Freedom Of Choice - The University Of New Mexico: Fill & Download for Free

Why, I’m flattered. I think this is the second time anyone’s ever mentioned me by name in a Quora question. Not sure why I wasn’t A2A’d on it, but whatever.The other answers have done a…um…fair to middling job of explaining why I made the statements I did. I think it’s best if I give you my personal take.Let’s split this answer into two sections:Why are health and safety not “rights”?Because they aren’t.A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive—of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights.The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.[1]There are two kinds of rights—negative rights and positive rights.Philosophers and political theorists make a distinction between negative and positive rights. A negative right is a right not to be subjected to an action of another person or group; negative rights permit or oblige inaction. A positive right is a right to be subjected to an action or another person or group; positive rights permit or oblige action.[2]The right to bear arms, as enshrined in the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, is a negative right—the government cannot take your guns from you, thereby depriving you of your right to defend yourself from government tyranny. The right to healthcare, however, is a positive right—it obliges someone or something to render unto you a service or a product. In this case, the imaginary “right to healthcare” requires the government to provide you with healthcare, and by extension, it requires doctors and nurses to render unto you their services—with or without recompense. (The fact that the NHS, as of this writing, pays their doctors and nurses fairly well does not diminish the fact that they are morally impelled, under the imaginary “right to healthcare” that Britons and the British government seem to think exists, to provide their services to the public.)And that’s what makes the “right to healthcare” so immoral, kiddies—it turns doctors and nurses into, essentially, slaves. A man who has no right to the product of his effort—a doctor who works for the government, is required to render medical aid unto the general populace, and who must accept his government wages, high or low, regardless of the value of his effort—is enslaved in all but name.To sum up, the “right to healthcare” does not fit Ayn Rand’s Objectivist definition of a right. A right is a moral sanction to act in your own judgment (not your government’s judgment, or the majority of your fellow citizens’ judgment); for your own goals (not the government’s goals, or the majority of your fellow citizens’ goals); and by your own voluntary, uncoerced choice. (At least doctors in the US have the option of turfing drug addicts into the street, whereas government-employed doctors have to treat everybody who comes in, no matter how fraudulent, minor, or irresponsible their complaints are.)So healthcare is not a right. If you don’t believe me, believe this neurosurgeon:Health care is not a human rightAny questions? Hit me up in the comments section below.Why is the US a free country, while other countries are not free?Because the US has things that other countries simply do not have. Period. And these are the things that make us free.Checks and balances. The governments of many, many countries have no constitutionally imposed limits on their power—and only the United States’ government was created, from the ground up, to have such limitations built in and to be completely insurmountable. Foreigners tut-tutting about America’s sloppy, halfhearted, disorganized coronavirus response should remember that America’s government was designed to be inefficient. It was designed so no individual, group, or majority could hijack the government and visit tyranny upon the American people, as has happened in so many other countries across the globe. (And which people, thankfully, are waking up to.) Fear makes people do irrational things. It’d be far too easy, in a country which had fewer checks and balances built into its government, for an irresponsible and sensationalist media to whip the public up into a fearful frenzy about, say, a global pandemic; for these fear-stricken and irrational people to turn to their government and demand its help; and for unscrupulous, power-hungry individuals within government to revoke the citizens’ fundamental rights and impose tyrannical restrictions on the citizenry in the name of vaunted abstracts such as “the greater good” and “public safety.” It’s harder to do that in the US than it is in any other country. Which is why we’re more free. Full stop.Constitutional protections. Only two other countries feature the right to bear arms in their constitutions: Mexico and Guatemala. And the right exists only in name. Many other countries, such as the United Kingdom, give lip service to freedom of speech in their charters or constitutions, but as we’ve seen in the cases of Tommy Robinson and Count Dankula, those rights simply aren’t respected. At any rate, it’s clear that the United States is the only country in the world whose constitution not only lays out what the government can do but expressly states what the government cannot do—and one of the things it cannot do is infringe on its citizens’ inalienable rights. Nor do I see any other country, in its founding documents or constitution, declare unequivocally that the people have the right to overthrow their government if it indulges in tyranny, as our Declaration of Independence does. The Declaration was written to morally justify the fledgling US’s rebellion against its mother country,[3] and it has provided the moral basis for much of our culture, history, and law ever since.A clearer understanding of “rights.” Americans do not truck with imaginary rights such as “the right to be safe” (which I’ve seen many Quorans attempt to cite when they debate me about coronavirus restrictions), “the right to leisure” (part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), “the right to housing” (mentioned in the Green New Deal), or any other ridiculous entitlement like that. We understand that, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal, and all are endowed with certain inalienable rights (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). Some political and moral philosophers such as Ayn Rand take it a step further, and say that there is only one fundamental right, the right to life—and all other rights are its “consequences or corollaries.” However you choose to look at the issue, it’s clear that housing, leisure, and safety are not rights (merely the desires of a clamorous, envious pack of bleeding hearts and malingerers). Whereas freedom of speech, freedom of movement, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of religion, etc. are all necessary to the sustenance and satisfaction of a person’s fundamental right to life. Moreover, these aforementioned rights are negative rights—moral authorization to do things without being interfered with or restricted by the government or the majority of your fellow citizens. (This stands in sharp contrast to the concept of positive rights, which are nothing but entitlements in philosophic guise.) Simply put, Americans understand—better than the citizens of any other nation—the true definition and nature of rights. Namely, that (a) the only real rights are negative rights, not positive rights, (b) the number of rights you have is actually quite small, and (c) they all relate back to the most fundamental right of all—the right to life. Americans simply have a better understanding of rights, individual liberty, freedom, and happiness than the citizens of any other nation do. It’s why we created a new nation in the first place. It’s literally the reason the United States exists. We needed a place where we could be free—freer than anyone else in any other country. We were a people without a country, a group of hardworking, self-sufficient, libertarian, anti-authoritarian, fiercely independent doers and dreamers who threw off the yoke of oppression and founded the first true republic the world had seen since Ancient Greece. Let’s get all Cartesian with it: We’re free, therefore we founded our own country.Much greater respect for the inviolability of our rights. As I’ve hinted elsewhere, citizens of other nations—mostly in the Anglosphere—seem to believe that rights have limits. They believe that individual rights must carry water for social utility, and that rights must be curtailed if and when they begin to infringe upon a nebulous and highly subjective ideological construct such as “the greater good.” This mindset never fails to make me grind my teeth. It shows the most abject ignorance of what a right is, and why rights are defined and protected in the first place. Americans, thankfully, understand that rights are inalienable. For those who are unaware, the word “inalienable” means “unable to be taken away, or given away by the possessor.” You are born with a set of inalienable rights (what John Locke called “natural rights”), and these are rights that you have, period, whether your government chooses to recognize them and respect them or not. Everybody everywhere on this planet has the right to own a gun. Period. But Americans live in the only country which actually recognizes the inalienable human right to keep and bear arms, and whose constitution admonishes the government to refrain from infringing upon that right. And that’s the reason Americans have kept the right to bear arms for nearly 250 years, despite one side of the political spectrum’s persistent efforts to take it away from us. And that’s the reason Americans are protesting against unconstitutional, immoral coronavirus lockdowns and mask ordinances in cities and states across the nation, because we recognize that these restrictions infringe upon our rights. Americans recognize that certain rights—free speech, free press, movement, free enterprise, religion, property, arms—are simply inalienable. They’re inviolable. Sacred. Sacrosanct. And they shall not be curtailed, infringed upon, restricted, or circumscribed for any reason, not even a global pandemic. This is a lesson which the inhabitants of countries the world over desperately need to learn. They’re being tyrannized and they don’t even know it.General favor of minimal government. America has a libertarian mindset. That’s it. Kaboom. I don’t know how much simpler I can make it. I’ve written extensively on this topic elsewhere on Quora.[4] Many Americans are openly suspicious of government and unequivocally hostile to its attempts to help us or provide us with services. We see this as an unwarranted and untrustworthy intrusion. In other countries, people are practically dependent on their government. They wouldn’t dream of downsizing it, let alone abolishing it. They expect government to do things for them—housing, healthcare, higher education—that self-respecting Americans wouldn’t be caught dead asking their government to do for them. It’s a whole different mindset, and it’s part of what makes the United States the freest country on the planet. The government is not our keeper. There’s a reason that Thomas Jefferson titled his justification of America’s revolution against England “The Declaration of Independence.” Not the “Declaration of Freedom” or “Declaration of Liberty.” Independence. We are an independent people. We do not depend on government to help us out of a jam, to see to our every little need, or to supply us with services that we know could be better provided by the private sector (or that we could provide ourselves with). That’s all there is to it.There’s more, but my fingers are getting tired. I hope these five items will help support my wholehearted assertion that the United States is the freest nation on Earth. It’s because ingrained in US culture is a deep and abiding mistrust of government (if you wanna blame somebody for that, blame King George III), a much better understanding of and fiercer love for our inalienable rights, and a much higher premium on the sanctity of those rights. And as a result, the founders of our government intentionally weakened the government to prevent it from ever tyrannizing us, and divided its power among three branches (and devolved unenumerated powers to the states) to guarantee the proper balance of power.And that’s worked out pretty well for us so far, thank you for asking.QED.And now for the obligatory ‘MURICA.Footnotes[1] -Ayn Rand Lexicon[2] Negative vs. Positive Rights[3] The Declaration of Independence Says We Have the Right to Overthrow the Government[4] Andrew T. Post's answer to Why do people from other countries worry about the gun laws in America?

I write because this bundle of cells and synapses that grew from that single merged cell has a voice that lets it translate the perceived magic of being alive into a song about being alive.User - User's answer to My old writing teacher said "I write because that’s how I know who I am." To what extent do other writers feel that way?The idea is my rainbow. It's perfect in my mind, too brilliant to look at directly. It's amorphous, untouchable and gorgeous in its mistiness Sometimes, I want to leave the idea as is, perfect in its untouchability. Other times, I want to touch it, make it real, feel it between my fingers.Cristina Hartmann - Cristina Hartmann's answer to What is the feeling that makes writers write? Do they realize when an idea is going to work or not?Is there any beauty to people who are dead inside? Yes. There is a heart wrenching, painful beauty. The beauty of a human so agonised, so wounded, that they have taken what is precious to us all and determinedly stomped on it until it is all but destroyed.Mary Bennett - Mary Bennett's answer to What beauty can you appreciate about people who are dead inside?I'm not a sad-sack, I'm still positive about life, I just see more shades of colour now instead of the bright pink of my youth.Jan Leadbetter - Jan Leadbetter's answer to Are you happy? If not, why not?When a Supernova happens, the exploding dying star temporarily outshines all other celestial objects in its vicinity and then gradually dies down. Yet, in that death is the beginning of new life like these - the pillars of creationUser-12640873265881826723 - User-12640873265881826723's answer to Why do all good things come to an end?Sanskrit, the vocabulary of which is derived from root syllables, is ideal for coining new scientific and technological terms. The need to borrow words or special scientific terms does not arise.Kiran Kadav - Kiran Kadav's answer to English (language): Is there another language besides English that could have the same impact on our knowledge and advances in science (math, computers, physics, etc.)? If so, what is it and why? If not, why is the English language more helpful to scientists?To note this basic fact is not in any way supporting the simplistic and downright stupid idea that the war was to "steal Iraq's oil". The motives were far more complex than that and the desired outcomes not so primitive. But to pretend that the "strategic importance"of Iraq had nothing to do with the fact that, at the time, Iraq was sitting on the second largest proven oil reserves in the world (now known to be the largest) is simply ridiculous.Tim O'Neill - Tim O'Neill's answer to What is the real reason the United States waged war against Iraq? Beyond the commonly cited explanation of WMDs, which of the many theories is most credible?What if 1 million people are trying to use the telephone book at the same time? This is the problem of concurrency. Everyone could all wait in one very long line at City Hall, or you could print 1 million copies of the book -- a strategy called "replication". If you put them in people's homes -- a strategy called "distributed" -- you also get faster access.Paul King - Paul King's answer to Why is it hard to scale a database, in layman’s terms?The most important thing is you need to realize that anger is in the oldest part of the brain. We experience emotions in the "lizard brain" for lack of a more descriptive term. When this part of the brain is activated it supersedes the rational and logical part of the brain.Ariel Williams - Ariel Williams's answer to What are some good hacks for cooling off while you are feeling extremely angry?I tell myself what happiness isIt is measured by what I do for othersDo me a favour and acceptMy kindness comes with no stringsExcept I do it to please myselfBryce Johannes - Bryce Johannes's answer to What makes a person truly happy?Cooking is an endless quest for perfection, it is at the same time never reached and always there.Julien Vaché - Julien Vaché's answer to What does it take to earn one, two, and three Michelin stars? What kinds of preparations are needed and how long does it take?Culture is not static. Desires are fleeting.I realize you love this woman and place her desires above the wants, perhaps even needs, of others, but valuing pretty little stones above human death and suffering is just plain selfish. I'm sure there were people in the 1800's who thought, "this whole slavery thing is kind of fucked up, but, well, everyone else is doing it, life would be a lot tougher without it, and gee golly what would all the neighbors say if we were the only silly geese on the block who didn't own slaves? Guess we might as well."Honestly, that's what half of these answers sound like to me.Dave Cheng - Dave Cheng's answer to How do I convince my girlfriend (future wife) that a diamond engagement ring is a waste of money?Another really interesting aspect of color is that language seems to affect our perception of it. That is, some languages have more names for colors than others. Anthropologists have studied the names of color, and theorized that there is a common pattern for linguistic development as colors are named, and that this in turn affects how colors are understood.Martin Fox - Martin Fox's answer to Do some colours inherently evoke specific emotions, or is it something culturally ingrained, or, something we picked up in the process of evolution?It was part "Batman Begins," part "The Dark Knight," and a lot of "Tale of Two Cities." It's a superhero movie, a drama, a war movie, and a prison-break film, all rolled into one. It delivers everything I had hoped for, and more. I think it had the best plotting, the most complex character arc for Bruce of the whole series, the very best action and fight scenes by far, and a spectacular score.Mark Hughes - http://www.quora.com/Mark-Hughes-1/answers/The-Dark-Knight-Rises-2012-movieYou gotta admit, if you get off on big business - you would wanna be hangin with Dick.Christopher Rodriguez - Christopher Rodriguez's answer to How much money did Dick Cheney make from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?To me, wit involves a very quick and clever mental sharpness; being able to see a situation in a unique way and instinctively being able to respond with a relevant comment or comeback. Sometimes wit can be funny, other times, just clever...Humor, in contrast, always involves amusement outwardly manifested by a smile, chuckle or laughter. There are different types of humor, including the type involving cleverness (this is where the overlapping qualities are).Garrick Saito - Garrick Saito's answer to What is the difference between wit and humor?As a kid I used to sit in my room and make art, but I never would do that now, there's always someone to come along and want you to make it more professional so you can sell it or hang it in a gallery or perform on stage or whatever. Why can't ya just sit in your room and make art and music for yourself, for God or whoever, for the little spaces in between the atoms, for the spiders in the corners?Catherine Goodman - http://www.quora.com/Catherine-Goodman-1/Poetry/I-became-addicted-to-other-peoples-daily-poetry-posts-got-all-strung-out-in-a-short-amount-of-time-And-then-when-wa truth and a liewhere does the selflie in a self-created crypt?inside or outside?you seek authenticity, affinity?can you tell what isn'tauthentic andwhat isn't an obligationin a self-created crypt?and who is this telling you?and why?User - http://www.quora.com/Catherine-Goodman-1/Poetry/the-lie-is-the-truthA good Quora answer is usually supported with argument and color—so the reader can understand why the answer is the answer. Great Quora answers are usually as much about “why?” as they are about “what’s the right answer?” I use Quora to become a better thinker about a question, so I want to understand the context and argument underneath a point-of-view.Marc Bodnick - What does a good answer on Quora look like? What does it mean to "be helpful"?We're not really. Freedom is the kind of thing that, when it's really working, you never once mention it.Since 9/11 the word has been absorbed more and more into political rhetoric...even as those politicians have stripped us of the actual freedoms they keep going on about.And, to add to the confusion, a great number of people conflate "right to own guns that can kill other humans in mass numbers" to be something that has to do with "freedom." I pretty much think that in a truly free and civilized society we don't need to own guns or talk about owning them, but hey, we can if we want.So angry and scared people keep screaming "FREEDOM!" while loading up on weapons and politicians who want those people to vote for them keep screaming FREEDOM! while removing our actual freedoms.But honestly, most Americans would like those two groups to shut the hell up and leave us to be actually free to pursue life, liberty and happiness.Erica Friedman - Erica Friedman's answer to Why are Americans obsessed with the idea of "freedom"?you meander through the recess of my bodypresuming an embrace will weave your way into my heartbut it's not a simple covet and hack; I need authenticity, affinityor it's just an obligation in a self-created cryptT S - http://www.quora.com/Catherine-Goodman-1/Poetry/you-meander-through-the-recess-of-my-bodyask answer comment votecomment voteLifecomment voteLifeBob Gluck - http://www.quora.com/Catherine-Goodman-1/Poetry/Quora-IThis is more than friendship, even best friendship, this is a friendship wrapped into mentorship into sisterhood ( I don't have a sister), and someone, that at some sense, knows me way better than I do.This is a truly, priceless gift, that there’s someone(besides your parents) you can totally feel safe spilling the most gut wrenching secrets and things that bother you, and yet keeps you on your toes and truly loves you. (Again, besides parents.)Emilya Burd - Someone anonymous's answer to What is the best gift you've ever received?There are systemsIn placeTo grant theAbsolutionThat you seekThere are ways to tranquilizeTo forgetBut there are no systemsTo bring backWhat you have swallowedUser-11382914805573998567 - http://www.quora.com/Catherine-Goodman-1/Poetry/ProcessInstead, Mexican society benefited but did not share the benefit equally. There aren't better schools or opportunities for poor people. Society is very hierarchical, as it is in most former Spanish colonies. In my view, this will need to be addressed first before any significant change comes about. After this is done, it'll still take a couple of generations for the changes to become evident.Fernando Montenegro - Fernando Montenegro's answer to Why is Mexico poor?Empowered. I don't have many channels or outlets to give voice to my thoughts and opinions these days. I don't have very much room for feedback, for recognition, or for support (think upvotes/downvotes). Having a forum for these discussions, thoughts, reflections, and learning gives me something that I was lacking in my daily life - though I didn't realize it until I became an active part of the Quora community. That's not to say I couldn't possibly have ever found this somewhere else, but I think that I personally couldn't have found another place to participate in this way, and have this sort of amazing, awe-inspiring community to comment on and read what I have to say.Alecia Li Morgan - Alecia Li Morgan's answer to In general, how does using Quora make people feel?tendrils, tangled in shadowcoalesce out of the voidfurtive, curious, fearfulexploring tentative formsexpanding, recoilingcongealing, morphingproto-limbs shudder, emergeshufflling, shambling out of pitchUser - http://www.quora.com/Catherine-Goodman-1/Poetry/homunculusVladimir NabokovThis was another guy with a really large brain and an even bigger vocabulary. With words, he painted and made music, stringing syllables together both playfully and carefully. I think of him as both artist and fiction engineer. In addition to being a writer, he was a lepidopterist, and he applied the fine-tuned way of thinking that is useful in such fields to his prose; he was mind-numbingly meticulous. He was aware of sound, of the notes and cadence of repeated, aspirated t's.Alexandra Pell - Alexandra Pell's answer to What writers have the most distinct, recognizable styles, and what are their most characteristic features?Quora's dirty little secret is that it's the people who write answers, rather than the people who read them, who get the most benefit.If all 1888(++) of my answers were obliterated in a stroke of a 'DELETE FROM....' command tomorrow, I would have gained from the rigourous criticism and (if you'll pardon what's technically an abuse of the term), peer review, that I've been able to leverage here.This has helped my thinking... and I suspect it's true for many Quorans.Mark Harrison - Mark Harrison's answer to What would happen if Quora were to shut down abruptly?Welcome to Jesse's School of Internet Savviness! Today, we have a short lecture examining how to become an expert on the Internet! Please remember to take notes; you will be graded on them, and... Johnny! Stop chewing on your pencil; that's just sick. You'll never get a girlfriend that way. Now class, if you would turn to page 103, we'll begin.There are three simple steps to becoming an expert on the Internet:Step 1: Become an expert in a subject.Step 2: Talk about that subject on the Internet.Step 3: I lied, there is no step 3.User - User's answer to What is the best way to use Quora to establish yourself as an expert?A friend can take your fearsAnd lay them to restA friend can help you to see your strengthsAnd notice things you'd rather not seeFriends are so importantTo keep us in lineAnd to always hold our handsWhen we need themAnd tell us hard truthsWhen we need to hear themJulie Prentice - http://www.quora.com/Catherine-Goodman-1/Poetry/FriendWhy would any large company want to influence Politicians? It is because politics sets the framework in which these companies operate and they want to be able to manage their operating environment. It makes sense then for companies to get close to politicians to try to set the agenda - ideally in favour of themselves but at the very least in a neutral fashion.Raymond Burch - Raymond Burch's answer to What are the motivations of big tech companies like Google to fund elections in USA?Sunrises and sunsets. Always different, they range from wonderful to magical and mind-boggling. The colors, the clouds, the serenity, the wonder, the sense of oneness wit the big “U.”Charles Faraone - Charles Faraone's answer to Which of the simple pleasures in life do you most enjoy?Contemporarily, I'd say that it has taken the Internet to finally assert the pen's primacy, due to its ability to spread ideas and information faster than they can be stifled, and to store it so redundantly as to make expunging it all but impossible.Eric Griffiths - Eric Griffiths's answer to Is the pen mightier than the sword?Barring some peculiar medical condition, if my adult son or daughter were unrepentant in their unprovoked desire and intent to harm others, especially children, I would end my relationship with them. I would not want to indirectly support their mission. I think I would already be grieving losing them and thinking about how to protect the community from them.David Urquhart - David Urquhart's answer to At what point would you give up on/disown your children?There are periods of intense pride mixed with a sense of entitled arrogance, followed by periods of massive disillusionment, followed yet again with a calming pride in your achievements and the meaning that they had. At times we feel like the saviors of all humanity, at others we question if anything we have done or are doing is right and then there are periods of intense resentment toward the civilian population for not taking part in what we are experiencing.Jon Davis - Jon Davis's answer to What is it like to be a U.S. Marine?It is the state of Heat Death, a proposed ultimate fate of the universe.As the stars, galaxies and black holes decay, entropy will keep on increasing. ( A Supermassive black hole decays emitting hawking radiation roughly in the order of 10^100 years. So 'at least' we should keep increasing entropy till then ). As the universe goes on expanding, its temperature ( as measured in the cosmic microwave background ) goes on decreasing. Around 3/4 of the universe's energy density is vacuum energy (Cosmological constant). This creates a cosmological event horizon and emits a black body spectrum of radiation whose temperature is determined by the cosmological constant. Now if cosmological constant is actually a constant, it would put a lower limit to the minimum temperature possible in the universe. This temperature is around the order of 10^(-30) Kelvin. This puts an upper limit to the maximum entropy possible too.Kaushik Parashar - Kaushik Parashar's answer to What is the state of maximum entropy of the Universe?The word "inherently" in the question is key. To what is the definition of morality supposed to inhere? If the moral code is handed to humans by a deity, then it's certainly not inherent to humans. If you further assume that this is the same deity that created the universe, you could say that it's inherent to the universe, but only by definition, and I find that uninformative.If it's supposed to inhere to "goodness" itself, in the abstract, than it's again trivial, but useless, since we're just reduced to defining "goodness". The entire question is ultimately a semantic game: "Is there some dictionary in which my word trumps actualobjects in the universe?" Usually with an implication some some particular person has, by pure assertion, a dictionary with a superior claim.Joshua Engel - Joshua Engel's answer to Does denying the supernatural (including atheism) necessarily lead to moral nihilism?Idris Elba is an absolutely fantastic actor. Most people have seen and deeply appreciated his work as 'Stringer' Bell in The Wire; this one television series leaves no doubt in anyone's mind that Elba can take up and make any role he chooses, his own. Now the icing on the cake--people should check out his role as Detective Chief Inspector John Luther in Luther. And for those still not convinced, there is his small-yet-noticeably-impressive-performance in The Office. It should be enough to convince the most sincere skeptics that Elba can do justice to Mr. Mandela's character.User-12016406912133266280 - User-12016406912133266280's answer to Casting: Is Idris Elba a good choice to play Nelson Mandela?Writing a really good question is harder. I recommend taking the time to read the questions that have already been written on the main topic. You may find that there's already one that answers your question, or one that asks your question but isn't worded well. If you're confident in your ability to write good questions, you might consider editing the poorly written one. (This will mean that you will not get credits for followers to this question. However, Reviewers are tasked to Redirect Questions that are substantially similar, so you might find yours merged into an older question, anyway.)Kat Tanaka Okopnik - Kat Tanaka Okopnik's answer to How can I ask great questions on Quora?If we are trying to create a video of a persons memory while they are recalling that memory we may be able to do that in the close future using similar techniques that were used for the visual input assuming we learn more about the mechanisms of memory recall.If we are trying to create a representation of a memory that is not being recalled there are a lot of problems. First their will be no brain activity to focus in on that is actively working on the memory. Second, it is now thought, at least in part, that memories are stored physically in the structure of neurons and we currently have no way of looking at the structure of neurons while keeping the brain intact.Colin Gerber - Colin Gerber's answer to Neurology: How far away are we from scanning memories and presenting them on some sort of screen?The USA is one of the most diverse nations on earth. Most -- wait, make that almost all -- of the industrialized world is far more homogenized than the USA. Japan, Korea, the UK, Germany, France and a host of others are "original" nations having existed with in-place cultures for eons. Because of the racial diversity, there is equal diversity of opinions, cultures, languages, religions and social ideals and with no pressing legal requirement to "integrate", many cultures come to the USA and form communities within communities that create much of the culture clashes that are legendarily USAmerican.Dan Holliday - Dan Holliday's answer to Why is America so extreme?Do not underestimate how deeply factions of the GOP voting base absolutely despise Barack Obama. Until we see greater than 271 electoral votes tallied, take nothing for granted.Ian McCullough - Ian McCullough's answer to What's it like inside the Romney campaign right now?I have left out numerous brilliant Quoras because of time limitations and limited this to one quote per person. Needless to say, y'all are really smart and awesome.

EDIT: My below answer originally appeared to a question with far more relevance, and was moved to this answer just recently. Thank you to those who posted in the comments bringing this to my attention, as I do agree, my original answer does not really address the current question.That said, I'd like to share my story (that DOES reflect the current question) and if you'd like to see [one of] the results, you can scroll below further to read my otherwise no-longer-applicable answer.Question Response: What should you do immediately when you realize your life has hit the supremely best moment to make a change?In my case, my supremely best moment to make a change was rock bottom. [I apologize for others who have already heard this story, but I'd like to repeat it here.]I was living on my friend's couch. I hadn't spoken to my family for about 3 months. The last time I saw them was right before they left for church, and while they were gone I loaded up my friend's Acura with all my music equipment and a hockey bag full of clothes, and we drove 6 and a 1/2 hours to the University of Missouri. I spent the entirety of my summer smoking weed and popping Adderall, waking up at 5 am to mulch the school grounds part-time, and spending the rest of the day making hip-hop and rap instrumentals in a run down fraternity house hoping to "make it" as a music producer. We made a lot of great music that summer. I also lost myself entirely and reached a very low point of depression.When school started back up, I obviously couldn't attend. I could barely scrounge together bus fare to make it on campus each morning and perform my part-time duties. One of my friend's said he got hold of some DMT, and asked if I wanted to smoke it. I was hesitant about delving into other drugs, but alas I gave in. We went and sat atop a cliff off campus, and I packed a bowl of weed with the DMT powder sprinkled on top. For 15 minutes, I vanished from this reality and saw this world as a spiral of oneness, connected energy, and paths. In front of me, I was shown two:Both paths would lead me to my final destination. Except one would be filled with inner turmoil and distress, frustration, anger, resentment, and a broken relationship with my family that would never be repaired. The other, a path of equal hardship, but with lessons of forgiveness, love, compassion, understanding, and most of all, self-awareness.When I finished my trip, I slept for the rest of the day (my bed being my friend's couch). And when I woke up the next, I knew in my heart which path I wanted to walk.I called my mom and dad and returned home less than a week later.To answer your question: I am not saying you need to go smoke DMT. It's an experience that, in all honesty, I originally chose out of desperation to escape further from my reality, and only by chance gave me the glimpse that it did. What is important here is the moment at which I realized I either needed to DRASTICALLY shift my life path, or I would wind up walking towards an end I did not actually desire.As soon as you see the opportunity present itself, you have to take it. You have to take it because now you know—you are aware—that you have a choice. And once you have that awareness, it won't stop nagging you. Every day you will be reminded that you have a choice of where you end up, and which path you decide to choose.I wish there was a better answer I could give you, but the truth is, you just have to DO IT. If you have to leap, you leap. In my case, I knew that as soon as I made the leap and went home, I would be faced with a long and arduous path of repairing the relationships I've damaged. For the first 3 months I was home, I lived in the basement, didn't speak to anyone in my family, was kept there sort of like a caged animal without freedom. I was sent to two different therapists, twice a week. I was taken to a doctor for medical testing to decide whether or not I had something chemically wrong with me. Around the 6 month mark, I was sent to Florida on a rehabilitation trip (by now I'd been long sober) to canoe 320 miles down into the Gulf of Mexico. When I returned, I was "allowed" to return to school—financed by my trusting parents. The first day I was back on campus, I got high. The second day, I got high. The third day, I realized I was headed down the same path, and at the end of the semester transferred schools to an art school in Chicago to start over. I've been sober since.Just remember: the leap is only the beginning.----------------------------Other Quora Answer That Got Redirected Here:I knew the moment my life had changed when one of my teachers in college, upon new semester introductions, made a joke to the rest of the class, "Let's make sure not to make Cole mad—otherwise he'll go Hulk mode on us!"The whole class laughed and looked at me. I had spent the better part of my adolescence growing up invisible to my peers, scrawny and shy. I now sat on the opposite end of the spectrum—everybody saw me, and in a strange way I felt equally as outcasted.Left: 15 years old, 90lbs / Right: 24 years old, 170lbsFollow this up with comments from other lifters at the gym—"Big Cole!"And comments from old peers from high school whom I'd barely ever talked to—"Hey man, long time no see! I was wondering if you could help me with my workout plan..."And comments from family friends and worried parents—"You're not using steroids though, are you?"And comments from type A girls at parties, finding every way possible to grab my bicep or chest mid conversation—"Oh my gosh, you're so big."And comments from type B girls at parties, the artsy girls—"I'm just not into the juiced-up look, sorry."And comments from classmates—"So you go to the gym every day?"And comments from insecure guys at bars—"I bet he's just another dumbass meathead."The girls that worked at the gym spa, giving me free discounts for no reason.The female baristas that put my coffee on the house.But the real moment it sunk in that my life had changed was when, one day at the gym, a kid that looked just like me a few years ago, scrawny and shy, walked up to me, introduced himself, and said, "Do you think you could give me some pointers on how to get bigger? I want to be like you."