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Chris Lavergne

4,407 Quotes
President of Thought.is
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4,407 quotes curated by Chris Lavergne:

“We know that a text does not consist of a line of words, releasing a single 'theological' meaning (the 'message' of the Author-God), but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original: the text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture.”
— Roland Barthes, constantvzw.org
Tagged: Author-God, Copyright, Originality, Ownership, Remix, Singular Meaning, Theology, Word of God
“Once the Author is gone, the claim to 'decipher' a text becomes quite useless. To give an Author to a text is to impose upon that text a stop clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the writing.”
— Roland Barthes, constantvzw.org
Tagged: Authority, Authorship, Death of The Author, Infinity, Joyful Complexity, Ownership, Control
“I have a mirror opposite my shower door. When I step out of the shower, there I am in full view of my mirror. Most of the time I am not too keen on what I see. I start thinking I should exercise more, eat better, get in better shape. I could say that my mirror tells me this, but of course it does not— it just reflects the image of my body. I am the one who is nauseated by what I see. But my nausea is based on my standard of values. My body is unacceptable if based on the Madison Avenue media and fashion values of creaseless, waif-thin, but preferably big-breasted female bodies. If I adopt a new value standard, one that values wrinkles, pregnancy stretch marks, and cellulite, I'm beautiful! But the mirror tells me neither that I am ugly nor that I am beautiful. I place those values on myself according to what standard for beauty I have chosen, either by adoption or by creation, for myself.”
— Linda L. Williams, Nietzsche's Mirror: The World as Will to Power
Tagged: Mirror, Mirror Writing, Projection, Values
“There is also something unsettling about Nietzsche proposing anything like a 'supreme moral principle' after his criticisms against Kant's ethical theory. Nietzsche's critiques of morality suggest that offering a new first principle for morality is not his project. His problems with Kant's Categorical Imperative or utilitarianism's principle of utility run deeper than their content. He does not criticize them because they say the wrong thing and he says the right thing. The problem with them is that they propose to be universal moral principles, applying to any and all human beings. Universal moral principles imply moral equality among humans, an equality Nietzsche denies. The 'un-Nietzschean' character of the normative interpretation is the most persuasive aspect against it.”
— Linda L. Williams, Nietzsche's Mirror: The World as Will to Power
Tagged: Groundless Ground, Kant, Nietzsche, Supreme Principles, Unreason
“As the experiment was designed, the groups consisted of 'liberal' and 'conservative' members — the former from Boulder, the latter from Colorado Springs. It is widely known that Boulder tends to be liberal and that Colorado Springs tends to be conservative. The groups were screened to ensure that their members conformed to these stereotypes. In the parlance of election years, there were five 'blue state' groups and five 'red state' groups— five groups whose members initially tended toward liberal positions on the three issues, and five whose members tended toward conservative positions on those issues. People were asked to state their opinions anonymously both before and after fifteen minutes of group discussion, and also to try to reach a public verdict before the final anonymous statement. What was the effect of discussion? In almost every group, members ended up with more extreme positions after they spoke with one another. Discussion made civil unions more popular among liberals; discussion made civil unions less popular among conservatives. Liberals favored an international treaty to control global warming before discussion; they favored it more strongly after discussion. Conservatives were neutral on that treaty before discussion; they strongly opposed it after discussion. Mildly favorable toward affirmative action before discussion, liberals became strongly favorable toward affirmative action after discussion. Firmly negative about affirmative action before discussion, conservatives became even more negative about affirmative action after discussion. Aside from increasing extremism, the experiment also had an independent effect: it made both liberal groups and conservative groups significantly more homogeneous— and thus squelched diversity. Before members started to talk, many groups displayed a fair bit of internal disagreement. The disagreements were reduced as a result of a mere fifteen-minute discussion. Even in their anonymous statements, group members showed far more consensus after discussion than before. It follows that discussion helped to widen the rift between liberals and conservatives on all three issues. Before discussion, some liberal groups were, on some issues, fairly close to some conservative groups. The result of discussion was to divide them far more sharply.”
— Cass R. Sunstein, Republic.com 2.0
Tagged: Diversity, Extremism, Group Polarization, Politics, Viewpoints
“Consciousness is the last and latest development of the organic and hence also what is most unfinished and unstrong.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs
Tagged: Consciousness, Evolution, Next Steps, Push, Unfinished Mind
“The perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors.”
— Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
Tagged: Business Evolution, Iteration, Start Small, Startup, Target Markets
“Tolstoy was right — the emotions and ideas in fiction are highly contagious, and people tend to overestimate their immunity to them.”
— Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human
Tagged: fiction, Media Virus
“As a good rule of thumb, proprietary technology must be at least 10 times better than its closest substitute in some important dimension to lead to a real monopolistic advantage. Anything less than an order of magnitude better will probably be perceived as a marginal improvement and will be hard to sell, especially in an already crowded market.”
— Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
Tagged: Innovation, Investment, Technology
“If you focus on near-term growth above all else, you miss the most important question you should be asking: will this business still be around a decade from now? Numbers alone won't tell you the answer; instead you must think critically about the qualitative characteristics of your business.”
— Peter Thiel, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
Tagged: Growing A Business, Growing Up, Long-Term Thinking, Number