#aggression

Our numbers have increased in Vietnam because the aggression of others has increased in Vietnam. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation. ↗

— Lyndon B. Johnson

#because #escalation #increased #mindless #numbers

Our purpose in Vietnam is to prevent the success of aggression. It is not conquest, it is not empire, it is not foreign bases, it is not domination. It is, simply put, just to prevent the forceful conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam. ↗

— Lyndon B. Johnson

#bases #conquest #domination #empire #forceful

There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked. ↗

— Charles de Secondat

#ally #attacked #been #cases #enemy

Without aggression, it becomes possible to think well, to be curious about differences, and to enjoy each other's company. ↗

— Margaret J. Wheatley

#aggression #becomes #company #curious #differences

Why give a robot an order to obey orders—why aren't the original orders enough? Why command a robot not to do harm—wouldn't it be easier never to command it to do harm in the first place? Does the universe contain a mysterious force pulling entities toward malevolence, so that a positronic brain must be programmed to withstand it? Do intelligent beings inevitably develop an attitude problem? (…) Now that computers really have become smarter and more powerful, the anxiety has waned. Today's ubiquitous, networked computers have an unprecedented ability to do mischief should they ever go to the bad. But the only mayhem comes from unpredictable chaos or from human malice in the form of viruses. We no longer worry about electronic serial killers or subversive silicon cabals because we are beginning to appreciate that malevolence—like vision, motor coordination, and common sense—does not come free with computation but has to be programmed in. (…) Aggression, like every other part of human behavior we take for granted, is a challenging engineering problem! ↗

— Steven Pinker

#artificial-intelligence #ethics #malevolence #robots #attitude

Gosh, it's easy!' he marveled, open-mouthed. 'I never knew before how easy it is to kill anyone! Twenty years to grow 'em, and all it takes is one little push!' He was suddenly drunk with some new kind of power, undiscovered until this minute. The power of life and death over his fellowmen! Everyone had it, everyone strong enough to raise a violent arm, but they were afraid to use it. Well, he wasn't! And here he'd been going around for weeks living from hand to mouth, without any money, without enough food, when everything he wanted lay within his reach all the while! He had been green all right, and no mistake about it! Death had become familiar. At seven it had been the most mysterious thing in the world to him, by midnight it was already an old story. ("Dusk To Dawn") ↗

— Cornell Woolrich

#crime #death #murder #violence #death

Our capacity to retaliate must be, and is, massive in order to deter all forms of aggression. ↗

— John Foster Dulles

#capacity #deter #forms #massive #must

Since its first day as a nation, Israel has lived under a cloud of aggression from militant extremists and hostile neighboring governments. ↗

— John Boehner

#cloud #day #extremists #first #governments

The tendency to aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man... it constitutes the powerful obstacle to culture. ↗

— Sigmund Freud

#constitutes #culture #disposition #independent #innate

Time and again we see leaders and members of religions incite aggression, fanaticism, hate, and xenophobia - even inspire and legitimate violent and bloody conflicts. ↗

— Hans Kung

#aggression #bloody #conflicts #even #fanaticism