Naina Bajekal on William MacAskill's work on effective altruism

The greater good has been the focus of his work for more than a decade, since he helped start the effective altruism (EA) movement, which aims to use evidence and reason to find the best ways of helping others, and to put those findings into practice.  EA holds that we should value all lives equally and act on that basis.  It is the antithesis of the old do-gooder’s credo “Think global, act local.” 

His new book, What We Owe the Future, argues we should expand the moral circle even further: if we care about people thousands of miles away, we should care about people thousands or even millions of years in the future.  The book, which has been praised by the likes of Stephen Fry and Elon Musk, makes the case for “longtermism,” the view that positively influencing the long-term future—not just this generation or the next, but the potentially trillions of people still to come—is a key moral priority of our time.  Through analyzing the risks of climate change, man-made pathogens, nuclear weapons, and advanced artificial intelligence, MacAskill has come to believe we’re living at a pivotal moment in human history, one where the fate of the world depends significantly on the choices we make in our lifetimes.

~ Naina Bajekal, "Want To Do More Good? This Movement Might Have the Answer," Time, August 10, 2022

Anthony Fauci on vaccine mandates

Andrea Mitchell: I also want to ask you about the president's mandate which is being litigated right now...  There's so much opposition now in Congress and across the states, even in Democratic states...  This is becoming just a political test and the outlook is not at all a sure thing in the court system.  Is there any thought of backing off of that and trying to avoid all the outcry against it?

Anthony Fauci: We really have to get people vaccinated.  I understand and we all understand how people do not like to be told what to do.  They want to make their own choice and their own free will.  I get that and I respect that, but these are unusual times and you can't think only of yourself and your own personal opinion, but you've got to think about your communal responsibility to get yourself and your family and, indirectly then, the community protected.  So I would prefer - and we all would prefer - that people would be voluntarily getting vaccinated, but if they're not going to do that, sometimes you've got to do things that are unpopular, but that clearly supersede individual choices and are directed predominately at the communal good, and that's what we're talking about when we're talking about requirements.

Mitchell: It's such an important warning.  Thank you very much.  Maybe there would be a better word than mandate, but I don't know what it is.  

~ Dr. Anthony Fauci, Anthony Fauci interview with Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC, 8:35 mark, December 8, 2021

JFK addresses the media about the Cold War

On many earlier occasions, I have said—and your newspapers have constantly said— that these are times that appeal to every citizen’s sense of sacrifice and self-discipline.  They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good.  I cannot now believe that those citizens who serve in the newspaper business consider themselves exempt from that appeal. 

I have no intention of establishing a new Office of War Information to govern the flow of news.  I am not suggesting any new forms of censorship or new types of security classifications.  I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one.  But I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country to reexamine their own responsibilities—to consider the degree and the nature of the present danger—and to heed the duty of self-restraint which that danger imposes upon us all.

~ President John F. Kennedy, “ADDRESS: THE PRESIDENT AND THE PRESS,” April 27, 1961

Dr. Anthony Fauci on the pandemic and the greater good

You are a member of society.  And as a member of society, reaping all the benefits of being a member of society, you have a responsibility to society.  And I think each of us, particularly in the context of a pandemic that's killing millions of people, you have got to look at it and say there comes a time when you do have to give up what you consider your individual right of making your own decision for the greater good of society.

~ Dr. Anthony Fauci, tweet, October 3, 2021

George Carlin on the common good

People are wonderful. I love individuals. I hate groups of people. I hate a group of people with a 'common purpose'. 'Cause pretty soon they have little hats. And armbands. And fight songs. And a list of people they're going to visit at 3am. So, I dislike and despise groups of people but I love individuals. Every person you look at; you can see the universe in their eyes, if you're really looking.

~ George Carlin

Joseph Goebbels on socialism

To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is submitting the individual to the whole.

~ Joseph Goebbels

William H. Taft on the Constitution and the public good

The President can exercise no power which cannot be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant of power in the Federal Constitution or in an act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof.  There is no undefined residuum of power which he can exercise because it seems to him to be in the public interest.

~ William H. Taft

Kevin Duffy on capitalism vs. socialism

capitalism: serving others while serving yourself
socialism: stealing from others while serving yourself, justified by "serving the common good"

capitalism: motivated by improving your lot in life (ambition)
socialism: motivated by bringing others down (envy)

~ Kevin Duffy