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When we use a tool in everyday life, it usually remains a detached instrument under my control and activated only when, where, and how I decide. ... In contrast, conceptual innovations often “stick,” escape our control and become part of reality itself. Once Hobbes invents the idea of the “state” this idea can come into contact with real social forces with unforeseeable results. The “tool” develops a life of its own, and can become an inextricable part of the fabric of life itself.
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p. 49

 

Raymond Geuss

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I was mad at God, I didn’t LIKE God because of how I perceived Him, and the stuff I read on Satanism said two things that appealed to me. #1 — it offered freedom, and #2 — it promised power to control my life, and others. I’d been carted all around the state and Colorado all my life, slapped, smacked, hit, and had whatever I wanted ignored. I was mad and the idea of controlling my life to get what I wanted was like candy to me. Plus I looked at the way everyone around me lived and the stuff I read in the Satanic Bible in principle was lived out in lifestyle by Mom and Dad and everyone else I knew. No one was a real Christian. We didn’t go to church. We didn’t talk about God. ... What was the point of pretending to serve God when we lived like Satanists? Satanism taught me that I should make my own rules to live by in life, and that’s just what everyone I’d grown up around did, so I got very involved in Satanism. I truly thought it was an honest way to live, and the rituals of it would enable me to control my life. Even then I didn’t want to kill anyone. That desire didn’t start until later.

 

Sean Sellers

 

In my life, I have not met, in my surroundings, an honor abiding person who is used as a tool against someone else. This, first of all. Our administration does not believe that our candidate could be a tool and used for someone else's mission, secondly. Third, try to imagine, on the side of international powers, whatever desire may arise, to use a person as a tool and ask for his support and for that person to be ready to be used. But it is apparent that any tool that is used for ten years will eventually rust, will luckily break, and already used tools are no longer in demand.

 

Robert Kocharyan

 

John Lennon wrote a line that I’m sure has been used in many commencement addresses. “Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans.” ... There is really no way of knowing where your life’s journey will take you. I never would have predicted the fabric of my life would have evolved into the rich, complex design I enjoy and am challenged by daily. My work, the achievements for which I am receiving such a great honor here today, my purpose in life, have been born out of a set of unplanned circumstances, in large part, but not completely, circumstances beyond my control. I never anticipated being a caregiver for my spouse at the age of 34. I don’t think I ever dreamt I would help run a foundation that raises money for biomedical research and people with disabilities.

 

Dana Reeve

 

The mechanical mind has a passion for control — of everything except itself. Beyond the control it has won over the forces of nature it would now win control over the forces of society of stating the problem and producing the solution, with social machinery to correspond.

 

L. P. Jacks

 

Without real experience in using the computer to get useful results the computer science major is apt to know all about the marvelous tool except how to use it. Such a person is a mere technician, skilled in manipulating the tool but with little sense of how and when to use it for its basic purposes.

 

Richard Hamming