Alistair Cooke Quotes
If computers take over, it will serve us right.
Cooke, Alistair. Letter from America: 1946-2004. Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
He was famous for his comical impressions of Richard M. Nixon.
The reporters were not intimidated. They published not only the story about the joke but the threats of the Chief of Staff who later apologized publicly to minimize the political damage. The quotation is important for two reasons. First it illustrates something that occurs in all countries—political officials intimidating journalists to suppress a story they do not want public. Second, the vibrancy of the Israel freedom of the press, where even the highest ranking general in the nation could not intimidate ordinary journalists. In most counties, the journalists would have been imprisoned, and possible tortured and killed if they crossed such a powerful man. In many democracies, the journalists would have been fired.
One fascinating thing about this quotation is the date. It would be the next 150 years where the great scientific leaps would take place. There was no inkling of computers or nuclear weapons.
He was one of the national leaders who adopted the policy of extermination of the Armenians.
Mehmet Talaat Pasha was one of the national leaders who adopted the policy of extermination of the Armenians. The Christian Armenians, a minority in Turkey and its lands, were discriminated against like other non-Muslim minorities in the Ottoman Empire. But during the Turkish War with Russia, some Armenians defected and served on the Russian side. Many Turkish citizens took revenge on Armenians by means of murder and torture. Soon, the extermination of the Armenians became the official “Young Turk” government policy.
Musk was one of the very few technilogical leaders who had great fear about the potential danger of artifical intelligence and thought that it should be regulated.
There are two main interpretations of Hawking's statement: One that artifical beings will eventuall gain dominance and have no need for humans. The other is that humans will more and more incorporate computer technoliogy and powerful sensors into their bodies or eventually move human brains into artificial entities and the human race will evolve to the degree that our species as it exists now will no longer exists. Humans may well evolve themselves. It is not clear which of these views he leaned towards.
Alistair Cooke KBE was a British-born American writer whose work as a journalist, television personality and radio broadcaster was done primarily in the United States. Outside his journalistic output, which included Letter from America and America: A Personal History of the United States, he was well known in the United States as the host of PBS Masterpiece Theatre from 1971 to 1992. After holding the job for 22 years, and having worked in television for 42 years, Cooke retired in 1992, although he continued to present Letter from America until shortly before his death. He was the father of author and folk singer John Byrne Cooke.
