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Steven Pinker • The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century
The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century
amazon.com
Progress is good. As Steven Pinker has argued, most things are getting better over time. We are richer, healthier, safer, and better-educated than our ancestors. Although redistribution and social changes can make things better or worse around the edges, most of our current fortunate position comes from simple economic growth.
Scott Alexander • Notes From The Progress Studies Conference
The same goes, of course, for human beings. The distancing effect of language facilitates exploitation, cruelty, murder, and genocide. When the other party to a relationship is a mere member of a generic category, be it “customer,” “terrorist,” or “employee,” exploitation or murder comes much more easily. Racial epithets serve the same purpose: we
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