Started To Flee From The Terror And Were Sent Back And On Towards Guantanamo Bay. Of Course, That Is Against International Law. But The United States Pretended That They Were "economic Refugees."

Military

Law

President

In Fact, Anyone Who Merits Attention And Who Promotes Any Cause At All Is Doing So On The Basis Of A Belief That It Is Somehow Good For Humans, Because Of Their Inherent Nature.

Attention

Causes

Facts

The Basic Principle, Rarely Violated, Is That What Conflicts With The Requirements Of Power And Privilege Does Not Exist.

Principles

Doe

Requirements

Biblical Archaeology Was Developed Early In This Century In An Effort To Substantiate The Authenticity Of The Biblical Account. It's By Now Generally Recognized In Biblical Scholarship That It Has Done The Opposite. The Bible Is Not A Historical Text, And Has Only Vague Resemblances To What Took Place, As Far As Can Be Reconstructed. For Example, Whether Israel Ever Existed Is Not Clear; If So, It Was Probably A Small Kingdom Somewhere In The Hills, Apparently Virtually Unknown To The Egyptians.

Biblical

Israel

Opposites

Neoliberal Democracy. Instead Of Citizens, It Produces Consumers. Instead Of Communities, It Produces Shopping Malls. The Net Result Is An Atomized Society Of Disengaged Individuals Who Feel Demoralized And Socially Powerless. In Sum, Neoliberalism Is The Immediate And Foremost Enemy Of Genuine Participatory Democracy, Not Just In The United States But Across The Planet, And Will Be For The Foreseeable Future.

Shopping

Community

Enemy

The General Public Are Not Even Aware Of Major Decisions That Will Determine Their Fate, Hence Are In No Position To Influence Them

Fate

Decision

Influence

States Are Violent Institutions. The Government Of Any Country, Including Ours, Represents Some Sort Of Domestic Power Structure, And It's Usually Violent. States Are Violent To The Extent That They're Powerful, That's Roughly Accurate.

Country

Powerful

Government

To Construct A Scientific Theory From The Data And To Be Able To Recognize That It Is A Reasonable Theory Is Possible Only If There Are Some Very Sharp Restrictive Principles That Lead You To Go In One Direction And Not In Another Direction. Otherwise, You Wouldn't Have Science At All, Merely Randomly Chosen Hypotheses.

One Direction

Data

Principles

Power Is Concentrated. The General Policy Is Exactly The Way That Adam Smith Described It: It's Designed For The Benefit Of Its Principal Architects, The Powerful. It Serves "the Vile Maxim Of The Masters: All For Ourselves And Nothing For Anyone Else". Those Are The Basic Rules Of The World.

Powerful

Benefits

World

There Are Two Parties, So-called, But They're Really Factions Of The Same Party, The Business Party.

Party

Two

Degrees

When I Was A Boy, We Were The Only Jewish Family In A Terribly Anti-semitic Neighborhood. Those Streets Weren't Any Fun For Us But Our Parents Never Found That Out. In A Way, You Avoid Telling Your Parents What Happened To You During Those Days.

Fun

Boys

Parent

Nobody Is Going To Pour Truth Into Your Brain. It's Something You Have To Find Out For Yourself.

Truth

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Through Much Of Its History, The Us Did Not Have High Inequality As Compared With Europe. Less So, In Fact. That Began To Change In The Industrial Age, Reaching A Peak In 1928, After The Forceful Destruction Of The Labor Movement And Crushing Of Independent Thought. Largely As A Result Of Labor Mobilization, Inequality Declined During The Great Depression, A Tendency Continuing Through The Great Growth Period Of Regulated Capitalism In The Early Postwar Decades.

Crush

Independent

Growth

Take Germany And Japan, Both Defeated In The Second World War. Germany Has Acknowledged Its Monstrous Crimes To A Certain Extent, Has Paid Reparations And So On. Japan, In Contrast, Apologizes For Nothing And Has Paid No Reparations, With One Exception: It Pays Reparations To The United States, But Not To Asia.

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Japan

Asia

. . . Among All Grammars Meeting This Condition (of Adequacy), We Select The Simplest.

Adequacy

Select

Grammar

I'm No Expert On Pornography. The Core Element Of It, I Think, Is Degradation Of Women, Whatever Else Goes On. I Don't Think It Should Be Outlawed, But I'm Not In Favor Of The Degradation Of Anybody.

Thinking

Experts

Degradation

If The Rewiring Of The Brain That Yielded Recursive Generation Of Hierarchically Structured Expressions Took Place In An Individual, Not A Group (and There Seems To Be No Coherent Alternative), Then Interaction Must Have Been A Later Phenomenon.

Expression

Brain

Groups

In General I Don't Think The Image Of The State As A Divinity Is Very Helpful.

Thinking

Divinity

Helpful

Stephen Colbert's Recent Comment Is Apropos: When The Republican Legislature Of North Carolina Responded To A Scientific Study Predicting A Threatening Rise In Sea Level By Barring State And Local Agencies From Developing Regulations Or Planning Documents To Address The Problem, Colbert Responded: "this Is A Brilliant Solution. If Your Science Gives You A Result That You Don't Like, Pass A Law Saying The Result Is Illegal. Problem Solved."

Giving

Planning

Brilliant

Insofar As The Universities Are Free And Independent, They Will Also Be "subversive," In The Sense That Dominant Structures Of Power And Their Ideological Support Will Be Subjected To Challenge And Critique, A Counterpart To Attitudes That Are Fostered In The Hard Sciences Wherever They Are Taken Seriously.

Attitude

Taken

Independent

Private Sector Unionization Is Down To Practically Seven Percent. Meanwhile The Public Sector Unions Have Kind Of Sustained Themselves [even] Under Attack, But In The Last Few Years, There's Been A Sharp [increase In The] Attack On Public Sector Unions, Which Barack Obama Has Participated In, In Fact. When You Freeze Salaries Of Federal Workers, That's Equivalent To Taxing Public Sector People.

Years

People

Salary

The Internet, Since It Is Publicly Created, Ought To Be Publicly Controlled.

Internet

Ought

Controlled

I'm Sorry To Say It Has Some Historical Analogs. It's Kind Of Reminiscent Of What Happened In Germany In The Late Weimar Years.

Sorry

Years

Historical

There Are Some Very General Ideas That People Can Keep In Mind; They're Kind Of Truisms. It's Only Worth Mentioning Them Because They're Always Denied.

Ideas

People

Mind

Take Pandemics. There Could Easily Be A Severe Pandemic. A Lot Of That Comes From Something We Don't Pay Much Attention To: Eating Meat. The Meat Production Industry, The Industrial Production Of Meat, Uses An Immense Amount Of Antibiotics.we're Now Running Out Of Antibiotics That Deal With The Threat Of Rapidly Mutating Bacteria. A Lot Of That Just Comes From The Meat Production Industry. Well, Do We Worry About It? Well, We Ought To Be.

Running

Worry

Meat

There Isn't Much Point Arguing About The Word "libertarian." It Would Make About As Much Sense To Argue With An Unreconstructed Stalinist About The Word "democracy" - Recall That They Called What They'd Constructed "peoples' Democracies." The Weird Offshoot Of Ultra-right Individualist Anarchism That Is Called "libertarian" Here Happens To Amount To Advocacy Of Perhaps The Worst Kind Of Imaginable Tyranny, Namely Unaccountable Private Tyranny. If They Want To Call That "libertarian," Fine; After All, Stalin Called His System "democratic." But Why Bother Arguing About It?

Democracy

Want

Libertarian

Bear In Mind That We [ With Edward Herman] Did Not Devise The Terms "manufacture Of Consent" And "engineering Of Consent." We Borrowed Them From Leading Figures In The Media, Public Relations Industry, And Academic Scholarship.

Engineering

Media

Mind

With Government Deregulation And The Triumph Of Financial Liberalization, The Dangers Of Systemic Risks, The Possibility Of A Financial Tsunami, Sharply Increased.

Government

Risk

Triumph

There Are Very Few People Who Are Going To Look Into The Mirror And Say, 'that Person I See Is A Savage Monster;' Instead, They Make Up Some Construction That Justifies What They Do.

Mirrors

People

Monsters

The Labor Movement Had Been Pretty Much Killed In The 1920s, Almost Destroyed. It Revived In The 1930s And Made A Huge Difference. By The Late 1930s The Business World Was Already Trying To Find Ways To Beat It Back.

Differences

Trying

Movement

When Nazi Emissaries Came To The United States, They Were Welcomed At Harvard.

United States

Nazi

Harvard

Greece Has Been, In Many Ways, A Partially Dysfunctional Society. For Example, The Wealthy Barely Pay Taxes... To An Extent, That's True Elsewhere, Including The United States, But It's Been Pretty Extreme In Greece.

United States

Example

Pay

You Keep Plugging Away--that's The Way Social Change Takes Place. That's The Way Every Social Change In History Has Taken Place: By A Lot Of People, Who Nobody Ever Heard Of, Doing Work.

Taken

People

Way

If Something Is Right (or Wrong) For Us, It’s Right (or Wrong) For Others. It Follows That If It’s Wrong For Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, And A Long List Of Others To Bomb Washington And New York, Then It’s Wrong For Rumsfeld To Bomb Afghanistan (on Much Flimsier Pretexts), And He Should Be Brought Before War Crimes Trials.

New York

War

Long

The Responsibilities Of Someone In A More Free And Open Society Are, Again Obviously, Greater Than Those Who May Pay Some Cost For Honesty And Integrity.

Honesty

Integrity

Responsibility

Unlimited Economic Growth Has The Marvelous Quality Of Stilling Discontent While Maintaining Privilege, A Fact That Has Not Gone Unnoticed Among Liberal Economists.

Growth

Quality

Gone

Take A Look At The Current Debates In Washington, And Of Course, Everything In The Media. Only One Issue Is Discussed: The Deficit - The Least Significant Issue, But The Most Significant Issue For The Banks. The Big Problem, Joblessness, Is Barely Discussed, Even Though That's What The Public Wants, As Polls Clearly Show. That's Even What The Business Press Supports, But The Financial Institutions Are So Powerful That The Only Issue Is The Deficit, And This Runs Right Through The Intellectual Culture.

Running

Powerful

Support

The Structure Of Language Determines Not Only Thought, But Reality Itself.

Reality

Language

Structure

Adam Smith Is An Egalitarian, He Believed In Equality Of Outcome, Not Opportunity. He Is An Enlightenment Figure, Pre-capitalist. He Says, Suppose In England, One Landowner Got Most Of The Land And Other People Would Have Nothing To Live On. He Says It Wouldn't Matter Much, Because The Rich Land Owner, By Virtue Of His Sympathy For Other People Would Distribute Resources Among Them, So That By An Invisible Hand, We Would End Up With A Pretty Egalitarian Society. That Is His Conception Of Human Nature.

Opportunity

Invisible Hand

Hands

[ Republican Party] Is Correctly Described As A "radical Insurgency" By One Of The Leading Conservative Commentators, Norman Ornstein.

Party

Conservative

Republican

It's Been A Real Success - One Of The Great Business Successes In The United States - To Break Down Organization, To Separate People Too: It's Part Of Consumerism. If You Can Drive People Toward Individual Consumption, That's The Highest Goal In Life. And Furthermore, Drive Them Into Debt So They're Trapped. You Don't Have To Worry About A Democracy Function Because People Are Trapped And They're Alone.

Take The Iraq War,it's The Second Worst Crime After The Second World War. It's The First Time In History, In The History Of Imperialism, There Were Huge Demonstrations, Before The War Was Officially Launched.

War

Iraq

World

Donald Trump And Sean Spicer Do One Thing After Another To Keep The Media Attention Focused On Them. And It Works. These Legislative Achievements Are Being Made Which Are Chipping Away At Anything The Government Has That's Of Any Use To Anybody. Paul Ryan, I Think, Is The Most Dangerous Guy In The Government. He Knows What He's Doing. And It's Very Systematic. I Presume He's Behind The Cabinet Appointments, But It's Pretty Amazing That Every Single Cabinet Appointment Is Somebody Devoted To Destroying That Part Of Government.

Thinking

Achievement

Guy

The Beam In Our Own Eye Is Harder To Detect, Although - Or More Accurately Because - To Detect It, And Remove It, Is Vastly More Important On Elementary Moral Grounds, And Commonly More Important In Terms Of Direct Human Consequences As Well. Intellectuals Have Historically Played A Critical Function In Performing These Tasks, And [ivan] Illich Is Right To Observe That Claims To Scientific Expertise And Special Knowledge Are Often Used As A Device.

Eye

Important

Special

Hume's Paradox Does Hold: Power Is In The Hands Of The Governed. If They Refuse To Accept It, You're In Trouble, No Matter How Many Guns You Have.

Gun

Hands

Doe

Why Did The People Think [vietnam War] Was Fundamentally Wrong And Immoral? The Guys Who Ran The Polls, John E. Rielly, A Professor At The University Of Chicago, A Liberal Professor, He Said What That Means Is That People Thought Too Many Americans Had Being Killed. Another Possibility Is They Didn't Like The Fact That We Were Carrying Out The Worst Crime Since The Second World War. But That's So Inconceivable That Wasn't Even Offered As A Possible Reason.

War

Mean

Thinking

The 'anti-globalisation Movement' Is The Most Significant Proponent Of Globalisation - But In The Interests Of People, Not Concentrations Of State-private Power.

People

Movement

Significant

Social And Political Issues In General Seem To Me Fairly Simple; The Effort To Obfuscate Them In Esoteric And Generally Vacuous Theory Is One Of The Contributions Of The Intelligentsia To Enhancing Their Own Power And The Power Of Those They Serve.

Simple

Issues

Effort

It Doesn't Matter How Much You Learn In School; It's Whether You Learn How To Go On And Do Things By Yourself. And That Can Be Done At Any Level.

School

Done

It's A Mistake To Suppose That Capacities Must Evolve Gradually. There Are Many Known Examples Of Sharp Changes - Slight Genetic Modification That Yields Substantial Phenotypic Effects, And Much Else.

Mistake

Yield

Example

The Point Of Advertising Is To Destroy Markets.

Advertising

The Smart Way To Keep People Passive And Obedient Is To Strictly Limit The Spectrum Of Acceptable Opinion, But Allow Very Lively Debate Within That Spectrum - Even Encourage The More Critical And Dissident Views. That Gives People The Sense That There's Free Thinking Going On, While All The Time The Presuppositions Of The System Are Being Reinforced By The Limits Put On The Range Of The Debate.

Smart

Thinking

Views

For The Past Century Or So That's [ Monroe Doctrine] Actually Been True, But It's Declining Very Significantly.

Past

Doctrine

Century

[francisco Franco] Said They Should Resort To Guerrilla War. Which Has A History In Spain.

War

Spain

Should

A Basic Principle Of Modern State Capitalism Is That Costs And Risks Are Socialized To The Extent Possible, While Profit Is Privatized.

Risk

Principles

Cost

Judge Afiuni Has Suffered Enough. She Has Been Subject To Acts Of Violence And Humiliations To Undermine Her Human Dignity. I Am Convinced That She Must Be Set Free.

Judging

Violence

Dignity

There Is Extensive Critical Scholarship That Provides Illustrations In Many Areas Of Scholarship. I've Discussed Many Cases Myself, While Also Citing And Often Relying On Academic Studies That Disentangle These Webs Of Mystification Woven For The General Public. It's Impossible To Provide Illustrations That Would Even Approach Accuracy, Let Alone Carry Any Conviction, Without Going Well Beyond The Bounds Of This Discussion.

Illustration

Woven

Citing

I've Occasionally Been Asked To Talk On Israel-palestine. Sometimes It Works, And Sometimes It Elicits Hysteria In The Community.

Israel

Hysteria

Community

The People Of The Third World Need Our Sympathetic Understanding And, Much More Than That, They Need Our Help. We Can Provide Them With A Margin Of Survival By Internal Disruption In The United States. Whether They Can Succeed Against The Kind Of Brutality We Impose On Them Depends In Large Part On What Happens Here.

College

People

Understanding

To Some Degree It Matters Who's In Office, But It Matters More How Much Pressure They're Under From The Public.

Peace

War

Office

It's Fine To Criticize Somebody Else's Crimes And Misdeeds, But You Don't Talk About Your Own. The Only Exception Is A Country That Is Defeated. And Even That Is Rather Nuanced.

Reagan Was Extreme. Beginning Of His Administration, One Of The First Things Was To Call In Scabs - Hadn't Been Done For A Long Time, And It's Illegal In Most Countries - In The Air Controller Strike.

Country

Air

Long

There's An Interesting Book Called The Fugu Plan, Written By Marvin Tokayer And Mary Swartz, Which Describes The Circumstances When European Jews Came To Japan, A Semi-feudal Society.

Book

Japan

Interesting

The Social And Physical Construction Of Suburban America Really Was Quite Complex. It Was A Very Elaborate System, And Clearly A Massive Social Engineering Project That Has Changed U.s. Society Enormously.

Engineering

America

Construction

The Missile Defense Component Is A Minor Feature That Nobody Takes Very Seriously. Nobody Really Believes That The Us Is Trying To Protect Itself From North Korea. That's Not Serious. But The Militarization Of Space Is Quite Serious.

Believe

Space

Korea

There Are Simple Things Which Would Make Sense. Take, Say, Weatherization, Which Would Make A Big Cut In The Unemployment Rate. That's The Kind Of Work That Plenty Of People Are Quick To Do, And It Would Save Individual Households Money, And It Would Make A Significant Reduction In The Threats Of Climate Change. But Something Is Holding It Back: The Sociopathic Character Of Market Systems.

Character

Cutting

Simple

If The Nuremberg Laws Were Applied, Then Every Post-war American President Would Have Been Hanged.

War

Law

President

But On The Contrary Wikileaks Is Under Heavy Attack By The Government And Corporations Are Participating In That By Closing Down Their Websites.

Government

Corporations

Wikileaks

You Know, People Talk About [richard] Nixon's "madman Theory." We Don't Really Know Much About That. It Was In Memoirs, By Somebody Else.

People

Theory

Madmen

Silicon Valley, After All, Feeds Off The Existence Of Computers, The Internet, The It Systems, Satellites, The Whole Of Micro Electronics And So On, But A Lot Of That Comes Straight Out Of The State Sector Of The Economy. Silicon Valley Developed, But They Expanded And Turned It Into Commercial Products And So On, But The Innovation Is On The Basis Of Fundamental Technological Development That Took Places In Places Like This [mit] On Government Funding, And That Continues.

Government

Technological Development

Innovation

Pakistan Will Never Be Able To Match The Indian Militarily And The Effort To Do So Is Taking An Immense Toll On The Society. It's Also Extremely Dangerous With All The Weapons Development. The Two Countries Have Already Come Close To Nuclear Confrontation Twice And This Could Get Worse. So Dealing With The Relationship With India Is Extremely Important.

Country

Two

Effort

To Summarize, Draft Resistance Can Make Use Of The Inegalitarian Nature Of American Society As A Technique For Increasing The Cost Of American Aggression, And It Threatens Values That Are Important To Those In A Decision-making Position.

Decision

Important

Technique

In The Early 50s In The Us, There Was What Was Called Mccarthyism And The Only Reason It Succeeded Was That There Was No Resistance To It. When They Tried The Same Thing In The 60s It Instantly Collapsed Because People Simply Laughed At It So They Couldn't Do It. Even A Dictatorship Can't Do Everything It Wants. It's Got To Have Some Degree Of Popular Support.

People

Support

Atheism

From A Comparative Perspective, The United States Is Unusual If Not Unique In The Lack Of Restraints On Freedom Of Expression. It Is Also Unusual In The Range And Effectiveness Of Methods Employed To Restrain Freedom Of Thought... Where The Voice Of The People Is Heard, Elite Groups Must Insure Their Voice Says The Right Things.

Unique

Expression

Voice

The Communists Were Mainly Responsible For The Destruction Of The Spanish Anarchists. Not Just In Catalonia - The Communist Armies Mainly Destroyed The Collectives Elsewhere.

Army

Anarchist

Communist

Where Are The Drug Cartels Getting Their Weapons? They Are Being Provided By The United States. Cut Off That Flow Of Arms.

Cutting

Drug Cartels

United States

The Second World War Had Really Devastating Effects For Much Of Europe. It Really Didn't Take Them Very Long To Reconstruct State Capitalist Democracies Because It Was In People's Heads. There Were Other Parts Of The World That Were Pretty Much Devastated And They Couldn't Do It; They Didn't Have The Conceptions In Their Mind. A Lot Of It Is Human Consciousness.

War

Europe

Long

Establishing A Client State In Iraq Would Significantly Enhance That Strategic Power, A Matter Of Great Significance For The Future. As Zbigniew Brzezinski Observed, It Would Provide The Us With "critical Leverage" Of Its European And Asian Rivals, A Conception With Roots In Early Post-war Planning. These Are Substantial Reasons For Aggression - Not Unlike Those Of The British When They Invaded And Occupied Iraq Over 80 Years Earlier, At The Dawn Of The Oil Age.

Age

Planning

Reason

So Take Social Media; Take A Look At The Way They're Used. In A Lot Of Ways They're Used Constructively; Lot Of Things Are Done That Couldn't Be Done Before. On The Other Hand A Lot Of The Effect Of Social Media Is To Set Up Extremely Superficial Contacts Amongst People.

Media

Hands

People

From Now On I Will Consider A Language To Be A Set (finite Or Infinite) Of Sentences, Each Finite In Length And Constructed Out Ofa Finite Set Of Elements. All Natural Languages In Their Spoken Or Written Form Are Languages In This Sense.

Elements

Language

Infinite

Resource Extraction Impacts A Global Environment That Is Increasingly At Severe Risk.

Impact

Risk

Environment

Technology Can Also Be Used So That Private Individuals Will Have Access To The Way Centralized Decisions Are Being Made.

Technology

Decision

Way

Science Is A Bit Like The Joke About The Drunk Who Is Looking Under A Lamppost For A Key That He Has Lost On The Other Side Of The Street, Because That's Where The Light Is. It Has No Other Choice.

Science

Keys

Light

American Decline Is Real, Though The Apocalyptic Vision Reflects The Familiar Ruling Class Perception That Anything Short Of Total Control Amounts To Total Disaster.

Real

Class

Perception

There Was A Hemispheric Conference In Colombia. It Couldn't Reach A Consensus, So There Was No Declaration That Came Out, [but] On The Crucial Issues, Canada And The Us Were Totally Isolated. The Rest Of The Hemisphere Voted One Way, And The Us And Canada Rejected It. So There Couldn't Be A Consensus.

Issues

Hemisphere

Canada

The Shutdown Itself Is Bad But Not Devastating. The Real Danger Will Come Up In A Couple Of Weeks. There's Legislation Which Is In Fact Routine - It's Passed Every Year - Which Allows The Government To Borrow Money, Otherwise It Can't Function. If Congress Does Not Approve This Budget Request, The Government May Have To Default.

Couple

Real

Government

In The Primary Debates For The 2016 Election, Every Single Republican Candidate Was A Climate Change Denier, With One Exception, John Kasich - The "rational Moderate" - Who Said It May Be Happening But We Shouldn't Do Anything About It. For A Long Time, The Media Have Downplayed The Issue.

Media

Issues

Long

I Don't Know What It Means To Say That 'the Internet Should Have A Voice In Washington'.

Mean

Should Have

Voice

Some May Remember, If You Have Good Memories, That There Used To Be A Concept In Anglo-american Law Called A Presumption Of Innocence, Innocent Until Proven Guilty In A Court Of Law. Now That's So Deep In History That There's No Point Even Bringing It Up, But It Did Once Exist.

Memories

Law

Presumption Of Innocence

If Workers Are More Insecure, That's Very 'healthy' For The Society, Because If Workers Are Insecure, They Won't Ask For Wages, They Won't Go On Strike, They Won't Call For Benefits; They'll Serve The Masters Gladly And Passively. And That's Optimal For Corporations' Economic Health.

Insecure

Healthy

Wages

I Think The Activism Of The 1960s Had A Very Definite Civilizing Effect On The Whole Society In All Kinds Of Ways. So Lots Of Things That By Now Are Almost Taken For Granted Were Heretical In The 1960s. We Had Anti-sodomy Laws Until Not Many Years Ago.

Taken

Thinking

Years

If There Are Dollars To Be Made, You Destroy The Environment. The Reason Is Elementary. The People Who Are Going To Be Harmed By This Are Your Grandchildren And They Don't Have Any Votes In The Market. Their Interests Are Worth Zero. Anybody That Pays Attention To Their Grandchildren's Interests Is Being Irrational. Because What You're Supposed To Do Is Maximize Your Own Interests, Measured By Wealth, Right Now. Nothing Else Matters. So Destroying The Environment And Militarizing Outer Space Are Rational Policies, But Within A Framework Of Institutional Lunacy.

Zero

Grandchildren

Space

Radical Islamist Extremists Surely Hope That An Attack On Iraq Will Kill Many People And Destroy Much Of The Country, Providing Recruits For Terrorist Actions.

Country

Iraq

People

If You Are Working 50 Hours A Week In A Factory, You Don't Have Time To Read 10 Newspapers A Day And Go Back To Declassified Government Archives. But Such People May Have Far-reaching Insights Into The Way The World Works.

Government

People

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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