Philosophers From The United States

"I have to ask... are you familiar with the word “synergy”?"

"We are not going to be able to operate our spaceship earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common It has to be everybody or nobody. It is very encouraging therefore that you as representatives of the people see tit to bring us together to consider these matters"

"I seek through comprehensive anticipatory design science and its reductions to physical practices to reform the environment instead of trying to reform men being intent thereby to accomplish proto-typed capabilities of doing more with less whereby in turn the wealth augmenting prospects of such design science regenerations will induce their spontaneous and economically successful industrial proliferation by world around services’ managements all of which chain reaction provoking events permit and induce all humanity to realize full lasting economic and physical success plus enjoyment of all the Earth without one individual interfering with or being advantaged at the expense of another."

"Acutely aware of our beings’ limitations and acknowledging the infinite mystery of the a priori universe into which we are born but nevertheless searching for a conscious means of hopefuily competent participation by humanity in its own evolutionary trending while employing only the unique advantages inhering exclusively to. the individual who takes and maintains the economic initiative in the face of the formidable physical capital and credit advantages of the massive corporations and political states and deliberately avoiding political ties and tactics while endeavoring by experiments and explorations to excite individuals’ awareness and realization of humanity’s higher potentials."

"While all the foregoing seems far too formidable to be coped with by an individual or cooperative groups of individuals, operating entirely outside the great national sovereignty establishments I was able, in 1927, to realize that these great capabilities could be mounted to all humanity’s advantage if adequate economic support were mustered. What struck me profoundly at that time was that man’s greatest productive and scientifically informed capability was being focused only on war simply because all the governments in the world were convinced that Earth could not sustain the lives of the many humans that were born on the planet and, in fact, could sustain but a minority. The great sovereign powers’ world struggle game was that of “musical chairs” to decide, by warfaring at its ever most modernly lethal, who would be the fortunate ones to survive."

"Unfortunately, in the past, man has applied his vast resources and his most incisive capabilities only to the waging of great wars-, or in preparation for such warring-the space programs having been undertaken by all nations strictly on the basis of the wartime advantages to be gained by... spying and astro-ballistics"

"The World Game deals in all the terrestrially available quantities of the 92 regenerative chemical elements and all of their isotopes. It deals with all that man has learned in all history regarding the generalized principles operative in the physical universe and all the vast ramifications of technology, industrialization, the behavioral sciences, ecology, et al... The World Game is as meticulously geared to priority scheduling of “first things first” as is the gestation of a human being, or as is the gestation of any of the most scientifically implemented procedures of humanity’s sometimes vast undertakings, such as world wars or moon landings."

"The World Game is a precisely defined design science process for arriving at economic, technological and social insights pertinent to humanity’s future involvement aboard our planet Earth. The processes consist of mathematical procedures not only as incisive and complex as those involved in celestial navigation, or astro-ballistics, or the space program, but even more so-for, in addition to all the variables common to those sciences and The World Game, the latter involves also all the variables governing the planning of the programs of the industrialization of both Russia and China....The World Game is seven times more complex than China’s quarter century industrialization and thirty-five times more complex than was Russia’s industrialization problem. The World Game must find the specific means of making five billion humans a total economic and physical success at the earliest possible moment without anyone being advantaged at the expense of another."

"I am certain that none of the world’s problems-which we are all perforce thinking about today-have any hope of solution except through all of world around society’s individuals becoming thoroughly and comprehensively self-educated. Only thereby will society be able to identify, and inter-communicate the vital problems of total world society. Only thereafter may humanity sort out and put those problems into order of importance for solution in respect to the most fundamental principles governing man’s survival and enjoyment of life on Earth. Preamble"

"All those who have attained high scholarly capability assure us that real education is self-education. They also say that this self-disciplining is most often inspired by great teachers who make it seem apparent that it will be excitingly worthwhile to take the trouble to bring one self to apprehend and then comprehend variously pertinent data, phenomena and derived principles. The intimate manuscript records of many great self-educated individuals show that they discern intuitively when and what it is that they want to learn... Preamble"

"Thinking is a momentary dismissal of irrelevancies."

"One of my working assumptions which has been proven successful so often as seemingly to qualify it as a reliable tenet is that A problem adequately stated is a problem solved theoretically and immediately, and therefore subsequently to be solved, realistically. Others have probably stated the principle in many ways. The assumption is that the inevitability of a solution's realization is inherent in the interaction of human intellect and the constantly transformative evolution of physical universe. At first the, only subconsciously apprehended, approaching confluences of complex events make themselves known intuitively within the intellectual weather. Then comes a gradually awakening consciousness of the presence of new families of differentiating-out challenging concepts of every day prominence. It is with these randomly patterning families of separate concepts that evolution is about to deal integratively. As a now specific unitary problem it may be disposed of effectively when and if that unified problem becomes "adequately stated" and thereby comprehensibly solvable."

"We speak erroneously of "artificial" materials, "synthetics", and so forth. The basis for this erroneous terminology is the notion that Nature has made certain things which we call natural, and everything else is "man-made", ergo artificial. But what one learns in chemistry is that Nature wrote all the rules of structuring; man does not invent chemical structuring rules; he only discovers the rules. All the chemist can do is find out what Nature permits, and any substances that are thus developed or discovered are inherently natural. It is very important to remember that."

"Nature never "fails." Nature complies with its own laws. Nature is the law. When Man lacks understanding of Nature's laws and a Man-contrived structure buckles unexpectedly, it does not fail. It only demonstrates that Man did not understand Nature's laws and behaviors. Nothing failed. Man's knowledge or estimating was inadequate."

"The opposite of nature is impossible."

"on first priority in design consideration is the full realization of individual potential in order to reach the second derivative — full realization for all individuals"

"God, to me, it seems is a verb, not a noun, proper or improper."

"So long as mathematicians can impose up-and-down semantics upon students while trafficking personally in the non-up-and-down advantages of their concise statements, they can impose upon the ignorance of man a monopoly of access to accurate processing of information and can fool even themselves by thought habits governing the becoming behavior of professional specialists, by disclaiming the necessity of, or responsibility for, comprehensive adjustment of the a priori thought to total reality of universal principles. The everywhere-relative velocities and momentums of interactions, of energetic phenomena of universe, are central to the preoccupations and realizations of the comprehensive designer. The concept of relativity involves high frequency of re-established awareness, and progressively integrating consideration of the respective, and also integrated dynamic complexities of the moving and transforming frame of reference and of the integrated dynamic complexities of the observed, as well as of the series of integrated sub-dynamic complexities, in respect to each of the major categories of the relatively moving frames of reference, of the observer and the observed. It also involves constant reference of all the reciprocating sub-sets to the comprehensive totality of non-simultaneous universe, from which naught may be lost."

"Relativity is inherently convergent, though convergent toward a plurality of centers of abstract truths. Degrees of accuracy are only degrees of refinement and magnitude in no way affects the fundamental reliability, which refers, as directional or angular sense, toward centralized truths. Truth is a relationship."

"Technology paces industry, but there's a long lag in the process. Industry paces economics. It changes the tools, a great ecological change. And in that manner we come finally to everyday life. The politician is someone who deals in man's problems of adjustment. To ask a politician to lead us is to ask the tail of a dog to lead the dog."

"There is room enough indoors in New York City for the whole 1963 world's population to enter, with room enough inside for all hands to dance the twist in average nightclub proximity."

"Don't fight forces, use them."

"There will come a time when the proper education of children, by a glorified system of spontaneous education of choice, similar to the Montessori System, will be made possible. Children, as well as grown-ups, in their individual, glorified, drudgery-proof homes of Labrador, the tropics, the Orient, or where you will, to which they can pass with pleasure and expedition by means of ever-improving transportation, will be able to tune in their television and radio to the moving picture lecture of, let us say, President Lowell of Harvard; the professor of Mathematics of Oxford; of the doctor of Indian antiquities of Delhi, etc. Education by choice, with its marvelous motivating psychology of desire for truth, will make life ever cleaner and happier, more rhythmical and artistic."

"Life is the spirit incarnate in time."

"All sports are time control demonstrations..."

"See Also: Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1969)"

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in the minds of men."

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of time press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless when necessary for the defence of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions."

"You have now in the field armies sufficient to repel the whole force of your enemies and their base and mercenary auxiliaries. The hearts of your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom; they are animated with the justice of their cause, and while they grasp their swords can look up to Heaven for assistance. Your adversaries are composed of wretches who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn religion into derision, and would, for higher wages, direct their swords against their leaders or their country. Go on, then, in your generous enterprise, with gratitude to Heaven for past, success, and confidence of it in the future. For my own part, I ask no greater blessing than to share with you the common danger and common glory. If I have a wish dearer to my soul than that my ashes may be mingled with those of a Warren and a Montgomery, it is that these American States may never cease to be free and independent."

"We have no other alternative than independence, or the most ignominious and galling servitude. The legions of our enemies thicken on our plains; desolation and death mark their bloody career; whilst the mangled corpses of our countrymen seem to cry out to us as a voice from Heaven."

"We cannot suppose that our opposition has made a corrupt and dissipated nation more friendly to America, or created in them a greater respect for the rights of mankind. We can therefore expect a restoration and establishment of our privileges, and a compensation for the injuries we have received, from their want of power, from their fears, and not from their virtues. The unanimity and valor, which will effect an honorable peace, can render a future contest for our liberties unnecessary. He who has strength to chain down the wolf is a madman if he let him loose without drawing his teeth and paring his nails."

"Our union is now complete; our constitution composed, established, and approved. You are now the guardians of your own liberties. We may justly address you, as the decemviri did the Romans, and say, Nothing that we propose can pass into a law without your consent. Be yourselves, O Americans, the authors of those laws on which your happiness depends."

"We have large armies, well disciplined and appointed, with commanders inferior to none in military skill, and superior in activity and zeal. We are furnished with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expectations."

"We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom alone all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven, and with a propitious eye beholds his subjects assuming that freedom of thought, and dignity of self-direction which He bestowed on them. From the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come."

"Freedom of thought and the right of private judgment, in matters of conscience, driven from every other corner of the earth, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum."

"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say "what should be the reward of such sacrifices?" Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!"

"Courage, then, my countrymen, our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty."

"To John Adams he [Samuel] said on one occasion, "he never looked forward in life; never planned, laid a scheme, or formed a design for laying up anything for himself or others after him". This was the truth, inexplicable as it must have seemed to his more provident cousin."

"Samuel Adams had not inherited poverty nor had he, after all, exactly embraced it, but had as it were naturally drifted into it through indifference to worldly gain, the indifference which men of single and fixed purpose have for all irrelevant matters."

"No one, in the year 1770, was better fitted than Samuel Adams, either by talent and temperament or the circumstances of his position, to push the continent into a rebellion. Unlike most of his patriot friends, he had neither private business nor private profession to fall back upon when public affairs grew tame, his only business being, as one might say, the public business, his only profession the definition and defense of popular rights. ...the serious business of a man who during ten years had abandoned all private pursuits and had embraced poverty to become a tribune of the people."

"Our Trade, as it is now, & always has been conducted, centers in Great Brittain, & in Return for her Manufactures affords her more ready Cash, beyond any Comparison, than can possibly be expected by the most sanguine Promoters of these extraordinary Methods. We are in short ultimately yielding large Supplys to the Revenues of the Mother Country, while we are laboring for a very moderate Subsistence for ourselves. But if our Trade is to be curtaild in its most profitable Branches, & Burdens beyond all possible Bearing, laid upon that which is sufferd to remain, we shall be so far from being able to take off the manufactures of Great Brittain, that it will be scarce possible for us to earn our Bread.--But what still heightens our apprehensions is, that these unexpected Proceedings may be preparatory to new Taxations upon us: For if our Trade may be taxed, why not our Lands? Why not the Produce of our Lands & everything we possess or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our Charter Right to govern & tax ourselves. It strikes at our British privileges, which as we have never forfeited them, we hold in common with our Fellow Subjects who are Natives of Britain. If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal Representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves?"

"It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions."

"Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. We must not conclude merely upon a man's haranguing upon liberty, and using the charming sound, that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of his country. It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, — to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves. It is not, I say, unfrequent to see such instances, though at the same time I esteem it a justice due to my country to say that it is not without shining examples of the contrary kind; — examples of men of a distinguished attachment to this same liberty I have been describing; whom no hopes could draw, no terrors could drive, from steadily pursuing, in their sphere, the true interests of their country; whose fidelity has been tried in the nicest and tenderest manner, and has been ever firm and unshaken. The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people."

"Property is admitted to have an existence, even in the savage state of nature. The bow, the arrow, and the tomahawk; the hunting and the fishing ground, are species of property, as important to an American savage, as pearls, rubies, and diamonds are to the Mogul, or a Nabob in the East, or the lands, tenements, hereditaments, messuages, gold and silver of the Europeans. And if property is necessary for the support of savage life, it is by no means less so in civil society. The Utopian schemes of levelling, and a community of goods, are as visionary and impracticable, as those which vest all property in the Crown, are arbitrary, despotic, and in our government unconstitutional. Now, what property can the colonists be conceived to have, if their money may be granted away by others, without their consent?"

"If you, or Colonel Dalrymple under you, have the power to remove one regiment you have the power to remove both. It is at your peril if you refuse. The meeting is composed of three thousand people. They have become impatient. A thousand men are already arrived from the neighborhood, and the whole country is in motion. Night is approaching. An immediate answer is expected. Both regiments or none!"

"The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought."

"The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have receiv'd them as a fair Inheritance from our worthy Ancestors: They purchas'd them for us with toil and danger and expence of treasure and blood; and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Of the latter we are in most danger at present: Let us therefore be aware of it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to maintain the rights bequeath'd to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. — Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom." It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event."

"It is always dangerous to the liberties of the people to have an army stationed among them, over which they have no control... The Militia is composed of free Citizens. There is therefore no danger of their making use of their Power to the destruction of their own Rights, or suffering others to invade them."

"What a glorious morning is this!"

"He who is void of virtuous Attachments in private Life, is, or very soon will be void of all Regard for his Country. There is seldom an Instance of a Man guilty of betraying his Country, who had not before lost the Feeling of moral Obligations in his private Connections."