Bertrand Russell

An excerpt from the beginning of "The Conquest of Happiness" by Bertrand Russell. This piece is on the pursuit of sin, and reconciling your values with your actions. My pleasures are not my vices, but the outward world doesn't quite agree.

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Bertrand Russell on the Pursuit of Sin

Context: Early 1900s

Source: P.45 The Conquest of Happiness

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Bertrand Russell on the Intellectual Pleasures

Source: P.56 The Conquest of Happiness

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Bertrand Russell On Boredom

"I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral:

The intellectual thing I should want to say to them is this: When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed, but look only and solely at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say.

The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple. I should say: Love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way, and if we are to live together and not die together we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet."

Tina Papilio - Hatred Is Foolish (Bertrand Russell).MP3

Bertrand Russell - Religion, fanaticism and tolerance (1958)

Bertrand Russell - Danger of War in Nuclear Age (1959)

Via BBC Archives 

The inaugural Reith Lecturer is the philosopher, mathematician, and social reformer Bertrand Russell. One of the founders of analytic philosophy and a Nobel Laureate, he is the author of Principia Mathematica, and the bestselling History of Western Philosophy, written in 1946. His Reith lecture series is entitled 'Authority and the Individual'.

In his third lecture, entitled 'The Role of Individuality', he considers the importance of individual initiative to a community, and argues for flexibility, local autonomy, and less centralisation in society. Modern organisations, he says, must be more flexible and less oppressive to the human spirit if life is to be saved from boredom.

BBC Archives Bertrand Russell The Role of the Individual 1948

This week, we celebrate legendary film director Werner Herzog’s birthday with a thrilling conversation from the archives. In 2012, Herzog came to the Library to discuss his most recent film, “Into the Abyss,” as well as his four-part television series, “Death Row.” In this conversation with NYPL’s Paul Holdengraber, Herzog talks about crime, human nature, and why he stands so firmly against capital punishment.


Werner Herzog on Death, Executioners, and Advice for Filmmakers

Monica Smith - Infrastructure As Dialogue [9.20.16]

Debut album from Northern Norwegian extreme metal band Endolith.

7. Bertrand Russell  on Truth

DANIEL GOLEMAN is the New York Times bestselling author of Emotional Intelligence. A psychologist and science journalist, he reported on brain and behavioral research for The New York Times for many years. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including three accounts of meetings he has moderated between the Dalai Lama and scientists, psychotherapists, and social activists. The Conversation: https://www.edge.org/conversation/daniel_goleman-compassionate-systems

Daniel Goleman - Compassionate Systems [6.22.17]

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” In this episode of Made You Think, we read through “In Praise of Idleness” by Bertrand Russell and discussed some of its main ideas. This episode was fun since we were able to read the whole essay throughout the show, stopping and starting as topics caught our interest. Whether you’ve read Russell before, or this is your first introduction to him, this essay is full of ideas that will make you think about whether you need to spend more time goofing off and relaxing. We covered a wide range of topics, including:  Reducing the guilty feeling of wanting to work all day Balancing work, leisure, and spending Cultivating creativity by increasing leisure time Spending your leisure time more wisely Increasing your productivity Reading books to for pleasure, instead of just knowledge Issues with overworking in today’s society  And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of  In Praise of Idleness and to check out  Nat’s notes on the book! &nbsp;If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to listen to  our episode on The Sovereign Individual, to better prepare yourself for the cyber-economic future, and to listen to  our episode on Antifragile, to learn how to turn chaos to your advantage! Mentioned in the show:  YMCA [0:54] Principia Mathematica [1:55]  Antifragile Made You Think episode [10:30]  Mastery Made You Think episode [10:30]  The Sovereign Individual Made You Think episode [11:22] Parkinson’s Law [27:19] Taylor Pearson’s time management article [27:44] Patagonia [31:08]  It’s Okay to “Forget” What You Read [1:00:34] Y Combinator [1:03:12]  Y Combinator universal income experiment [1:03:12] Stoicism [1:14:08]  France’s lower hour work week [1:19:35] Neil’s Newsletter [1:23:20] (Nat’s Newsletter)  Books mentioned:   In Praise of Idleness [0:00] (Nat’s Notes)  Antifragile [10:30] (Nat’s Notes)  Mastery [10:30] (Nat’s Notes)  The Sovereign Individual [11:22] (Nat’s Notes)  Sapiens [18:01] (Nat’s Notes)  Let My People Go Surfing [31:08]  The 4-Hour Workweek [38:04] (Nat’s Notes)  Revolt of the Masses [46:55]  How to Win at the Sport of Business [58:19]  The Black Swan [1:01:38] (Nat’s Notes)  You’re A Badass [1:13:54]  The Secret [1:13:55]  People mentioned:  Mussolini [0:36] Bertrand Russell [1:15] Mark Cuban [58:16] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [1:01:38] Wolf Blitzer [1:05:51] Charles Darwin [1:08:58]  0:00 - Intro to the discussion on In Praise of Idleness. Some background on the author Bertrand Russell and on the book itself. 4:56 - Continuation of the essay. Some perspective on spending and saving money, working, and the work system of society. Some of the issues that Bertrand sees in the world. 7:52 - Thoughts on spending money on leisure compared to spending money on business or work. 13:00 - The next passage of the book, discussing the prospect of working less, adding more idleness to your life, and balancing both of those in today’s society. 16:28 - The history of work systems throughout time and in various geographic locations. How these systems of long work hours have impacted us today and how aspects of wealth have changed. 20:40 - Thoughts on how high work hours have negatively impacted our creativity and some extreme issues in the modern workforce. 27:09 - An important technique that you can use to improve your daily productivity and to prioritize your work. 29:48 - Issues with modern companies regarding high work hours and employee productivity. Also, the mentality of people wanting and promoting hard work and long hours, and the stigmas regarding these. 37:28 - Idleness possibly leading to chaos and the importance of having meaningful leisurely time. Some thoughts on the transition from high works hours to lower work hours. 41:01 - Russell’s thoughts on keeping the idle occupied by producing munitions and objects of war. Companies...

6: Stop Working so Much: In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell

"A World Built on Rationality". 
In his Power: A New Social Analysis from 1938 the empirically acute philosopher and activist Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), reacting to the way the world was developing in the 1930s, provided a book that offered hope for peace through independence of mind. His monumental The History of Western Philosophy (1945) established him as a renowned scholar and brought him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950. His activism included protests against nuclear weapons, war in general and the Vietnam War in particular.

This spring Professor Peter Wallensteen and Lecturer Daniel Ogden will continue their popular Philosophy Tea talks. Each Philosophy Tea is a discussion about a particular philosopher or practitioner in the field of peace and justice and lasts for an hour. The discussion can span the whole career of the philosopher or focus on a particularly significant work. The final twenty minutes is reserved for an open discussion with the audience. The events are run in English. 

Daniel Ogden is a researcher and teacher of utopian ideas, for many years at Uppsala University and now at Mälardalen University. Peter Wallensteen was the first holder of the Dag Hammarskjöld Chair in Peace and Conflict Research (1985-2012) and is now Senior Professor at Uppsala University.

Philosophy Teas are produced in cooperation with Uppsala University and the discussions are disseminated as podcasts by the theatre and the University.

Philosophy Tea - Bertrand Russell 20180227

Bertrand Russell On Ludwig Wittgenstein

Most think that social progress should be driven by ideas and persuasion not force. Yet from the French and Russian Revolutions to the Suffragettes, violent action has been instrumental to generating change. Is violence ever justified as a political strategy? In this episode of Philosophy for our Times,  Enlightenment Now author Steven Pinker, filmmaker and author of The Clash of Fundamentalisms Tariq Ali and Kurdish Women's Movement activist Elif Sarican grapple with the forces of history.

In association with the New College of the Humanities: bit.ly/2FdPgLD

Fires of Progress | Steven Pinker, Tariq Ali, Elif Sarican

John Brockman's newly released book "Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI" : https://smile.amazon.com/Possible-Minds-Twenty-Five-Ways-Looking-ebook/dp/B07D6C1X3X/ref=sr_1_1 is the springboard for this Seminar on Artificial Intelligence. Brockman will interview several of the contributors to the book, Rodney Brooks: https://www.edge.org/memberbio/rodney_a_brooks, Alison Gopnik: https://www.edge.org/memberbio/alison_gopnik and Stuart Russell: https://www.edge.org/memberbio/stuart_russell on stage. Following the interviews, Kevin Kelly: https://www.edge.org/memberbio/kevin_kelly will host the Q&A and discussion with the group.

John Brockman is founder and publisher of the online salon Edge.org: https://www.edge.org/, a website devoted to discussions of cutting-edge science by many of the world's foremost thinkers, the leaders of what he has termed "the third culture."

Rodney Brooks is a computer scientist and roboticist, former Director (1997-2007) of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and founder of Rethink Robotics: https://www.rethinkrobotics.com/ and iRobot Corp: https://www.irobot.com/.

Alison Gopnik is a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. Her areas of expertise are in cognitive and language development, with specialties in the effect of language on thought, the development of a theory of mind, and causal learning.
Stuart Russell is a computer scientist focused on artificial intelligence and computational physiology. He is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley and Adjunct Professor of Neurological Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco.Kevin Kelly is a Long Now Board member, founding executive editor of Wired magazine, and a former editor/publisher of the Whole Earth Review. He is a writer, photographer, conservationist, and editor and publisher of the Cool Tools: https://kk.org/cooltools/ website.

"Possible Minds" was given on February 25, 02019 as part of Long Now's Seminar series. The series was started in 02003 to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking from some of the world's leading thinkers. The Seminars take place in San Francisco and are curated and hosted by Stewart Brand. To follow the talks, you can:

Subscribe to our podcasts: http://longnow.org/seminars/podcast
Explore the full series: http://longnow.org/seminars
More ideas on long-term thinking: http://blog.longnow.org

The Long Now Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to fostering long-term thinking and responsibility. Our projects include a 10,000 Year Clock, endangered language preservation, thousand year+ data storage, and Long Bets, an arena for accountable predictions. 

Become a Long Now member to support this series, join our community, and connect with our ongoing work to explore and deepen long-term thinking: http://longnow.org/membership

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Seminars About Long-term Thinking

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John Brockman - Possible Minds

Made on Acid 6.0 with loops from: DJ Untold, Riley & Durrant, Pure Minimal Tech Beats Vol.1, Freaky Loops- Moombahcore, Global House Top Lines, BBC Interview 1959- Russell Bertrand http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7I9pgqiLo0

254 Bertrand Russell

El filósofo, matemático y escritor Bertrand Russell fue uno de los más destacados pensadores del siglo XX. Es reconocido por sus aportes a la filosofía analítica y por ser el ganador del Premio Nobel de Literatura en 1950. Sin embargo, este pensador también realizó considerables contribuciones a la educación. Es este podcast le mostraremos sus ideas más relevantes y vigentes en este ámbito.

Podcast: Bertrand Russell: 5 ideas vigentes sobre educación.

Over the past several centuries, the human condition has been profoundly changed by the agricultural and industrial revolutions. With the creation and continued development of AI, we stand in the midst of an ongoing intelligence revolution that may prove far more transformative than the previous two. How did we get here, and what were the intellectual foundations necessary for the creation of AI? What benefits might we realize from aligned AI systems, and what are the risks and potential pitfalls along the way? In the longer term, will superintelligent AI systems pose an existential risk to humanity? Steven Pinker, best selling author and Professor of Psychology at Harvard, and Stuart Russell, UC Berkeley Professor of Computer Science, join us on this episode of the AI Alignment Podcast to discuss these questions and more.

 Topics discussed in this episode include:

-The historical and intellectual foundations of AI 
-How AI systems achieve or do not achieve intelligence in the same way as the human mind
-The rise of AI and what it signifies 
-The benefits and risks of AI in both the short and long term 
-Whether superintelligent AI will pose an existential risk to humanity

You can find the page for this podcast here: https://futureoflife.org/2020/06/15/steven-pinker-and-stuart-russell-on-the-foundations-benefits-and-possible-existential-risk-of-ai/

You can take a survey about the podcast here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/W8YLYD3

You can submit a nominee for the Future of Life Award here: https://futureoflife.org/future-of-life-award-unsung-hero-search/

Timestamps: 

0:00 Intro 
4:30 The historical and intellectual foundations of AI 
11:11 Moving beyond dualism 
13:16 Regarding the objectives of an agent as fixed 
17:20 The distinction between artificial intelligence and deep learning 
22:00 How AI systems achieve or do not achieve intelligence in the same way as the human mind
49:46 What changes to human society does the rise of AI signal? 
54:57 What are the benefits and risks of AI? 
01:09:38 Do superintelligent AI systems pose an existential threat to humanity? 
01:51:30 Where to find and follow Steve and Stuart

This podcast is possible because of the support of listeners like you. If you found this conversation to be meaningful or valuable, consider supporting it directly by donating at futureoflife.org/donate. Contributions like yours make these conversations possible.

Steven Pinker and Stuart Russell on the Foundations, Benefits, and Possible Existential Threat of AI

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker on Audible: 
http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B0036N2C5O&source_code=SCLGB9008WS040313

Get this audiobook Free when you try Audible: 
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Summary:
In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits - a doctrine held by many intellectuals during the past century - denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.

Injecting calm and rationality into debates that are notorious for ax-grinding and mud-slinging, Pinker shows the importance of an honest acknowledgment of human nature based on science and common sense.

What the Critics Say:

"[P]ersuasive and illuminating." (Publishers Weekly)


Bertrand Russell

Rajkumar KA