Decius, in 2004:

I've come to the conclusion that you actually want shifty, dishonest politicians elected by an apathetic populace. This means that things are working. I'm confident that technology has improved the resources available to people if/when they choose to act. So far they don't need to, largely. Don't wish for times when they do.

Kevin Kelly:

This is the time that folks in the future will look back at and say, "Oh to have been alive and well back then!"

Derek Parfit, via Larissa MacFarquhar:

Most of us care about our future because it is ours -- but this most fundamental human instinct is based on a mistake. Personal identity is not what matters.

Ta-Nehisi Coates:

The citizen is lost in the labyrinth constructed by his country, when in fact straight is the gate, and narrow must always be the way. When I left for Middlebury, I had just published an article arguing for reparations. People would often ask me what change I expected to come from it. But change had already come. I had gone further down the unending path of knowing, deeper into the night. I was rejecting mental enslavement. I was rejecting the lie.

Mark Blyth:

It's not about costs, risks, or uncertainties; it's about the idea that a different future is possible.

John Fraser:

A sense of entitlement sits more naturally beside a sense of grievance than most people realize.

Neil Irwin:

No matter how entrenched our government institutions may seem, they rest on a bedrock assumption: that the leaders entrusted with power will deliver the goods.

Power is not a right; it is a responsibility. The way things are going currently isn't good enough, and voters are getting angry enough to want to do something about it.

George Friedman:

The tough part of national self-determination is the need to make decisions and live with them.

Adam Gopnik:

The best argument for reading history is not that it will show us the right thing to do in one case or the other, but rather that it will show us why even doing the right thing rarely works out.

A.O. Scott:

A crisis of authority is not for the faint of heart. It can be scary and weird and ambiguous. But it can be a lot of fun, too.

Noam Scheiber:

Every successful startup is in some sense a confidence game.