The thorniest problems are never technological.
By 1860, a certain sense of inevitability had overtaken the nation. War seemed a foregone conclusion because there was no incentive to budge, to question one’s own righteousness, to create the grounds on which a compromise might occur.
You are dealing with people who have taken the responsibility of killing their own because they think that they are right, they think that they are serving the interests of their people. They not going to give that up easily, just because you've shown up.
I've seen a lot of political violence in my life. I know what it looks like. I know what it smells like. I know what motivates young men to do it. I've talked to them about it. I know what victims feel like, you know? I know the abominable effect it has on politics. I know how intractable it is.
An angry man heeds no counsel.
There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.
We academics - I am an academic - we love complexity. You can write papers about complexity, and the nice thing about complexity is it's fundamentally intractable in many ways, so you're not responsible for outcomes.
I was one of those young cats and knuckleheads that was hard headed, that didn't listen.
What is nonmeasurable and nonpredictable will remain nonmeasurable and nonpredictable ... no matter how much hate mail I get.
I am a bull. I am Taurus. My will is awful. If I like something, there is nothing else. I was a pain in the neck. I still am a pain in the neck.
