The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on … - Steven Pinker

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People have often assumed that for music to be emotionally powerful it has to come directly from a human hand, whereas I disagree with that, and enjoy proving these people wrong. This project is an excellent way of exploring that area more.

Steven Pinker

The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.

Desire, Justified, Needs, People, Rights

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All our behaviours are a result of neurophysiological activity in the brain. There is no reason to believe there is any magic going on.

Activity, Believe, Magic, Neurophysiological, Psychology, Reason

Being smarter gives you a tailwind throughout life. People who are more intelligent earn more, live longer, get divorced less, are less likely to get addicted to alcohol and tobacco, and their children live longer.

Alcohol, Children, Intelligent, Live, People

I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.

Fragile, Giving, Life, Purpose, Realization

When it comes to explaining human thought and behavior, the possibility that heredity plays any role at all still has the power to shock. To acknowledge human nature, many think, is to endorse racism, sexism, war, greed, genocide, nihilism, reactionary politics, and neglect of children and the disadvantaged. Any claim that the mind has an innate organization strikes people not as a hypothesis that might be incorrect but as a thought it is immoral to think.

Behavior, Children, Human, Mind, Thinking, War

In many Muslim countries, witchcraft is not only on the books as a crime, but is commonly prosecuted. In 2009, for example, Saudi Arabia convicted a man for carrying a phone booklet with characters in an alphabet from his native Eritrea, which the police interpreted as occult symbols. He was lashed three hundred times and imprisoned for more than three years.

Book, Carrying, Character, Country, Crime, Eritrea