Women Academics From The United States

"In order to be the good, we have to BElieve THEre is GOOD in the world."

"The last time a working journalist was given this award was in 1936, and Carl von Ossietzky never made it to Oslo because he languished in a Nazi concentration camp. So we’re hopefully a step ahead because we’re actually here!"

"Journalists, the old gatekeepers, are one side of the coin. The other is technology, with its god-like power that has allowed a virus of lies to infect each of us, pitting us against each other, bringing out our fears, anger and hate, and setting the stage for the rise of authoritarians and dictators around the world."

"We are standing on the rubble of the world that was, and we must have the foresight and courage to imagine what might happen if we don’t act now, and instead, create the world as it should be – more compassionate, more equal, more sustainable."

"Today, an emergent wave of right-wing populist leaders uses social media to question and break down reality, triggering rage and paranoia on a bed of exponential lies. This is how fascism is normalized and where political outrage meets terrorism, the vanguard of mass violence."

"The ability to discern and question, which is crucial to both journalism and democracy, is also determined by education. Journalists and news organizations are a reflection of the people’s power to hold its leaders accountable. That means that ultimately the quality of a democracy can also be seen in the quality of its journalists."

"As only the 18th woman to receive this prize, I need to tell you how gendered disinformation is a new threat and is taking a significant toll on the mental health and physical safety of women, girls, trans, and LGBTQ+ people all over the world. Women journalists are at the epicenter of risk. This pandemic of misogyny and hatred needs to be tackled, now."

"I think everyone in this room realizes that anger and hate only destroy. What do you do when that’s over? How do you build, right? Because in order to create, to build for the future, you have to move away from that. How well we survive this time of creative destruction, it really is, depends on each of us, on each of us fighting our individual battles of integrity, for integrity. We’ve got to jump in..."

"I wanted to achieve an “empty mirror,” a concept I took from a book about a Buddhist monastery: to stand in front of a mirror and see the world without my image obstructing the view. I wanted to know myself to such a degree that I could take myself out of the equation when approaching the world around me and responding to it. That is clarity—the ability to remove your self and your ego."

"We decided to use the power of group dynamics and social networks to do something positive: spread hope."

"This is why propaganda networks are so effective in rewriting history: the distribution spread of a lie is so much greater than the fact-check that follows, and by the time the lie is debunked, those who believe it often refuse to change their views"

"We are standing on the rubble of the world that was, and we must have the foresight and courage to imagine, and create, the world as it should be: more compassionate, more equal, more sustainable. A world that is safe from fascists and tyrants."

"The world we once knew is decimated. Now we have to decide what we want to create."

"What you choose to do shapes the person you become."

"Technology has proven that human beings have far more in common than we have differences."

"the breakdown of the rule of law globally was ignited by the lack of a democratic vision for the internet in the twenty-first century."

"Please ask yourself the same question my team and I ask every day: What are you willing to sacrifice for the truth?"

"It’s better to face your fear than to run from it because running won’t make the problem go away. When you face it, you have the chance to conquer it. That was how I began to define courage."

"I believe that Facebook represents one of the gravest threats to democracies around the world, and I am amazed that we have allowed our freedoms to be taken away by technology companies’ greed for growth and revenues."

"there is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice."

"What I have witnessed and documented over the past decade is technology’s godlike power to infect each of us with a virus of lies, pitting us against one another, igniting, even creating, our fears, anger, and hatred, and accelerating the rise of authoritarians and dictators around the world."

"Please, grab your glass, raise it to Filipinos, to Americans, and other freedom-loving people all around the world who are fighting desperately for their democracies, because they — we believe in the goodness of human nature. We believe that the only way to build is with hope, it’s with inspiration, it is — it’s with love. We will hold the line powered with the best of human nature."

"Tech sucked up our personal experiences and data, organized it with artificial intelligence, manipulated us with it, and created behavior at a scale that brought out the worst in humanity."

"Democracy is fragile. You have to fight for every bit, every law, every safeguard, every institution, every story. You must know how dangerous it is to suffer even the tiniest cut. This is why I say to us all: we must hold the line."

"My job is to hold power to account."

"when President Trump called CNN and The New York Times fake news, a week later President Duterte called Rappler fake news. I think it is a bad time for the world when the former beacon of democracy, the fighter for press freedom and human rights, is noticeably absent. And I think you’re feeling that all around the world. Simultaneous to that, though, is the American technology companies that have allowed cheap armies on social media to roll back democracy, a new weapon used against journalists...Press freedom is not just for journalists. I think this is a critical time for democracy around the world, both in the Philippines and in the United States. And you must fight for your rights while you still can."

"So we do our best with what we have: we act, and each day we iterate. (p. 257)"

"If you're lucky, you realize early on that each decision you make answers a question that all of us muddle through: how to build meaning in our lives. Meaning is not something you stumble across or what someone gives you; you build it through every choice you make, the commitments you choose, the people you love, and the values you hold dear."

"Maria's is a key voice...she is so incredible in so many ways."

"People across the world have already united together in exactly the way this General Assembly must do today. Protests and vigils against Russia’s war, and in solidarity with Ukraine, marked with blue and yellow, have sprung up across the globe. These are protests for peace. From Bangkok to Budapest. From Berlin to Buenos Aires. From Sydney to Seoul. From Calgary to Cape Town. And even in Moscow and Minsk. People everywhere are standing up to call for President Putin to stop this attack."

"The Russian people are themselves asking how many lives Putin will sacrifice for his cynical ambitions. And they are appalled at the answer. To the Russian protesters, I say thank you – thank you – for your bravery. To the Russian soldiers sent to the front lines of an unjust, unnecessary war, I say: your leaders are lying to you. Do not commit war crimes. Do everything you can to put down your weapons and leave Ukraine. The truth is that this war was one man’s choice and one man alone: President Putin. It was his choice to force hundreds of thousands of people to stuff their lives into backpacks and flee the country. To send newborn babies into makeshift bomb shelters. To make children with cancer huddle in hospital basements, interrupting their treatment, essentially sentencing them to death. Those were President Putin’s choices. Now it’s time for us to make ours."

"A lot has happened very quickly to bring us to this unique moment. It was barely a week ago when, in the dead of night, President Putin launched a full-scale invasion of our fellow UN Member State at the very moment – at the very moment – the Security Council was holding an urgent meeting attempting to foster diplomacy and de-escalation. As the Security Council discussed peace, Putin declared war. Ukraine has defended itself with great courage and vigor. As President Biden said in his State of the Union address last night, President Putin “met a wall of strength he never imagined. He met the Ukrainian people.” But the brazen and indiscriminate nature of Russia’s attacks has had devastating, horrific consequences for the entire country. Russia has bombed residential apartment buildings. It has bombed sacred burial grounds. It has shelled kindergartens and orphanages and hospitals. Russia has spurred mass hunger and caused so many to flee their homes – the latest UN estimates are marching toward a million people."

"Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, my fellow delegates, to all those who dedicate themselves to the noble mission of this institution: Today, we call on Russia to stop its unprovoked, unjustified, unconscionable war. We call on Russia to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. We call on another neighbor of Ukraine, Belarus, who you just heard from, to stop supporting the war and stop allowing its territory to be used to facilitate this aggression. And today, we stand together in holding Russia accountable for its violations of international law, and to address the horrific human rights and humanitarian crisis unfolding before our very eyes."

"This is an extraordinary moment. For the first time in 40 years, the Security Council has convened an Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly. Forty years. Most of the men and women fighting in Ukraine were not even born the last time the United Nations came together in this way to unite for peace. And I would venture, that many of the people in this room were not born when that happened. But a few of the eldest Ukrainians and Russians might recall a moment like this. A moment when one aggressive European nation invaded another, without provocation, to claim the territory of its neighbor. A moment when a European dictator declared he would return his empire to its former glory. An invasion that caused a war so horrific that it spurred this organization into existence."

"Now, at more than any other point in recent history, the United Nations is being challenged. If the United Nations has any purpose, it is to prevent war, it is to condemn war, to stop war. That is our job here today. It is the job you were sent here to do – not just by your capitals, but by all of humanity."

"I first used the phrase "narrative medicine" in [the year] 2000 to refer to clinical practice fortified by narrative competence-- the capacity to recognize, absorb, metabolize, interpret and be moved by the stories of illness."

"What do I do with the paradoxes, the ambiguities, the contradictory stories from a family member, the gaps in memory, the fact that the stories change from month to month? What do I do with my doubt about the meaning of what I am hearing?"

"When doctors write, they too experience the discovery of learning what they know. It continues to astonish me that writing is an avenue to the "unthought known"-- that is, the part of knowledge that sits under awareness."

"Our task as doctors, nurses, therapists, and ethicists is to learn each patient's personal language in its tenses, its images, its silences, and its tensions."

"...the biggest challenge I had was to convince people that I wanted to listen to whatever they said. One lady said, "You mean you want me to talk?""

"I meet with lots of pre-medical students now, and they show me their personal statement to get into medical school. They read the statement. It's all about wanting to help people, integrated care, and justice. I have to say "What about the science? Does the science interest you? Because if it doesn't, you're not going to do well.""

"I think my duty is to promote two things in my students: creativity and doubt....The creative person is able to venture into the unknown....And to tolerate doubt both requires and generates creativity. It's when you're out there, off the shore of the known, that you have to create."

"Radical listening is the effort to be present, to bear witness, and to listen without your biases and assumptions. It's about curiosity, not judgment."

"This isn't just about being a nice doctor or having a nice bedside manner. It's hearing and taking responsibility for improving access and equity, because it's in our power to do this."

"If you want some adventure, if you want to work hard, if you want to do work with teams, if you want to see an idea from conception through its ultimate goal, science is a wonderful field to work in. It is highly rewarding."

"(...) This structural requirement of economies of action turns the means of behavioral modification into an engine of growth. At no other time in history have private corporations of unprecedented wealth and power enjoyed the free exercise of economies of action supported by a pervasive global architecture of ubiquitous computational knowledge and control constructed and maintained by all the advanced scientific know-how that money can buy."

"It is important to understand that surveillance capitalists are impelled to pursue lawlessness by the logic of their own creation. Google and Facebook vigorously lobby to kill online privacy protection, limit regulations, weaken or block privacy-enhancing legislation, and thwart every attempt to circumscribe their practices because such laws are existential threats to the frictionless flow of behavioral surplus."

"(...) Stalin took the floor for a toast as the room fell silent. “Our tanks are worthless if the souls who must steer them are made of clay. This is why I say: The production of souls is more important than that of tanks.… Man is reshaped by life itself, and those of you here must assist in reshaping his soul. That is what is important, the production of human souls. And that is why I raise my glass to you, writers, to the engineers of the soul.”6 The authors assembled around Stalin that evening raised their glasses to his toast, persuaded perhaps by memories of less adaptive colleagues already exiled or executed (...)"

"We celebrated the new digital services as free, but now we see that the surveillance capitalists behind those services regard us as the free commodity. We thought that we search Google, but now we understand that Google searches us. We assumed that we use social media to connect, but we learned that connection is how social media uses us. …We’ve begun to understand that “privacy” policies are actually surveillance policies.… The Financial Times reported that a Microsoft facial recognition training database of 10 million images plucked from the internet without anyone’s knowledge and supposedly limited to academic research was employed by companies like IBM and state agencies that included the United States and Chinese military.… ….Privacy is not private, because the effectiveness of these and other private or public surveillance and control systems depends upon the pieces of ourselves that we give up—or that are secretly stolen from us."

"Automated machine processes not only know our behavior but also shape our behavior at scale. With this reorientation from knowledge to power, it is no longer enough to automate information flows about us; the goal is to automate us. ... Just as industrial society was imagined as a well-functioning machine, Instrumentarian society is imagined as a human simulation of machine learning systems: a confluent hive mind in which each element learns and operates in concert with every other element. In the model of machine confluence, the “freedom” of each individual machine is subordinated to the knowledge of the system as a whole. Instrumentarian power is to organize, herd, and tune society to achieve a similar social confluence, in which group pressure and computational certainty replace politics and democracy."