Deterrence Quotes

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Is it advisable to spread out all the conveniences of culture before people to whom a few steps up a stair to a library is a sufficient deterrent from reading?
Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)
No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.
Hannah Arendt
Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent--all depending on who wields it and how.
Steven D. Levitt (Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything)
I've often thought that beauty can be a deterrent to love,” Fern's father mused. “Why?” “Because sometimes we fall in love with a face and not what's behind it.
Amy Harmon (Making Faces)
Only insofar as you enjoy being sorry, my dear, which, while it is a considerable amount, occurs only after the fact, thus making it a singularly ineffective deterrent, yes?
Jacqueline Carey (Kushiel's Dart (Phèdre's Trilogy, #1))
Have you noticed," said John, "how countries call theirs 'sovereign nuclear deterrents,' but call the other countries' ones 'weapons of mass destruction'?
David Mitchell (Ghostwritten)
You may hate the truth, deny it, curse it, but the fact remains you are equally enchanted by it. Knowing the flames are hot isn’t always a deterrent from playing with fire.
Kerri Maniscalco (Escaping from Houdini (Stalking Jack the Ripper, #3))
Our whole raison d’être was deterrent force. When you don’t deter them any longer, you lose.
Pat Frank (Alas, Babylon)
We don't know if capital punishment is a deterrent, but we know that men we execute will not murder again.
Mario Puzo
War has changed. It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines. War--and it's consumption of life--has become a well-oiled machine. War has changed. ID-tagged soldiers carry ID-tagged weapons, use ID-tagged gear. Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities. Genetic control, information control, emotion control, battlefield control…everything is monitored and kept under control. War…has changed. The age of deterrence has become the age of control, all in the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction, and he who controls the battlefield, controls history. War…has changed. When the battlefield is under total control, war becomes routine.
David Hayter
Notice, we never pray for folks we gossip about, and we never gossip about the folk for whom we pray! For prayer is a great deterrent.
Leonard Ravenhill
I thought I told you to stop doing that," he snapped. A thin-lipped mouth opened; the jutting chin and nose knocked together indignantly. "Do what?" "Taking on such a hideous appearance. I've just had my breakfast." A section of brow lifted, allowing an eyeball to roll forward with a squelching sound.The face looked unapologetic."Sorry, mate," it said. "It's just my job." "Your job is to destroy anyone entering my study without authority. No more, no less." The door guard considered. "True. But I seek to preempt entry by scaring trespassers away. To my way of thinking, deterrence is more aesthetically satisfying than punishment." Mr. Mandrake snorted. "Trespassers apart, you'll likely frighten Ms. Piper here to death." The face shook from side to side, a process that caused the nose to wobble alarmingly. "Not so. When she comes alone, I moderate my features. I reserve the full horror for those I consider morally vicious." "But you just looked that way to me!" "The contradiction being...?
Jonathan Stroud (Ptolemy's Gate (Bartimaeus, #3))
It is in the very nature of things human that every act that has once made its appearance and has been recorded in the history of mankind stays with mankind as a potentiality long after its actuality has become a thing of the past. No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes.
Hannah Arendt (Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil)
Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent—all depending on who wields it and how. Information is so powerful that the assumption of information, even if the information does not actually exist, can have a sobering effect.
Steven D. Levitt (Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything)
Bad feelings should not always be interpreted as deterrents. They are also indicators that you are doing something frightening and worthwhile.
Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
So don’t. Take him with you. Or date long distance. I honestly don’t give a fuck, so long as you stop your whining. How can you not see solutions here? You’ve apparently decided that you being immortal isn’t a deterrent to your great love . . . but a two-hour plane ride is?
Richelle Mead (Succubus Revealed (Georgina Kincaid, #6))
...the insects here see you as a big slab of animated but not very well defended food. The ability to move, far from being a deterrent, serves as an unforgeable guarantee of freshness.
Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)
Democrats always assure us that deterrence will work, but when the time comes to deter, they're against it.
Ann Coulter
Fear is the best deterrent of all.
B.A. Paris
They were fed and clothed and taken care of until they were too old, and then they were kicked out. This ending was no deterrent. No one who is young is ever going to be old.
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
It is not the real punishment. The only effectual one, the only deterrent and softening one, lies in the recognition of sin by conscience.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)
What if the Theranos technology did turn out to be game-changing? It might spend the next decade regretting passing up on it. The fear of missing out was a powerful deterrent.
John Carreyrou (Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup)
Those deterrents—the brotherhood of socialists, the interlocking of finance, commerce, and other economic factors—which had been expected to make war impossible failed to function when the time came. Nationhood, like a wild gust of wind, arose and swept them aside. People
Barbara W. Tuchman (The Guns of August)
Did you know, the man who invented the atomic bomb once said that keeping peace through deterrence was like keeping two scorpions in one bottle? You can picture that, right? They know they can't sting without getting stung. They can't kill without getting killed. And you'd think that would stop them." He gave the book another boot, and it flipped closed with a snick. "But it doesn't." He looked up and his eyes were the color of Cherenkov radiation, the color of an orbital weapon. "You've got a bit of nerve, little scorpion. All I did was invent the bottle.
Erin Bow (The Scorpion Rules (Prisoners of Peace #1))
Failure is not the deterrent for the next try. Rather, it is information that empowers the next step.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
A recurring theme of this book is that money spent on deterrence is seldom wasted, especially when considered against the costs incurred when the deterrence fails.
David H. Petraeus (Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine)
the larger the percentage of the national income taken by taxes the greater the deterrent to private production and employment. When the total tax burden grows beyond a bearable size, the problem of devising taxes that will not discourage and disrupt production becomes insoluble.
Henry Hazlitt (Economics in One Lesson)
Jesus, how much stuff can one girl carry around in here?” he asked, waving a tampon. “Got your friend, huh? This is probably a good deterrent. Try waving it in the air if you run into trouble. Nobody will mess with your shit. Believe me.
Cassie Alexandra (Resisting The Biker (The Biker, #1))
They could take the money from building enough nukes to kill all the Russians in the world and give it to libraries. What good does an independent nuclear deterrent do Britain, compared to the good of libraries?
Jo Walton (Among Others)
Heh. I think you made your point, Atticus. Gods Below, Oberon, that was horrendous! You just violated the Schwarzenegger Pun Reduction Treaty of 2010. What? No, that didn't qualify! Yes, it did. Any pun related to a weapon's destructive capabilities or final disposition of a victim's body is a Schwarzenegger pun, by definition. That's negative twenty sausages according to the sanctions outlined in Section Four, Paragraph Two. My hound whined. No! Not twenty sausages! Twenty succulent sausages I'll never snarf? You can't do that - it's cruelty to animals! You can't argue with this. Your pawprint is on the treaty, and you agreed that Schwarzenegger puns are heinous abominations of language that deserve food-related punishments for purposes of correction and deterrence. Auggh! I still say it's your fault for renting Commando in the first place! You started it!
Kevin Hearne
What deters is not the capabilities and intentions we have, but the capabilities and intentions the enemy thinks we have. The central objective of a deterrent weapons system is, thus, psychological. The mission is persuasion.
Eric Schlosser (Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety)
The serial murderer often seeks the very form of capital punishment that is being held over his head as a deterrent.
Joel Norris (Serial Killers)
Nailing my door shut at night wasn't exactly elegant, but it was a pretty effective deterrent.
Andrew Rowe (Sufficiently Advanced Magic (Arcane Ascension, #1))
One cannot fashion a credible deterrent out of an incredible action.
Robert S. McNamara
the great is seldom a deterrent to the mediocre
Elizabeth Hardwick (Seduction and Betrayal)
The hardest year of my life taught me perseverance in the face of difficulty is crucial for success. I believe the human soul desires hardship. Deterrents are put in your life to test your resilience, to bring you closer to your life’s purpose. If you don’t know failure, how could you ever relish in glory?
Kristin Michelle Elizabeth
All I really need,” he continued, “is for you to act as a deterrent.” “A deterrent?” she choked out. “A human shield, if you will.” “What?” “I cannot be left alone with that woman,” he said, and he felt no remorse at the low desperation in his voice. “Please, if you have any care for your fellow man.” Her lips clamped together in a suspicious line. “I’m not certain what I get out of the equation.” “You mean besides the joy of my delightful company?” “Yes,” she said, with an impressive lack of inflection, “besides that.
Julia Quinn (The Lady Most Willing... (Lady Most..., #2))
The primitive idea of justice is partly legalized revenge and partly expiation by sacrifice. It works out from both sides in the notion that two blacks make a white, and that when a wrong has been done, it should be paid for by an equivalent suffering. It seems to the Philistine majority a matter of course that this compensating suffering should be inflicted on the wrongdoer for the sake of its deterrent effect on other would-be wrongdoers; but a moment's reflection will shew that this utilitarian application corrupts the whole transaction. For example, the shedding of blood cannot be balanced by the shedding of guilty blood. Sacrificing a criminal to propitiate God for the murder of one of his righteous servants is like sacrificing a mangy sheep or an ox with the rinderpest: it calls down divine wrath instead of appeasing it. In doing it we offer God as a sacrifice the gratification of our own revenge and the protection of our own lives without cost to ourselves; and cost to ourselves is the essence of sacrifice and expiation.
George Bernard Shaw (Androcles and the Lion)
I’ve been told by professional drug users that if I did the drugs, I would like the Dead. It seems like the most effective PSA against drugs could just play some Dead jams and say, “If you do drugs, you will like this kind of music.” What other deterrent would one need?
Penn Jillette (Every Day is an Atheist Holiday!)
A stronger deterrent to infidelity even than love was the desire to maintain a stable household, a stress-free life.
Matthew Thomas (We Are Not Ourselves)
Every martial art, from T’ai Chi Chuan to the nuclear deterrent, is based on a doctrine—an idea of how combat works.
Guy Windsor (The Medieval Longsword: A Training Manual)
A brick could be used as a deodorant deterrent. Just ask any stinky Congressman.
Jarod Kintz (Brick)
I've often thought that beauty can be a deterrent to love,” Fern's father mused. “Why?” “Because sometimes we fall in love with a face and not what's behind it.
Amy Harmon (Making Faces)
Bodyguard work came easily to hobgoblins. When you’re huge, furry, fanged, and yellow-eyed, you don’t need much else as a deterrent.
Lisa Shearin (Magic Lost, Trouble Found (Raine Benares, #1))
Nothing that can deterrent for a determined.A tenacious person flys against all on odds, sails in a rough sea, and travels in uncharted territory.
Ebinezar Gnanasekaran (You Can Step Ahead to Success)
The whole mechanism of guilt as a deterrent to right action is just as much a linguistic fault.
Samuel R. Delany (Babel-17)
Recent research shows that fear of losing their parents’ trust and respect is the greatest deterrent to adolescents’ drug use.
Frances E. Jensen (The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist's Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults)
Every murder proves that hanging is not altogether deterrent; every hanging, that it is somewhat deterrent—it deters the person hanged.
Ambrose Bierce (A Cynic Looks at Life)
Exactness is not just fastidiousness but a component of clear thinking, a condition for theorizing, and a deterrent to barren controversy
Mario Bunge (Emergence and Convergence: Qualitative Novelty and the Unity of Knowledge (Toronto Studies in Philosophy))
Bad feelings should not always be interpreted as deterrents. They are also indicators that you are doing something frightening and worthwhile
Brianna Wiest (101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think)
Any immigrants found guilty of serious crime – rape, murder, violent gang membership – should be sent straight back to their country of origin. That ought to act as a deterrent. If they choose to bite the hand that feeds them, then they can fuck off. We don’t need people like that in this country.
Karl Wiggins (100 Common Sense Policies to make BRITAIN GREAT again)
The path to [exaltation] is rugged and steep. Many stumble and fall, and through discouragement never pick themselves up to start again. The forces of evil cloud the path with many foggy deterrents, often trying to detour us in misleading trails. But through all this journey there is the calming assurance that if we choose the right, success will be ours, and the achievement of it will have molded and formed and created us into the kind of person qualified to be accepted into the presence of God.
Harold B. Lee
LET ME FILL YOU with my Love, Joy, and Peace. These are Glory-gifts, flowing from my living Presence. Though you are an earthen vessel, I designed you to be filled with heavenly contents. Your weakness is not a deterrent to being filled with My Spirit; on the contrary, it provides an opportunity for My Power to shine forth more brightly.
Sarah Young (Jesus Calling, with Scripture References: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (A 365-Day Devotional) (Jesus Calling®))
There was once a time when most people worried about going to hell if they violated an oath taken in the name of God. That divine deterrence has slipped away from our modern cultures. In its place, people must fear going to jail.
James B. Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
Criminals are motivated by self-preservation, and handguns can therefore be a deterrent. The potential defensive nature of guns is further evidenced by the different rates of so-called “hot burglaries,” where a resident is at home when a criminal strikes.16 In Canada and Britain, both with tough gun-control laws, almost half of all burglaries are “hot burglaries.” In contrast, the United States, with fewer restrictions, has a “hot burglary” rate of only 13 percent.
John R. Lott Jr. (More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws)
Conviction rates in the military are pathetic, with most offenders going free AND THERE IS NO RECOURSE FOR APPEAL! The military believes the Emperor has his clothes on, even when they are down around his ankles and he is coming in the woman's window with a knife! Military juries give low sentences or clear offender's altogether. Women can be heard to say “it's not just me” over and over. Men may get an Article 15, which is just a slap on the wrist, and doesn't even follow them in their career. This is hardly a deterrent. The perpetrator frequently stays in place to continue to intimidate their female victims, who are then treated like mental cases, who need to be discharged. Women find the tables turned, letters in their files, trumped up Women find the tables turned, letters in their files, trumped up charges; isolation and transfer are common, as are court ordered psychiatric referrals that label the women as lying or incompatible with military service because they are “Borderline Personality Disorders” or mentally unbalanced. I attended many of these women, after they were discharged, or were wives of abusers, from xxx Air Force Base, when I was a psychotherapist working in the private sector. That was always their diagnosis, yet retesting tended to show something different after stabilization, like PTSD.
Diane Chamberlain (Conduct Unbecoming: Rape, Torture, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Military Commanders)
Skin care. Seriously. If you take nothing else from my story, receive this: Skin care is sacred. Most women who did coke back in the 1990s looked beat by the mid-aughts. That was a strong deterrent for me. I won’t say I never tried it, but I wasn’t about to sacrifice my complexion for it. Same with cigarettes. You may as well hit yourself in the face with a shovel.
Paris Hilton (Paris: The Memoir)
The hyperreal is the abolition of the real not by violent destruction, but by its assumption, elevation to the strength of the model. Anticipation, deterrence, preventive transfiguration, etc.: the model acts as a sphere of absorption of the real.
Jean Baudrillard (In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities)
As long as a man is still motivated either by the fear of punishment or by the hope of reward—or, for that matter, by the wish to appease the superego—conscience has not had its say as yet.
Viktor E. Frankl (The Unheard Cry for Meaning)
It was the principle of this Court that deterrent laws, however strict, are useless without positive moral discipline; that the happiness of citizens depends, not on having the walls of their porticoes covered with laws, but on having justice in their hearts.
Isocrates (Aeropagiticus)
As regards the origin of God, my own idea is that having realized the limitations of man, his weaknesses and shortcoming having been taken into consideration, God was brought into imaginary existence to encourage man to face boldly all the trying circumstances, to meet all dangers manfully and to check and restrain his outbursts in prosperity and affluence. God both with his private laws and parental generosity was imagined and painted in greater details. He was to serve as a deterrent factor when his fury and private laws were discussed so that man may not become a danger to society. He was to serve as a father, mother, sister and brother, friend and helpers when his parental qualifications were to be explained. So that when man be in great distress having been betrayed and deserted by all friends he may find consolation in the idea that an ever true friend was still there to help him, to support him and that He was almighty and could do anything. Really that was useful to the society in the primitive age. The idea of God is helpful to man in distress.
Bhagat Singh (Why I am an Atheist)
From the evolutionary perspective, revenge is retaliation that is intended either to destroy an enemy or to foster deterrence against him, as well as against third parties. This, of course, applies to non-physical and non-violent, as well as to physical and violent, action.
Azar Gat (War in Human Civilization)
Fear of criticism is a powerful deterrent because the criticism doesn't actually have to occur for the fear to set in. Watch a few people get criticized for being innovate, and it's pretty easy to convince yourself that the very same thing will happen to you if you're not careful.
Seth Godin (Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us)
Universal peace among nations is a condition of prosperity, the old man tried to prove, and peace is achieved by arming oneself. The most certain method of preventing wars is to have a terrible weapon as a deterrent: the more terrible it is, the more enduring and certain the peace.
Andrzej Sapkowski (Season of Storms (The Witcher, #8))
Deterrents properly placed can help. But that is not enough. We are one society, and as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, what we will have to repent for is not the “vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people,” but the “appalling silence and indifference of the good people.
Cory Booker (United)
Gun-free zones don't deter criminals-they help them by providing a guarantee that they will not face any armed resistance. But they do deter the law-abiding. A faculty member with a concealed-handgun permit who breaks the campus gun ban would be fired and likely find it impossible to get admitted to another school. Bringing a firearm into a gun-free zone can have serious adverse consequences for law-abiding people. But for someone like the Virginia Tech killer, the threat of expulsion is no deterrent at all.
Glenn Beck (Control: Exposing the Truth About Guns)
President Reagan officially announced his administration's War on Drugs. At the time...less than 2 percent of the American public viewed drugs as the most important issue facing the nation. This fact was no deterrent to Reagan, for the drug war from the outset had little to do with public concern about drugs and much to do with public concern about race.
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
Viewed through the lens of deterrence, seeming weakness could have the same consequences as an actual deficiency;
Henry Kissinger (The Age of A.I. and Our Human Future)
a bluff taken seriously could prove a more useful deterrent than a bona fide threat that was ignored.
Henry Kissinger (The Age of A.I. and Our Human Future)
Unique among security strategies (at least until now), nuclear deterrence rests on a series of untestable abstractions:
Henry Kissinger (The Age of A.I. and Our Human Future)
Paranoia is a psychological phenomenon, same as deterrence.
Annie Jacobsen (Nuclear War: A Scenario)
Constant Reminder - Constant Deterrent
D.C. Hyden (The Sober Addict)
The driver of deterrence success is not nuclear weapons, it is nuclear posture. Nuclear weapons may deter, but they deter unequally.
Vipin Narang (Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict (Princeton Studies in International History and Politics))
deterrent
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
When you weigh-in at 3300 pounds, a barbed-wire fence is more of a suggestion than a deterrent.
J.R. Rice (Forgotten Moon (Bane County #1))
Her great weapon was her weakness, the massive deterrent to which all deferred.
Shirley Hazzard (The Transit of Venus)
There are a number of people who can't seem to realize that things could be mighty rough—even rougher than they are now—if there wasn't the slightest bit of deterrence.
J. Neil Schulman (The Robert Heinlein Interview And Other Heinleiniana)
They were fed and clothed and taken care of until they were too old, and then they were kicked out. This ending was no deterrent. No one who is young is ever going to be old. Now
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
You no longer watch TV, it is TV that watches you (live),” or again: “You are no longer listening to Don’t Panic, it is Don’t Panic that is listening to you”—a switch from the panoptic mechanism of surveillance (Discipline and Punish [Surveiller et punir]) to a system of deterrence, in which the distinction between the passive and the active is abolished. There is no longer any imperative of submission to the model, or to the gaze “YOU are the model!” “YOU are the majority!” Such is the watershed of a hyperreal sociality, in which the real is confused with the model, as in the statistical operation, or with the medium. …Such is the last stage of the social relation, ours, which is no longer one of persuasion (the classical age of propaganda, of ideology, of publicity, etc.) but one of deterrence: “YOU are information, you are the social, you are the event, you are involved, you have the word, etc.” An about-face through which it becomes impossible to locate one instance of the model, of power, of the gaze, of the medium itself, because you are always already on the other side.
Jean Baudrillard (Simulacra and Simulation)
Now, on the subject of deterrence, I admit that there can be little doubt that as presently administered in the United States, the death penalty is not a general deterrent to murder in many, if not most, situations. . . . But of one thing I am certain: it is, by God, a specific deterrent. No one who has been executed has ever taken another innocent life. And until such time as we really mean it as a society when we say ‘imprisonment for life,’ I, and the families of countless victims, would sleep better at night knowing there is no chance that the worst of these killers will ever again be able to prey on others. Even then, I personally believe that if you choose to take another human life, you ought to be prepared to pay with your own.
John E. Douglas
Factor 40. It’s like rubber cement. It’ll take me a good twenty-five minutes to grind this stuff into her skin. I shudder at the thought. Skin should never get old, there’s no point to it. Or perhaps it’s just an evolutionary deterrent. You’ve served your biological purpose. You’re not supposed to reproduce anymore, so now you get to look like dried fruit until you die. Mom
Graham Parke (Sometimes I'm So Smart I Almost Feel Like a Real Person)
He said his worst days were when he allowed himself to hope for a second chance. The best were when he knew it was over forever and his destruction was necessary as a deterrent to others. I
Jon Ronson (So You've Been Publicly Shamed: the hilarious and unnerving real-life exploration of being found out on social media)
education in and of itself is not a deterrent to the destruction of a nation. The real questions to be posed are: what kind of education? to what purpose? with what goal? under what standards?
Bella Dodd (School of Darkness: (Illustrated))
In the penal system, where many of these people would eventually end up, the rapidly growing problem of petty crime had already led to pressure for harsher, more deterrent policies in the state prisons. Administrators and prison experts had argued in the last years of the Weimar Republic for the indefinite imprisonment or security confinement of habitual criminals whose hereditary degeneracy, it was assumed, rendered them incapable of inprovement. Security confinement was increasingly thought to be the long-term answer to the buden thse offenders supposedly imposed on the community.
Richard J. Evans (The Coming of the Third Reich (The History of the Third Reich, #1))
He was appalled by the examination system, when it was explained to him; he could not imagine a greater deterrent to the natural wish to learn than this pattern of cramming in information and disgorging it at demand.
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Dispossessed)
Targeting "governments," instead of their loyal enforcers, would serve humanity wonderfully, not only ending most violent conflicts a lot more quickly but creating a huge deterrent to any megalomaniac tempted to start conflicts in the first place. Yet there is an open, mutual, standing agreement between most high-level tyrants that, while it is okay to play games with the lives of their subjects, they will rarely target each other.
Larken Rose (The Most Dangerous Superstition)
As long ago as 1795, in an essay titled Perpetual Peace, Immanuel Kant worked out what such deterrence ultimately leads to: “A war, therefore, which might cause the destruction of both parties at once … would permit the conclusion of a perpetual peace only upon the vast burial-ground of the human species.”22 (Kant’s book title came from an innkeeper’s sign featuring a cemetery—not the type of perpetual peace most of us strive for.) Deterrence acts as only a temporary solution to the Hobbesian temptation to strike first, allowing both Leviathans to go about their business in relative peace, settling for small proxy wars in swampy Third World countries.
Michael Shermer (The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom)
Yet it is hard to find many wars that have resulted from miscommunications or misunderstandings. Far more often they break out because of malevolent intent and the absence of deterrence, or because a prior war ended without a clear resolution or without settling disagreements—in a manner of Rome’s first two wars with Carthage. Again, Margaret Atwood was empirical when she wrote in her poem, “Wars happen because the ones who start them / think they can win.
Victor Davis Hanson (The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern)
Thus in the first months of 1940 it was already clear to two intelligent observers that nuclear weapons would be weapons of mass destruction against which the only apparent defense would be the deterrent effect of mutual possession.
Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition)
The evidence is clear that increasing the severity of punishment is a far less effective deterrent than increasing the perception that a person will be caught and sanctioned. With respect to interrogations, experiments reveal the benefits
Anonymous
In the end, Scipio and Salvadore were condemned to a gruesome death. They were to be hanged, decapitated, and quartered. As a deterrent to potential conspirators, each man’s head and body parts were to be displayed in different counties.17
Sylviane A. Diouf (Slavery's Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons)
Aunt Hyacinth's protections around the house would stop a spirit. They wouldn't do anything against an axe murderer except make him queasy, which didn't seem like it would be much of a deterrent. I mean, a strong stomach probably came with the job.
Rosemary Clement-Moore (Texas Gothic (Goodnight Family, #1))
When a slave must be executed, the slaves from those plantations nearby are brought to watch; a deterrent, aye? against future ill-considered action.” “Indeed,” Jamie said politely. “I believe that was the Crown’s notion in executing my grandsire on Tower Hill after the Rising. Verra effective, too; all my relations have been quite well behaved since.” I had lived long enough among Scots to appreciate the effects of that little jab. Jamie might have come at Campbell’s request, but the grandson of the Old Fox did no man’s bidding lightly—nor necessarily held English law in high regard. MacNeill had got the message, all right; the back of his neck flushed turkey-red, but Farquard Campbell looked amused. He uttered a short, dry laugh before turning round.
Diana Gabaldon (Drums of Autumn (Outlander, #4))
The researchers argued that an orderly environment fosters a sense of responsibility not so much by deterrence (since Groningen police rarely penalize litterers) as by the signaling of a social norm: This is the kind of place where people obey the rules.
Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined)
The policy of deterrence is also known as the balance of terror and, during the Cold War, was called mutual assured destruction (MAD). Whatever peace a policy of deterrence may promise is fragile, because deterrence reduces violence only by a threat of violence.
Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined)
LeMay says the only way a general can win a modern war is not fight one. Our whole raison d’être was deterrent force. When you don’t deter them any longer, you lose. I think we lost some time ago, because the last five Sputniks have been reconnaissance satellites.
Pat Frank (Alas, Babylon)
One reason for this absence is that black writers have only recently entered the popular genres in force. Our writers have historically been regarded as a footnote best suited to address the nature of our own chains. So, if black writers wanted to branch out past the realism of racism and race, they were curtailed by their own desire to document the crimes of America. A further deterrent was the white literary establishment’s desire for blacks to write about being black in a white world, a limitation imposed upon a limitation.
Sheree Renée Thomas (Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora)
As nuclear weapons spread into more and more hands, the calculus of deterrence grows increasingly ephemeral and deterrence less and less reliable. In a widely proliferated world, it becomes ever more difficult to decide who is deterring whom and by what calculations.
Henry Kissinger (World Order)
Perimeter greatly reduced the pressure to launch on warning at the first sign of an American attack. It gave Soviet leaders more time to investigate the possibility of a false alarm, confident that a real attack would trigger a computer-controlled, devastating response. But it rendered American plans for limited war meaningless; the Soviet computers weren’t programmed to allow pauses for negotiation. And the deterrent value of Perimeter was wasted. Like the doomsday machine in Dr. Strangelove, the system was kept secret from the United States.
Eric Schlosser (Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety)
The duel faded away because the culture of honor faded away. And the culture of honor faded away because Leviathan started doing the honor culture’s job. In centuries past, men ferociously defended their honor because they were, in reality, defending their lives, families, and property. But when Leviathan started guaranteeing retaliation for crimes against everyone’s life and property, the deterrent value of personal honor declined, and risking everything over a slight just wasn’t worth it. Leviathan stood up in all its power, allowing individual men to stand down.
Jonathan Gottschall (The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch)
In a world of terrorists, terrorist states and weapons of mass destruction, the option of preemption is especially necessary. In the bipolar world of the Cold War, with a stable non-suicidal adversary, deterrence could work. Deterrence does not work against people who ache for heaven. It does not work against undeterrables. And it does not work against undetectables: non-suicidal enemy regimes that might attack through clandestine means—a suitcase nuke or anonymously delivered anthrax. Against both undeterrables and undetectables, preemption is the only possible strategy.
Charles Krauthammer (Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes, and Politics)
I never thought I’d let somebody call me a good boy without punching them in the face,” Zane mused. “You can punch me in the face if you want, Lois. But I might retaliate by holding you down and reminding you who you belong to.” “I don’t think that’s the deterrent you think it is,” Zane teased,
Onley James (Headcase (Necessary Evils, #4))
It was typical of U.S. strategists, then and later, to leave European, North African, and Asian casualties entirely out of account in weighing the deterrent balance. And I don’t know of any instance of a president or any civilian official raising this point. In retrospect, that’s a startling commentary.
Daniel Ellsberg (The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner)
With Permacapital Economics, there is no need to limit growth or acknowledge so called planetary boundaries because of the "Produce No Waste" key constraint. By designing an economic system whereby waste does not exist, everything produced is profitably consumed - even bi-products, and therefore growth and productivity in our human civilization becomes a net value-adder to the planet and its ecosystems. We become, through our growth, benefactors of planetary wellbeing as opposed to deterrents of it. Just as a tree, and its growth, becomes a net value-adder to the forest. This is what Permacapital Economics is all about.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
Many of us draw lines which we intend never to cross. But life tests our resolve, mercilessly at times, and a foot budges, nudged past that thinly-drawn line. So we draw another, resolving never to cross this one. Days grow dark and fog creeps in to blind our view, clouding the reason for the line’s existence from our minds. We draw another mark, ashamed that the last was crossed with less coaxing than we imagined it would require. Shadows and doubts give further need to draw a new line, and then another and another. Lines, I think, are too slim and obscure to be dependable deterrents for behavior. Too often, too easily, people stumble into places they later regret entering. What, then, keeps some individuals from crossing those narrow lines? It is the power of values. For if a person possessing values were to step one foot outside their line, they would be forced to release hands with those inflexible values and consciously abandon them. But their values are persuasive, keeping a tight grip, warding off the luring temptations beckoning one to test the line. Thus values maintained keep a person safely away from areas they dare not travel, steering a life between the lines, enhancing willpower and shaping mighty strength of character.
Richelle E. Goodrich (Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a Few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year)
As the international relations scholar Hedley Bull noted, “mutual nuclear deterrence … does not make nuclear war impossible, but simply renders it irrational,” but then added that a rational strategist is one “who on further acquaintance reveals himself as a university professor of unusual intellectual subtlety.”86
Michael Shermer (The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom)
I’m not going to tell you that you can trust me. You know that. I’m not going to tell you what you need to do. You know that as well. What I will remind you of is what I taught you in my class: Embarrassment and guilt are the two most powerful deterrents to truth. They are also two of the worst reasons to avoid the truth.
Giacomo Giammatteo (Murder Takes Time (Friendship & Honor #1))
Eitington, whom I met in Florence, is now here and will probably visit me soon to give me detailed impressions of Amsterdam. He seems to have taken up with some woman again. Such practice is a deterrent from theory. When I have totally overcome my libido (in the common sense), I shall undertake to write a 'Love-life of Mankind'.
Sigmund Freud (The Freud/Jung Letters)
As a military man, Eli found himself impressed by the layered diversion/attack strategy of pickpocket and muggers. As a potential victim, he found himself flinching back from the sudden flurry of activity, feeling helpless without a weapon or the warning deterrent of a uniform. As a bystander, he found himself oddly entertained.
Timothy Zahn (Thrawn: Treason (Star Wars: Thrawn, #3))
What makes a successful relationship? . . . Research shows that when a partner dominates another through the abuse of power, it is a prime deterrent to a successful relationship (Greenberg and Goldman 2008). When a controlling partner uses coercive tactics to overpower you, it is a setup for the relationship to fail - without exception. Research about marital relationships in general reveals that husbands are likely to receive more support from their spouse and this fair far better, while women tend to receive less support and experience greater stress from giving support. These are among the conditions that contribute to the higher rates of depression in women.
Carol A. Lambert (Women with Controlling Partners: Taking Back Your Life from a Manipulative or Abusive Partner)
Reasonable taxes for this purpose need not hurt production much. The kind of government services then supplied in return, which among other things safeguard production itself, more than compensate for this. But the larger the percentage of the national income taken by taxes the greater the deterrent to private production and employment.
Henry Hazlitt (Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics)
From the horrible weapon which they were about to urge the United States to develop, Szilard, Teller and Wigner—“the Hungarian conspiracy,” Merle Tuve was amused to call them—hoped for more than deterrence against German aggression.1194 They also hoped for world government and world peace, conditions they imagined bombs made of uranium might enforce.
Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition)
Some may see summer programs and free lunches as ineffectual tools in comparison to tear gas and body armor in dealing with violence, but they are wrong. An engaged community with librarians dedicated to learning and making a difference—the promise of opportunity and a better tomorrow, rather than the threat of force—is a powerful deterrent to violence.
R. David Lankes (The New Librarianship Field Guide (The MIT Press))
The attack by those who want to die — this is the attack against which you cannot prepare a perfect defense. — Human aphorism
Frank Herbert (The Dosadi Experiment (ConSentiency Universe, #2))
It was like a noose, indicating danger and aggression when held in the hand, but safety when wrapped around the holder's own neck.
Cixin Liu
His powers of memory were awe-inspiring, but only about matters on which he had fearsomely concentrated his mind.
Norman Macrae (John von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, and Much More)
Remember, Bettina, that you are going to get well; but if you dare scratch yourself; you will be so ugly that no one will ever love you again." I challenge all the physicians in the world to find a more powerful deterrent to itching than this in the case of a girl who knows that she has been beautiful and is in danger of becoming ugly through her own fault if she scratches.
Giacomo Casanova (History of My Life, Vols. I & II)
If you’ve got a bag in that SUV, you might as well get it out.” “He’s not staying here,” Lisa countered. “I say he is.” Lisa yanked at the coat from within. “You’re not the only person who lives here, Robin.” “No, but I’m one-third owner of the house.” She motioned Donovan toward his truck. “Consider whatever part of the house he’s in as my third.” “Damn it, Robin! I don’t want him here.” “I do.” “Why?” Robin cocked her head to the side as if considering the question. “Because he’s got that big, mean, don’t-mess-with-me look of a rottweiler on steroids that could be a deterrent to any repercussions from your trip into town today, and because”—she shrugged and a smile touched her lips—“he bothers you in a way I’ve never seen you bothered. It’s interesting.
Sarah McCarty (Running Wild (Wild, #1-3))
In a 2015 TED Talk, Bill Gates asserted, “If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war. Not missiles, but microbes. Now, part of the reason for this is that we’ve invested a huge amount in nuclear deterrents. But we’ve actually invested very little in a system to stop an epidemic. We’re not ready for the next epidemic.
Michael T. Osterholm (Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs)
A system of justice does not need to pursue retribution. If the purpose of drug sentencing is to prevent harm, all we need to do is decide what to do with people who pose a genuine risk to society or cause tangible harm. There are perfectly rational ways of doing this; in fact, most societies already pursue such policies with respect to alcohol: we leave people free to drink and get inebriated, but set limits on where and when. In general, we prosecute drunk drivers, not inebriated pedestrians. In this sense, the justice system is in many respects a battleground between moral ideas and evidence concerning how to most effectively promote both individual and societal interests, liberty, health, happiness and wellbeing. Severely compromising this system, insofar as it serves to further these ideals, is our vacillation or obsession with moral responsibility, which is, in the broadest sense, an attempt to isolate the subjective element of human choice, an exercise that all too readily deteriorates into blaming and scapegoating without providing effective solutions to the actual problem. The problem with the question of moral responsibility is that it is inherently subjective and involves conjecture about an individuals’ state of mind, awareness and ability to act that can rarely if ever be proved. Thus it involves precisely the same type of conjecture that characterizes superstitious notions of possession and the influence of the devil and provides no effective means of managing conduct: the individual convicted for an offence or crime considered morally wrong is convicted based on a series of hypotheses and probabilities and not necessarily because he or she is actually morally wrong. The fairness and effectiveness of a system of justice based on such hypotheses is highly questionable particularly as a basis for preventing or reducing drug use related harm. For example, with respect to drugs, the system quite obviously fails as a deterrent and the system is not organised to ‘reform’ the offender much less to ensure that he or she has ‘learned a lesson’; moreover, the offender does not get an opportunity to make amends or even have a conversation with the alleged victim. In the case of retributive justice, the justice system is effectively mopping up after the fact. In other words, as far as deterrence is concerned, the entire exercise of justice becomes an exercise based on faith, rather than one based on evidence.
Daniel Waterman (Entheogens, Society and Law: The Politics of Consciousness, Autonomy and Responsibility)
Mucus is made from giant molecules called mucins, each consisting of a central protein backbone with thousands of sugar molecules branching off it. These sugars allow individual mucins to become entangled, forming a dense, nearly impenetrable thicket – a Great Wall of Mucus that stops wayward microbes from penetrating deeper into the body. And if that wasn’t deterrent enough, the wall is manned by viruses.
Ed Yong (I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life)
Most Romans defended the gladiatorial games on the ground that the victims had been condemned to death for serious crimes, that the sufferings they endured acted as a deterrent to others, that the courage with which the doomed men were trained to face wounds and death inspired the people to Spartan virtues, and that the frequent sight of blood and battle accustomed Romans to the demands and sacrifices of war.
Will Durant (Caesar and Christ (Story of Civilization, #3))
In the past decade, the distance between those who see nuclear disarmament as the best policy for global peace and stability and those who see nuclear deterrence as the cornerstone of the world order has increased. The division is often stark and binary, with little middle ground, save for the world's greatest nuclear power, the United States, who confusingly appears to pursue both, mutually exclusive policies simultaneously.
Francis J. Gavin (Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy)
The implication—never questioned by anyone at RAND while I was there—was that adequate deterrence for the United States demanded a survivable, assured second-strike capability to kill more than the twenty million Soviet citizens who had died in World War II. That meant we were working to assure the survival under attack of a capability for retaliatory genocide, though none of us ever thought of it in those terms for a moment.
Daniel Ellsberg (The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner)
7. Ant Spray: FAST FIND: A nontoxic spray which can be used anywhere. Ingredients: 2 tablespoon of peppermint essential oil 2 cup warm water 1 spray bottle.   Method: In the spray bottle, add essential oils and water. Shake well to combine the ingredients. Spray on ant trails or around areas where you don’t want ants to go. Shake well before use. Ants do not like the smell of peppermint and this will act as a strong deterrent.
Lorraine M. Harding (It's Only Natural: 200 natural cleaning product recipes to have)
As the nation has learned time and again, it is American military preparedness and superiority, in combination with a proactive and prudent foreign policy, that are likely to serve as a deterrent to military conflict and prevent large-scale, long-lasting wars. Should war occur—and at times war is unavoidable—the United States must ensure that its young service personnel are the best trained and equipped on the face of the earth.
Mark R. Levin (Plunder and Deceit: Big Government's Exploitation of Young People and the Future)
In October 1982, President Reagan officially announced his administration’s War on Drugs. At the time he declared this new war, less than 2 percent of the American public viewed drugs as the most important issue facing the nation.72 This fact was no deterrent to Reagan, for the drug war from the outset had little to do with public concern about drugs and much to do with public concern about race. By waging a war on drug users and dealers, Reagan made good on his promise to crack down on the racially defined “others”—the undeserving. Practically overnight the budgets of federal law enforcement agencies soared. Between 1980 and 1984, FBI antidrug funding increased from $8 million to $95 million.73 Department of Defense antidrug allocations increased from $33 million in 1981 to $1,042 million in 1991. During that same period, DEA antidrug spending grew from $86 to $1,026 million, and FBI antidrug allocations grew from $38 to $181 million.74 By contrast, funding for agencies responsible for drug treatment, prevention, and education was dramatically reduced. The budget of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, for example, was reduced from $274 million to $57 million from 1981 to 1984, and antidrug funds allocated to the Department of Education were cut from $14 million to $3 million.75
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
The dismantling of S0-27 had some peculiar and unforeseen consequences, not least the legalizing of lethal force within libraries “for the maintenance of the collections and public order.” Originally intended as a deterrent to thieves, the legislation quickly became known as the “Shush Law,” when overenthusiastic librarians invoked a “violent intervention” for loud talking. Libraries have never been quieter, and theft and vandalism dropped by 72 percent.
Jasper Fforde (The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next, #7))
The thing is, Bill, and you know this – wealthy men make mistakes. Working-class men commit murder. Then they get hanged. Not as a deterrent tae murdering women, noh, they have little reason tae try and deter that – fear ay that and rape helps keep women in oor place, it’s why they hardly ever convict them firrit. They killed that man to warn the great unwashed – to warn other working-class men – watch yer fucking step ay. We can just fucking hang your kind!
Jenni Fagan (Luckenbooth)
We were arguing about which beach you wanted me to take you to. We were going swimming after school." "Liar." With a capital L. Swimming-drowning-falls on my to-do list somewhere below giving birth to porcupines. "Oh, wait. You're right. We were arguing about when the Titanic actually sank. We had already agreed to go to my house to swim." Bells are going off in my head, but not the kind that should be ringing if this were true. I don't remember talking about the beach at all, but I do remember answering the question about the Titanic in Mr. Pinter's class. Even Galen, wielding his smile as a thought deterrent, couldn't have talked me into getting in the water, could he? "I...I don't believe you." I decide as I say it. "I wouldn't get that upset about a date. Historical or otherwise." He shrugs. "It surprised me, too." I raise a BS brow. "Why would you argue about the date anyway? You could Google it all over the place and get the same answer.
Anna Banks (Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy, #1))
The theatrical device represented by the president’s moment-by-moment day-and-night access to the “football,” with its supposedly unique authorization codes, has always been exactly that: theater—essentially a hoax. Whatever the public declarations to the contrary, there has to be delegation of authority and capability to launch retaliatory strikes, not only to officials outside the Oval Office but outside Washington too, or there would be no real basis for nuclear deterrence.
Daniel Ellsberg (The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner)
You don't need anger to control children. You do need action, occasionally. Furthermore, you can apply the action anywhere on the time line that is convenient, and children will live contentedly within that boundary. In fact, the closer the action moves to the front of the conflict the less punishment is required. A pinch of the trapezius muscle would not be a sufficient deterrent at the end of a two-hour struggle, whereas it is more than adequate when the conflict is minimal.
James C. Dobson
The Universal Laws still make it criminal for them to prey on children, take trackers away, or jeopardize the world with toxic chemicals, or fire, or religion, but they feel in their hearts that humans are a predator, and predators need the right to tear out each other’s throats. You must not think they rape and murder daily. Most rarely more than duel, and it is a strong deterrent knowing you have no armor in this wide world but the goodwill of peers who could kill you where you stand.
Ada Palmer (Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota, #1))
We judge ourselves by our internal motives and everyone else by their external actions. And thus, in considering our own misdeeds, we have more access to mitigating situational information. This is straight out of Us Them. When Thems do something wrong, it's because they're simply rotten. When Us-es do it, it's because of an extenuating circumstance and Me is the most focal Us there is, coming with the most insight into internal state. Thus on this cognitive level, there is no inconsistency or hypocrisy and we might readily perceive a wrong to be mitigated by internal motives in the case of anyone's misdeeds. It's just easier to know those motives when we are the perpetrator. The adverse consequences of this are wide and deep. Moreover, the pull towards judging yourself less harshly than others easily resists the rationality of deterrence. As Ariely writes in his book, 'Overall, cheating is not limited by risk; it is limited by our ability to rationalize the cheating to ourselves.
Robert M. Sapolsky
But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal groups become smaller; attendance drops off in little organizations, and the organizations themselves wither. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait. “But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. “And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jew swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
Milton Sanford Mayer (They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45)
The people with whom you associate respect you if you live according to the teachings of the church of Jesus Christ. People expect a great deal from the members of this Church because we profess much. I have never at any time found that my membership in the Church and living according to the teachings of the gospel were deterrents. Let each of us every day live an exemplary life, that our influence may be felt for good and that others, seeing our good works, may be led to glorify God. [Ensign, Feb. 1980, 5]
N. Eldon Tanner
Where the fuck’ve you been? It’s been over a month. Pull a stunt like that again without telling me what you’re doing first, and I’m chaining you to my bed when you get back.” Was that supposed to be a deterrent or an incentive? I pictured myself sprawled on my back, his dark head moving between my legs. I imagined Mac 1.0, knowing what I knew now: that in a few months Barrons would be doing everything a man could do to a woman in bed. Would she have run screaming or torn off her clothes right then and there?
Karen Marie Moning (Shadowfever (Fever, #5))
The dilemma of the AI age will be different: its defining technology will be widely acquired, mastered, and employed. The achievement of mutual strategic restraint — or even achieving a common definition of restraint — will be more difficult than ever before, both conceptually and practically. The management of nuclear weapons, the endeavor of half a century, remains incomplete and fragmentary. Yet the challenge of assessing the nuclear balance was comparatively straightforward. Warheads could be counted, and their yields were known. Conversely, the capabilities of AI are not fixed; they are dynamic. Unlike nuclear weapons, AIs are hard to track: once trained, they may be copied easily and run on relatively small machines. And detecting their presence or verifying their absence is difficult or impossible with the present technology. In this age, deterrence will likely arise from complexity — from the multiplicity of vectors through which an AI‑enabled attack is able to travel and from the speed of potential AI responses.
Henry Kissinger (The Age of A.I. and Our Human Future)
There are readers who live, breath, inhale stories and, while immersed in a book, live a divided life. Part of them is always waiting in that fictional world for the story to continue, suspended at the moment the page was last bookmarked. That's who I write for,
Ian W. Sainsbury (Children Of The Deterrent (Halfhero, #1))
Of all the war crimes which he claimed he had to commit on the orders of Hitler “the worst of all,” General Keitel said on the stand at Nuremberg, stemmed from the Nacht und Nebel Erlass—“Night and Fog Decree.” This grotesque order, reserved for the unfortunate inhabitants of the conquered territories in the West, was issued by Hitler himself on December 7, 1941. Its purpose, as the weird title indicates, was to seize persons “endangering German security” who were not to be immediately executed and make them vanish without a trace into the night and fog of the unknown in Germany. No information was to be given their families as to their fate even when, as invariably occurred, it was merely a question of the place of burial in the Reich. On December 12, 1941, Keitel issued a directive explaining the Fuehrer’s orders. “In principle,” he said, “the punishment for offenses committed against the German state is the death penalty.” But if these offenses are punished with imprisonment, even with hard labor for life, this will be looked upon as a sign of weakness. Efficient intimidation can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminal and the population do not know his fate.42 The following February Keitel enlarged on the Night and Fog Decree. In cases where the death penalty was not meted out within eight days of a person’s arrest, the prisoners are to be transported to Germany secretly… these measures will have a deterrent effect because (a) the prisoners will vanish without leaving a trace, (b) no information may be given as to their whereabouts or their fate.
William L. Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany)
There has long been an iron rule in American social welfare policy: conditions must be worse for the dependent poor than for anyone who works. The seldom-acknowledged corollary is that the subsidized care of other people's children must be undesirable enough, or scarce enough, to play a role in this system of deterrence. In the late nineteenth century, charity reformer Josephine Shaw Lowell expressed this view when she insisted that the "honest laborer" should not see the children of the drunkard "enjoy advantages which his own may not hope for.
Nina Bernstein (The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care)
We think deterrence works. The problem is that, notwithstanding the confident claims of countless theorists, including those reviewed here, we do not really know why nuclear bombs have not been dropped since 1945, or at the very least, we cannot prove our theories and instincts. Was it good statesmanship? Was Kenneth Waltz right, and nuclear weapons really are the great stabilizers? Or perhaps it was just luck? As is often said about the inadvisability of testing nuclear deterrence failures, we have never run the experiment, and we hope we never will.
Francis J. Gavin (Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy)
Kant stated simply enough, “[Punishment] must always be inflicted upon [the criminal] only because he has committed a crime.”7 Punishment shouldn’t be meted out for the criminal’s own good, for example, for reformation or rehabilitation. This would be treating him like an animal, like a dog. Also, punishment shouldn’t be handed out for the good of society, such as for security, deterrence, or crime prevention or any other desirable end. The criminal shouldn’t be treated as a mere means; we shouldn’t use people for society’s ends, “for a human being can never be treated merely as a means to the purposes of another.
William Irwin (Superheroes: The Best of Philosophy and Pop Culture)
Our entire lives we witness individuals, the ones who break some of the most culturally sensitive moral codes, ruined permanently by the media - i.e. shamed ruthlessly by the masses - i.e. dragged horribly by the village. While this is often intended to serve as a deterrent for the rest of us not to do anything too stupid, many of us choose to do stupid things anyway; and surely it is because the lot of us regard it simply as a challenge to bravery and a temptation to try to rise above or sneak past the law, to outsmart the justice system: I'm afraid the notion 'It'll never happen to me' is one of mankind's greatest hits.
Criss Jami (Healology)
The power by virtue of which Christianity was able to overcome first Judaism, and then the heathenism of Greece and Rome, lies solely in its pessimism, in the confession that our state is both exceedingly wretched and sinful, while Judaism and heathenism were both optimistic”: they thought of religion as a bribe to the heavenly powers for aid towards earthly success; Christianity thought of religion as a deterrent from the useless quest of earthly happiness. In the midst of worldly luxury and power it has held up the ideal of the saint, the Fool in Christ, who refuses to fight, and absolutely overcomes the individual will.
Will Durant (The Story of Philosophy)
Soviets had their own atomic bomb, Kennan argued that it made no sense for the United States to get into a spiraling nuclear arms race. Like Oppenheimer, he believed that the bomb was ultimately a suicidal weapon and therefore both militarily useless and dangerous. Besides, Kennan was confident that the Soviet Union was politically and economically the weaker of the two adversaries, and that in the long run America could wear down the Soviet system by means of diplomacy and the “judicious exploitation of our strength as a deterrent to world conflict. . . .” Kennan’s eighty-page “personal document” might well have been coauthored with Oppenheimer, reflecting as it did so many of Robert’s views. Indeed, both he and Kennan took its reception as a plunging barometer, indicating the approach of violent political storms. Circulated within the State Department, Kennan’s memo was quietly and firmly rejected by all who read it. Acheson called Kennan into his office one day and said, “George, if you persist in your view on this matter, you should resign from the Foreign Service, assume a monk’s habit, carry a tin cup and stand on the street corner and say, ‘The end of the world is nigh.’ ” Acheson didn’t even bother to show the document to President Truman.
Kai Bird (American Prometheus)
Jesus had been born during the reign of the emperor Augustus (r. 31 BCE–14 CE), who had brought peace to a war-weary world by defeating rival Roman warlords and declaring himself sole ruler of the Roman Empire. The ensuing peace seemed little short of miraculous, and throughout his far-flung domains, Augustus was hailed as “son of God” and “savior.” But the Pax Romana was enforced pitilessly by an army that was the most efficient killing machine the world had yet seen; the slightest resistance met with wholesale slaughter. Crucifixion, an instrument of state terror inflicted usually on slaves, violent criminals, and insurgents, was a powerful deterrent.
Karen Armstrong (St. Paul: The Apostle We Love to Hate (Icons))
The logic of nuclear deterrence gets more and more convoluted the deeper one goes into it. It is assumed, for instance, that the leaders of Russia, in contemplating an attack on the UK, would be sufficiently sane and rational as to weigh up the consequences of a possible retaliatory nuclear strike from the UK and decide on that basis to refrain from attacking. On the other hand, it is assumed that those same leaders would base their sane and rational decision on the likelihood of their counterparts in the UK acting so insanely and irrationally as to be willing to launch nuclear weapons against Russia that would almost certainly bring about their own total self-destruction.
Timmon Milne Wallis (The Truth About Trident: Disarming the Nuclear Argument)
Nuclear posture is the incorporation of some number and type of nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles state's overall military structure, the rules and procedures governing how those weapons are deployed, when and under what conditions they might be used, against what targets, and who has the authority to make those decisions. Nuclear posture is best thought of as the operational, rather than the declaratory, nuclear doctrine of a country; while the two can overlap, it is the operational doctrine that generates deterrent power against an opponent. To put it bluntly, states care more about what an adversary can credibly do with its nuclear weapons than what it says about them.
Vipin Narang (Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict (Princeton Studies in International History and Politics))
So many of his proposals looked crazy at first glance, but once you peeled back the first layer, you realized that underneath there existed a core of irrefutable logic. Take the new punishment laws, those really set me off. Putting people in stocks? Whipping them in town squares!?! What was this, Old Salem, the Taliban’s Afghanistan? It sounded barbaric, un-American, until you really thought about the options. What were you going to do with thieves and looters, put them in prison? Who would that help? Who could afford to divert able-bodied citizens to feed, clothe, and guard other able-bodied citizens? More importantly, why remove the punished from society when they could serve as such a valuable deterrent? Yes, there was the fear of pain—the lash, the cane—but all of that paled when compared to public humiliation. People were terrified of having their crimes exposed. At a time when everyone was pulling together, helping each other out, working to protect and take care of one another, the worst thing you could do to someone was to march them up into the public square with a giant poster reading “I Stole My Neighbor’s Firewood.” Shame’s a powerful weapon, but it depended on everyone else doing the right thing. No one is above the law, and seeing a senator given fifteen lashes for his involvement in war profiteering did more to curb crime than a cop on every street corner.
Max Brooks (World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War)
The question that remains unanswered and keeps coming to the fore is ‘Are the punishment schemes for child sex and sexual abuse deterrent in nature? Amidst ongoing debates in most countries about capital punishment as human rights violation to be inflicted in rarest of rare cases, and those who have abrogated capital punishment from their list of penalties, there is a need to transcend all national and international boundaries, and bring Child sexual abuse/rape within the ambit of international legislators, and law enforcement agencies, with a drive to pilot child rights of protection of his/her body much beyond the prevalent inefficacious laws, devoid of collective consensus of the people.
Henrietta Newton Martin
Work, beloved ones, work, for this is jihad... victory or martyrdom. We must make weapons, however simple, and strive to improve them everyday to increase their destructive power and range, and strike the enemy who possess all those military capabilities. Despite the simplicity of our weapons and our limited means, with God's help, we will create a new equation in the conflict, establishing a balance of terror and deterrence. They bombard us, so we bombard them. May God be pleased with Umar Ibn Al-Khattab, who said: "By God if I found nothing but dust, I would fight them with it." And we thank God, have much more than dust. We must fight them with everything we possess and always strive to enhance our capabilities.
Yahya Al-Sinwar (الشوك والقرنفل)
At the other extreme, the consumption tax rate should be very, very high for any products that impose massive negative externalities. Consider handgun ammunition. Currently, one can buy five hundred rounds of 9 mm ammunition for about $110 from online U.S. retailers—about twenty-two cents each. But each round of ammunition has a slight chance of falling into the wrong hands and killing someone. How slight? About 10 billion rounds are sold per year in the United States. There are about thirty thousand gun-related deaths in the United States per year (including suicides, homicides, and accidents). Assuming the typical gun death involves one round of ammo, the chance that any given round will end up killing someone is about thirty thousand divided by 10 billion, or three per million. Now, a person’s life is generally reckoned to be worth about $3 million, according to the usual cost-benefit-risk analyses by highway engineers, airlines, and hospitals. If each bullet has a three per million chance of negating a $3 million life, then that bullet imposes an expected average cost on society of $9. That’s about forty times its conventional retail cost of $0.22, so, by my reasoning, it should be subject to a consumption tax rate of 4,000 percent. This is obviously a rough calculation; it ignores the injury costs of nonlethal shootings (which would increase the tax) and the crime-deterrence effects, if any, of citizens having ammo (which would decrease the tax).
Geoffrey Miller (Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior)
Wherever they went they were plagued by mosquitoes, against which they employed the deterrent of fish oil: “It is by no means uncommon to see the entrails of fish frying upon their heads in the sun, till the oil runs over their face and body. This unguent is deemed by them of so much importance, that children even of two years old are taught the use of it.”21 Since the Iora never washed, they spent their lives coated with a mixture of rancid fish oil, animal grease, ocher, beach sand, dust and sweat. They were filthy and funky in the extreme. But their stamina and muscular development were superb, and, because there was no sugar (except for the rare treat of wild honey) and little starch in their diet, they had excellent teeth—unlike the white invaders.
Robert Hughes (The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding)
Ḥayā’, in Arabic, conveys the meaning of “shame,” though the root word of ḥayā’ is closely associated with “life” and “living.” The Prophet stated, “Every religion has a quality that is characteristic of that religion, and the characteristic of my religion is ḥayā’,” an internal sense of shame that includes bashfulness and modesty. As children, many of us had someone say to us at times, “Shame on you!” Unfortunately, shame has now come to be viewed as a negative word, as if it were a pejorative. Parents are now often advised to never cause a child to feel shame. The current wisdom largely suggests that adults should always make the child feel good, regardless of his or her behavior. However, doing so eventually disables naturally occurring deterrents to misbehavior.
Hamza Yusuf (Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart)
The most important use to which he had put his memory was that he had stuffed an unprecedented number of mathematical constants and equations into it. Most of us have very few mathematical constants in our mind, perhaps only the up-to-twelve-times multiplication table. Johnny had put in his mind layers and layers of algebraic verities. These were the explanation of his extraordinary powers of mental calculation.
Norman Macrae (John von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, and Much More)
The deterrent influence of law on the lazy man is too absurd to merit consideration. If society were only relieved of the waste and expense of keeping a lazy class, and the equally great expense of the paraphernalia of protection this lazy class requires, the social tables would contain an abundance for all, including even the occasional lazy individual. Besides, it is well to consider that laziness results either from special privileges, or physical and mental abnormalities. Our present insane system of production fosters both, and the most astounding phenomenon is that people should want to work at all now. Anarchism aims to strip labor of its deadening, dulling aspect, of its gloom and compulsion. It aims to make work an instrument of joy, of strength, of color, of real harmony, so that the poorest sort of a man should find in work both recreation and hope.
Emma Goldman (Anarchism and other essays (Illustrated))
Fucking stupid to park there to begin with.” “Usually the bigger worry is regular people and the media thinking they can poke around. But no marked car? Okay. There goes your deterrent. Have it your way. You got any idea why the entrance lights weren’t on last night?” Marino said. “I only know that they weren’t. It’s in my report.” “They’re on now.” Gusts of wind hit them like invisible waves of a stormy surf, and Marino felt as if he was about to be washed off the roof. His hands were stiff, and he pulled his sleeves over them. “Then my guess would be the killer turned them off last night,” Morales said. “Kind of a strange thing to do once he’s already inside the building.” “Maybe he turned them off when he was leaving. So nobody would see him, in case someone was walking by, driving by.” “Then you’re probably not talking about Oscar doing it. Since he never left.
Patricia Cornwell (Scarpetta (Kay Scarpetta, #16))
The revolution in a precapitalist society, which nevertheless aspired to achieve socialism, produced a hybrid which in many respects looked like a parody of socialism. The western worker, however seemingly non-political, followed events very carefully and was quite aware of the famines, the hunger, and the deprivation that the people of Russia suffered after the revolution; he was aware of the terror and persecution they were subjected to. And, unsophisticated as he was, the British worker, the German worker, and even the French one, often wondered: Is this socialism? Have we perhaps in our century-old allegiance to socialism followed a dangerous will-o'-the- wisp? Workers have been asking themselves these questions. Uncertain, hesitant, the Western European worker has preferred to wait and see. The Russian Revolution has acted as a deterrent to revolution in the West.
Isaac Deutscher (Marxism in Our Time)
No biting, babe,” he cautioned, his cock jerking hard in his fist at the thought. Her gaze jumped back to his cock. A slow smile curved her mouth and lit the green of her eyes. “A little fear can add to the excitement of what we’re doing here.” She quoted him nearly word for word—threw his words back in his face and left him wondering if she intended to bite him. “You bite me and there’s going to be all sorts of trouble. I love your ass. I really do. That sweet curve would look good with my handprints on it, all warmed up and nerve endings screaming for more. You’d be so wet for me, baby. Let me up. Let me make you feel good.” “If that’s supposed to be a deterrent, or a punishment, I have to tell you, Trap, it doesn’t sound like one.” She said it with a small smile on her face, once again leaving him wondering if she intended to bite him. Yeah. Okay. That made him hotter
Christine Feehan (Spider Game (GhostWalkers #12))
There, on July 4, 1984, eight years after the Entebbe rescue, Shultz made the following statement to the gathered diplomats and journalists: Many countries have joined the ranks of what we might call the “League of Terror” as full-fledged sponsors and supporters of indiscriminate, and not so indiscriminate, murder. Terrorists and those who support them have definite goals. Terrorist violence is the means of attaining those goals. Can we as a country, can the community of free nations, stand in a purely defensive posture and absorb the blows dealt by terrorists? I think not. From a practical standpoint, a purely passive defense does not provide enough of a deterrent to terrorism and the states that sponsor it. It is time to think long, hard, and seriously about more active means of defense—defense through appropriate preventive or preemptive actions against terrorist groups before they strike.5
Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi: My Story)
As a powerful deterrent to natural play, fear of liability ranks right behind the bogeyman. One goal in the fourth frontier should be a nationwide review of laws governing private land and recreation, especially involving children. This review process should be public; it should invite parents, children, experts on child’s play, and others to offer testimonials. And it should be done with the goal of protecting both the child’s safety and the child’s right to natural play. It should focus on reducing the anxiety of parents and children—and the fear of lawyers that, even if only subconsciously, adds to modern barriers separating children from natural play. As part of this conversation, community associations should review their covenants to decide where they stand on the criminalization of nature play. Public governments should do the same. This issue is not only a question of the letter of the law, but also the spirit.
Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder)
Nuclear deterrence will remain a vital aspect of security. or Nuclear deterrence will have a smaller role in future security. Sources are split in their assessment of the importance of nuclear weapons and the validity of traditional nuclear deterrence in the 2001 - 2015 period. On the one hand are those who see nuclear weapons as decreasingly effective tools in deterring war. On the other are those experts who concede that nuclear weapons may have a different role than at the height of the Cold War, but who argue that they remain the ultimate deterrent, with considerable effect on the actions of even rogue states. Many experts who state a moral opposition to nuclear weapons have translated this into forecasts of a globalized world in which nuclear deterrence no longer makes sense. With greater economic interdependence, this argument runs, even the so-called "rogue states" will be reconciled to the international order, renouncing or reducing their overt or covert nuclear arsenals.
Sam J. Tangredi (Futures of War: A Consensus View of the Future Security Environment, 2010-2035)
All around [the Centre Pompidou and Beauborg Museum], the neighborhood is nothing but a protective zone—remodeling, disinfection, a snobbish and hygienic design—but above all in a figurative sense: it is a machine for making emptiness. It is a bit like the real danger nuclear power stations pose: not lack of security, pollution, explosion, but a system of maximum security that radiates around them, the protective zone of control and deterrence that extends, slowly but surely, over the territory—a technical, ecological, economic, geopolitical glacis. What does the nuclear matter? The station is a matrix in which an absolute model of security is elaborated, which will encompass the whole social field, and which is fundamentally a model of deterrence (it is the same one that controls us globally, under the sign of peaceful coexistence and of the simulation of atomic danger). The same model, with the same proportions, is elaborated at the Center: cultural fission, political deterrence.
Jean Baudrillard (Simulacra and Simulation)
Probably the most dangerous sovereignty issue is Taiwan. Many Chinese people believe that the United States will never follow through with its implied promise to allow Taiwan and China to unite, unless the US is forced to do so. They point out that when the US sells the Taiwanese F-16 fighter jets and other weapons systems it sure doesn’t look like the United States is facilitating the peaceful reunification of China. As a result, they believe that the only way to ensure that China is safe and united is to have the power to oppose the US in the hope that the US will sensibly acquiesce when faced with a greater Chinese power. My understanding is that China is now stronger militarily in that region of the world. Also, the Chinese military is likely to get stronger at a faster pace, though deterrence through mutually assured destruction is most likely the case. So, as I mentioned earlier, I would worry a lot if we were to see an emerging fight over sovereignty, especially if we were to see a “Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis.
Ray Dalio (Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail)
At a certain level, credible deterrence depends on a credible enemy. The Soviet Union disintegrated, but the surviving superpower's instinct to de-escalate intensified: In Kirkuk as in Kandahar, every Lilliputian warlord quickly grasped that you could provoke the infidel Gulliver with relative impunity. Mutually assured destruction had curdled into Massively Applied Desultoriness. Clearly, if one nation is responsible for near half the world's military budget, a lot of others aren't pulling their weight. The Pentagon outspends the Chinese, British, French, Russian, Japanese, German, Saudi, Indian, Italian, South Korean, Brazilian, Canadian, Australian, Spanish, Turkish, and Israeli militaries combined. So why doesn't it feel like that? Well, for exactly that reason: If you outspend every serious rival combined, you're obviously something other than the soldiery of a conventional nation state. But what exactly? The geopolitical sugar daddy is so busy picking up the tab for the global order he's lost all sense of national interest.
Mark Steyn (The Undocumented Mark Steyn)
Terror is an artery. Running unfailing channels of bloodied thoroughfares by dint of the wilds beyond our knowing. Fluctuations and murmurs are audible within the splintered leeway of our preserve as a consequence of interstices modeled in such brutality. This appended artery offers no direction; idle and at times desultory. Bloodstained tracks and avenues guide casualties. Terror, like death, is not complicated, nor is it simple. It is but routine—natural. To call it otherwise is to parsimoniously say that birth is effortless, hurricanes are facile, and earthquakes are meek when they are a lot more. Myths, parables, and allegories lie in the construct of terror. Kings have fallen and succeeded in the yarns of terror. Simple men have been turned into heroes due to terror. Villains have been great orchestrators in the art of terror, allowing sole individuals and denizens to feel their makings. A soul never needed God to feel terror. The most nihilistic can undergo such a dreadful emotion. Animals are perfect examples of this. They are well-equipped creations to the world of terror and death, holding no cognizance to deity or creator. Terror is quite exclusive as it is a function of the mind, conducted by the intersections and throughways of nerves and bounded to that alone. Although it approaches with university, like hunger or sickness, it is selfish by fashion and segregating in nature. But death is quite opposite… death is all embracing. Disregarded and glossed over, it is never reserved or inaudible, especially if you listen hard enough. Death transmits a signal that can be discerned if you listen hard enough. Frail in birthing, the airing is not limited to the clairvoyant, though they are a standard audience. The most simple-minded can hear this. But they choose to ignore it for whatever grounds. Even in the obviousness of it when it comes in dream, awaking its public in night terrors and cold sweats, it should be heeded. In lurk of dark uncertainties the signal should be adhered in this societal horrific caprice. Death is a declaration waiting to broadcast the haunting awareness of our own deterrence. And within these pages is its proclamation.
J.C. Whitfield
As we shall see in the later chapters, Chinese actions in the Taiwan Strait Crises of 1954–58, the Indian border clash of 1962, the conflict with the Soviets along the Ussuri River in 1969–71, and the Sino-Vietnam War of 1979 all had the common feature of a sudden blow followed quickly by a political phase. Having restored the psychological equation, in Chinese eyes, genuine deterrence has been achieved.37 When the Chinese view of preemption encounters the Western concept of deterrence, a vicious circle can result: acts conceived as defensive in China may be treated as aggressive by the outside world; deterrent moves by the West may be interpreted in China as encirclement. The United States and China wrestled with this dilemma repeatedly during the Cold War; to some extent they have not yet found a way to transcend it. Conventional wisdom has ascribed the Chinese decision to enter the Korean War to the American decision to cross the 38th parallel in early October 1950 and the advance of U.N. forces to the Yalu River, the Chinese-Korean border. Another theory was innate Communist
Henry Kissinger (On China)
The Gospels were written in such temporal and geographical proximity to the events they record that it would have been almost impossible to fabricate events. Anyone who cared to could have checked out the accuracy of what they reported. The fact that the disciples were able to proclaim the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies a few weeks after the crucifixion shows that what they proclaimed was true, for they could never have proclaimed the resurrection under such circumstances had it not occurred. The Gospels could not have been corrupted without a great outcry on the part of orthodox Christians. Against the idea that there could have been a deliberate falsifying of the text, no one could have corrupted all the manuscripts. Moreover, there is no precise time when the falsification could have occurred, since, as we have seen, the New Testament books are cited by the church fathers in regular and close succession. The text could not have been falsified before all external testimony, since then the apostles were still alive and could repudiate any such tampering with the Gospels. The miracles of Jesus were witnessed by hundreds of people, friends and enemies alike; that the apostles had the ability to testify accurately to what they saw; that the apostles were of such doubtless honesty and sincerity as to place them above suspicion of fraud; that the apostles, though of low estate, nevertheless had comfort and life itself to lose in proclaiming the gospel; and that the events to which they testified took place in the civilized part of the world under the Roman Empire, in Jerusalem, the capital city of the Jewish nation. Thus, there is no reason to doubt the apostles’ testimony concerning the miracles and resurrection of Jesus. It would have been impossible for so many to conspire together to perpetrate such a hoax. And what was there to gain by lying? They could expect neither honor, nor wealth, nor worldly profit, nor fame, nor even the successful propagation of their doctrine. Moreover, they had been raised in a religion that was vastly different from the one they preached. Especially foreign to them was the idea of the death and resurrection of the Jewish Messiah. This militates against their concocting this idea. The Jewish laws against deceit and false testimony were very severe, which fact would act as a deterrent to fraud. Suppose that no resurrection or miracles occurred: how then could a dozen men, poor, coarse, and apprehensive, turn the world upside down? If Jesus did not rise from the dead, declares Ditton, then either we must believe that a small, unlearned band of deceivers overcame the powers of the world and preached an incredible doctrine over the face of the whole earth, which in turn received this fiction as the sacred truth of God; or else, if they were not deceivers, but enthusiasts, we must believe that these extremists, carried along by the impetus of extravagant fancy, managed to spread a falsity that not only common folk, but statesmen and philosophers as well, embraced as the sober truth. Because such a scenario is simply unbelievable, the message of the apostles, which gave birth to Christianity, must be true. Belief in Jesus’ resurrection flourished in the very city where Jesus had been publicly crucified. If the people of Jerusalem thought that Jesus’ body was in the tomb, few would have been prepared to believe such nonsense as that Jesus had been raised from the dead. And, even if they had so believed, the Jewish authorities would have exposed the whole affair simply by pointing to Jesus’ tomb or perhaps even exhuming the body as decisive proof that Jesus had not been raised. Three great, independently established facts—the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith—all point to the same marvelous conclusion: that God raised Jesus from the dead.
William Lane Craig (Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics)
Thank you." After rounding the couch, the young queen sat her hip on the cushy armrest. Her thoughts went back to the impromptu party in the commissary the night before. “I assume no Mishmorats or Viiduns are missing. Do you know if any real mischief took place last night after we left?” “None you need to worry about,” Ian told her. She could see he was hiding something by the twinkle in his eye. “What happened?” she asked, certain he had a story to tell. “Let’s just say there may be an influx of soldiers visiting your garden.” Her eyes scrunched, unable to guess what he was talking about. “Okay, and why?” Ian’s shoulders jostled with a snicker. “Efren showed off your garden to Kira last night. She discovered the warm pond. You know how your sisters have a fondness for swimming in their underclothes.” “Oh great,” Eena groaned. “But don’t worry about it too much, Queenie, there is a deterrent.” Ian let go a laugh he couldn’t quite stifle. “What deterrent?” she asked, grinning at his amusement. “Shanks likes to swim too.” “Oh?” “Actually, he prefers skinny dipping.” “Ew! Ew, Ian, like I need that image in my head!” (Now you know how I feel on a regular basis,) he said, cracking up. After a moment of grossing out, Eena all but begged Ian, “Please, can we change the subject.
Richelle E. Goodrich (Eena, The Companionship of the Dragon's Soul (The Harrowbethian Saga #6))
There’s a related quartet of views concerning the relationship between free will and moral responsibility. The last word obviously carries a lot of baggage with it, and the sense in which it is used by people debating free will typically calls forth the concept of basic desert, where someone can deserve to be treated in a particular way, where the world is a morally acceptable place in its recognition that one person can deserve a particular reward, another a particular punishment. As such, these views are: There’s no free will, and thus holding people morally responsible for their actions is wrong. Where I sit. (And as will be covered in chapter 14, this is completely separate from forward-looking issues of punishment for deterrent value.) There’s no free will, but it is okay to hold people morally responsible for their actions. This is another type of compatibilism—an absence of free will and moral responsibility coexist without invoking the supernatural. There’s free will, and people should be held morally responsible. This is probably the most common stance out there. There’s free will, but moral responsibility isn’t justified. This is a minority view; typically, when you look closely, the supposed free will exists in a very narrow sense and is certainly not worth executing people about.
Robert M. Sapolsky (Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will)
Ryan was complex—he was big-hearted and caring but also resolute and direct. He once e-mailed me an audio clip of a television news interview he gave after a group of Navy SEALs rescued the captain of the Maersk Alabama tanker ship. Pirates had taken the ship and the captain hostage off the coast of Somalia, Africa. The story was later made into the film Captain Phillips, starring Tom Hanks. A team of Navy SEAL snipers shot and killed all but one of the hostage takers, who had placed themselves and their hostage in a desperate situation. Ryan told the TV reporter, “Despite what your momma told you, violence does solve problems.”1 I understood exactly what Ryan meant—there was no diplomatic or political solution to the crisis, and allowing pirates to take American vessels and crews hostage would set a bad precedent in other parts of the globe. Weeks before, in fact, the pirates had killed other hostages. Ryan’s statement was in no way meant to be bravado; he was merely conveying the fact that many times violence brings about a successful conclusion to a hostage crisis. The SEALs spoke the only language that the Somali pirates understood: violence. Apparently, the SEALs’ response acted as a deterrent, since the Somali pirates have consequently stayed clear of US flagged vessels. Chris Kyle later turned Ryan’s statement into a patch he wore on his hat.
Robert Vera (A Warrior's Faith: Navy SEAL Ryan Job, a Life-Changing Firefight, and the Belief That Transformed His Life)
In the section with edible flowers I stopped short, a bright yellow-and-purple pansy in my hands, hearing my mother's voice from long ago. Pansies are the showgirls of the flower world, but they taste a little grassy, she'd confided to me once as we pulled the weeds in her herb and flower garden. I put a dozen pansies in my cart and moved on to carnations. Carnations are the candy of the flower world, but only the petals. The white base is bitter, she'd instructed, handing me one to try. In my young mind carnations had been in the same category as jelly beans and gumdrops. Treats to enjoy. "Impatiens." I browsed the aisles of Swansons, reading signs aloud. "Marigolds." Marigolds taste a little like citrus, and you can substitute them for saffron. My mother's face swam before my eyes, imparting her kitchen wisdom to little Lolly. It's a poor woman's saffron. Also insects hate them; they're a natural bug deterrent. I placed a dozen yellow-and-orange marigolds into my cart along with a couple different varieties of lavender and some particularly gorgeous begonias I couldn't resist. I had a sudden flash of memory: my mother's hand in her floral gardening glove plucking a tuberous begonia blossom and popping it in her mouth before offering me one. I was four or five years old. It tasted crunchy and sour, a little like a lemon Sour Patch Kid. I liked the flavor and sneaked a begonia flower every time I was in the garden for the rest of the summer.
Rachel Linden (The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie)
Conservative foreign policy is in the business of shaping habits of behavior, not winning hearts and minds. It announces red lines sparingly but enforces them unsparingly. It is willing to act decisively, or preventively, to punish or prevent blatant transgressions of order—not as a matter of justice but in the interests of deterrence. But it knows it cannot possibly punish or prevent every transgression. It champions its values consistently and confidently, but it doesn’t conflate its values and its interests. It wants to let citizens go about their business as freely and easily as possible. But it knows that security is a prerequisite for civil liberty, not a threat to it. Where it can use a finger, or a hand, to tilt the political scales of society toward liberal democracy, it will do so. But it won’t attempt to tilt the scales in places where the tilting demands all of its weight and strength and endurance. It does not waste its energy or time chasing diplomatic symbols: its ambitions do not revolve around a Nobel Peace Prize. It prefers liberal autocracy to illiberal democracy, because the former is likelier to evolve into democracy than the latter is to evolve into liberalism. It knows the value of hope, and knows also that economic growth based on enterprise and the freest possible movement of goods, services, capital, and labor is the best way of achieving it. And it is mindful of the claims of conscience, which is strengthened by faith.
Bret Stephens (America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder)
Despite our attachment to the notion of free will, most of us know that disorders of the brain can trump the best intentions of the mind. This shift in understanding represents progress toward a deeper, more consistent, and more compassionate view of our common humanity—and we should note that this is progress away from religious metaphysics. Few concepts have offered greater scope for human cruelty than the idea of an immortal soul that stands independent of all material influences, ranging from genes to economic systems. Within a religious framework, a belief in free will supports the notion of sin—which seems to justify not only harsh punishment in this life but eternal punishment in the next. And yet, ironically, one of the fears attending our progress in science is that a more complete understanding of ourselves will dehumanize us. Viewing human beings as natural phenomena need not damage our system of criminal justice. If we could incarcerate earthquakes and hurricanes for their crimes, we would build prisons for them as well. We fight emerging epidemics—and even the occasional wild animal—without attributing free will to them. Clearly, we can respond intelligently to the threat posed by dangerous people without lying to ourselves about the ultimate origins of human behavior. We will still need a criminal justice system that attempts to accurately assess guilt and innocence along with the future risks that the guilty pose to society. But the logic of punishing people will come undone—unless we find that punishment is an essential component of deterrence or rehabilitation.
Sam Harris (Free Will)
The answer is… nothing, except the force of deterrence. Peace with a dictatorship, or at least nonbelligerence with it, is achieved not by debilitating concessions but by powerful deterrence—not by weakness but by strength. The dictatorship that I was most concerned with was actually not Syria but Iran. On February 19, 1993, I published an article titled “The Great Danger.” “The greatest danger to Israel’s existence is not found in the Arab countries, but in Iran,”3 I wrote. I consistently argued that we must take action to prevent Iran from realizing its nuclear ambitions. All these arguments, based on history and common sense, were dismissed by the foreign policy elites in both Israel and Washington. The election of Rabin was seen as an opportunity to break the logjam and make a historic peace, beginning with Syria. But first one obstacle had to be removed. The Ford administration had given Israel a commitment that the Golan Heights would effectively remain in Israel’s hands. President Clinton’s secretary of state, Warren Christopher, was dispatched to Israel to change that. Christopher devised a new secret agreement by which the US would receive from Israel “a deposit”—an advanced promise to cede the Golan Heights in exchange for a future peace deal. This was required because Hafez Assad, the Syrian dictator, insisted on first receiving such an Israeli commitment before he would even consider moving forward with any political negotiations with Israel. As would later become evident, Assad actually had no intention of making a formal peace, but the Rabin government nonetheless agreed to a full withdrawal from the Heights in exchange for a peace agreement.
Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi: My Story)
CYBERPOWER is now a fundamental fact of global life. In political, economic, and military affairs, information and information technology provide and support crucial elements of operational activities. U.S. national security efforts have begun to incorporate cyber into strategic calculations. Those efforts, however, are only a beginning. The critical conclusion...is that the United States must create an effective national and international strategic framework for the development and use of cyber as part of an overall national security strategy. Such a strategic framework will have both structural and geopolitical elements. Structural activities will focus on those parts of cyber that enhance capabilities for use in general. Those categories include heightened security, expanded development of research and human capital, improved governance, and more effective organization. Geopolitical activities will focus on more traditional national security and defense efforts. Included in this group are sophisticated development of network-centric operations; appropriate integrated planning of computer network attack capabilities; establishment of deterrence doctrine that incorporates cyber; expansion of effective cyber influence capabilities; carefully planned incorporation of cyber into military planning (particularly stability operations); establishment of appropriate doctrine, education, and training regarding cyber by the Services and nonmilitary elements so that cyber can be used effectively in a joint and/or multinational context; and generation of all those efforts at an international level, since cyber is inherently international and cannot be most effectively accomplished without international partners.
Franklin D. Kramer (Cyberpower and National Security)
This is why, from this point on, no debt will be paid off. It can at best be bought back at a knock-down price and put back on to a debt market — the public sector borrowing requirement, the national debt, th e world deb t — having once again become an exchange value. It is unlikely the debt will ever be called in, and this is what gives it its incalculable value. For, suspended as it is in this way, it is our only insurance against time. Unlike the countdown, whic h signifies th e exhaustion of time, the indefinitely deferred debt is our guarantee that time itself is inexhaustible. Now, we very much need assuring about time in this way at the very poin t whe n the future itself is tendin g to be wholly consume d in real time . Clearing the debt, balancing up the books, writing off Third World debt — these are things not even to be contemplated. It is only the disequilibrium of the debt, its proliferation, its promise of infinity, which keeps us going. The global, planetary debt clearly has no meaning in traditional terms of obligation and credit. On the other hand, it is our true collective claim on each other — a symbolic claim, by whic h persons, companies and nations find themselves bound to one another through lack. Each is bound to the other (even the banks) by their virtual bankruptcy , as accomplices are bound by their crime. All assured of existing for each other in the shade of a debt which cannot be settled or written off, since the repayment of the accumulated world debt would take far more than the funds available. The only sense of it, then, is to bind all civilized human beings into the same destiny as creditors. Just as nuclear weapons, stockpiled across the world to a point of considerable planetary overkill, have no other meaning than to bind all human beings into a single destiny of threat and deterrence.
Jean Baudrillard (Screened Out)
Reader's Digest (Reader's Digest USA) - Clip This Article on Location 56 | Added on Friday, May 16, 2014 12:06:55 AM Words of Lasting Interest Looking Out for The Lonely One teacher’s strategy to stop violence at its root BY GLENNON DOYLE MELTON  FROM MOMASTERY.COM PHOTOGRAPH BY DAN WINTERS A few weeks ago, I went into my son Chase’s class for tutoring. I’d e-mailed Chase’s teacher one evening and said, “Chase keeps telling me that this stuff you’re sending home is math—but I’m not sure I believe him. Help, please.” She e-mailed right back and said, “No problem! I can tutor Chase after school anytime.” And I said, “No, not him. Me. He gets it. Help me.” And that’s how I ended up standing at a chalkboard in an empty fifth-grade classroom while Chase’s teacher sat behind me, using a soothing voice to try to help me understand the “new way we teach long division.” Luckily for me, I didn’t have to unlearn much because I’d never really understood the “old way we taught long division.” It took me a solid hour to complete one problem, but I could tell that Chase’s teacher liked me anyway. She used to work with NASA, so obviously we have a whole lot in common. Afterward, we sat for a few minutes and talked about teaching children and what a sacred trust and responsibility it is. We agreed that subjects like math and reading are not the most important things that are learned in a classroom. We talked about shaping little hearts to become contributors to a larger community—and we discussed our mutual dream that those communities might be made up of individuals who are kind and brave above all. And then she told me this. Every Friday afternoon, she asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student who they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her. And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, she takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her, and studies them. She looks for patterns. Who is not getting requested by anyone else? Who can’t think of anyone to request? Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated? Who had a million friends last week and none this week? You see, Chase’s teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or “exceptional citizens.” Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she’s pinning down—right away—who’s being bullied and who is doing the bullying. As a teacher, parent, and lover of all children, I think this is the most brilliant Love Ninja strategy I have ever encountered. It’s like taking an X-ray of a classroom to see beneath the surface of things and into the hearts of students. It is like mining for gold—the gold being those children who need a little help, who need adults to step in and teach them how to make friends, how to ask others to play, how to join a group, or how to share their gifts. And it’s a bully deterrent because every teacher knows that bullying usually happens outside her eyeshot and that often kids being bullied are too intimidated to share. But, as she said, the truth comes out on those safe, private, little sheets of paper. As Chase’s teacher explained this simple, ingenious idea, I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “How long have you been using this system?” I said. Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine. Good Lord. This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that all violence begins with disconnection. All
Anonymous
Have a spray deterrents (like bitter apple) around the house to spray objects or furnishings that your puppy may show an interest in chewing. Remind everyone to spray the item, not the puppy.
Sarah Hodgson (Puppies For Dummies)
It’s useful to contrast the missileers’ dysfunctional culture with that of their navy counterparts who work in nuclear submarines. At first glance, the two groups seem roughly similar: Both spend vast amounts of time isolated from the rest of society, both are tasked with memorizing and executing tedious protocols, and both are oriented toward Cold War nuclear deterrence missions whose time has passed. Where they differ, however, is in the density of the belonging cues in their respective environments. Sailors in submarines have close physical proximity, take part in purposeful activity (global patrols that include missions beyond deterrence), and are part of a career pathway that can lead to the highest positions in the navy. Perhaps as a result, the nuclear submarine fleet has thus far mostly avoided the kinds of problems that plague the missileers, and in many cases have developed high-performing cultures.
Daniel Coyle (The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups)
Massive civil disobedience is a powerful weapon under civilized conditions where the law safeguards the citizens' right of peaceful demonstrations. In civilized society the law serves as a deterrent against lawless forces that would destroy the democratic process. But where there is a breakdown of the law, the individual citizen has a right to protect his person, his family, his home and his property. To me this is so simple and proper that it is self-evident.
Robert F. Williams
There are three methods of dealing with offenders against society once they are apprehended: retribution, deterrence, and rehabilitation. Prison officials and men generally lay claim more or less to advocating all three. At present the public thinks that offenders should be punished. There are many different reasons why this is so, among them the belief that the average criminal responds to nothing but fear and penalties. Yet there is some real evidence that only through the very opposite of fear and punishment--intelligent good will--can men be reached and challenged and changes brought about.
Bayard Rustin (Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin)
There are in the body politic, economic and social, many and grave evils and there is urgent necessity for the sternest war upon them... I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform or in book, magazine or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful. The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth... “...The effort to make financial or political profit out of their destruction of character can only result in public calamity. Gross and reckless assaults on character, whether on the stump or in newspaper or magazine or book, create a morbid and vicious public sentiment, and at the same time act as a profound deterrent to able men of normal sensitiveness and tend to prevent them from entering the public service at any price.
Dan Abrams (Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense: The Courtroom Battle to Save His Legacy – A NYT Bestseller Historical Nonfiction Study of a Great American Trial)
Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India by J. S. Furnivall Page 311: Moreover, within the economic sphere there are no common standards of conduct beyond those prescribed by law. The European has his own standard of decency as to what, even in business, ‘is not done’; so also have the Chinese, the Indian and the native [of Burma]. All have their own ideas as to what is right and proper, but on this matter they have different ideas, and the only idea common to all members of all sections is the idea of gain. In a homogeneous society the desire of profit is controlled to some extent by social will, and if anyone makes profits by sharp practice he will offend the social conscience and incur moral, and perhaps legal, penalties. If, for example, he employs sweated labour, the social conscience, if sufficiently alert and powerful, may penalize him because aware, either instinctively or by rational conviction, that such conduct cuts at the root of common social life. But in the tropics the European who, from humanitarian motives or through enlightened self-interest, treats his employees well, risks being forced out of business by Indians or Chinese with different standards. The only deterrent to unsocial conduct in production is the legal penalty to which those are liable who can be brought to trial and convicted according to the rules of evidence of infringing some positive law. In supply as in demand, in production as in consumption, the abnormal activity of economic forces, free of social restrictions, is an essential character of a plural society.
J. S. Furnivall
You must plan, and you must train, for the battle you don’t want to fight, against the enemy you don’t want to face, on the ground you don’t want to defend. Then, and only then, do you have a credible deterrent.
Michael P. Kube-McDowell (Before the Storm (Star Wars: The Black Fleet Crisis, #1))
Procrastination and laziness in sales and business lead to – nowhere and a lean and lousy bank account. It has been said that Procrastination is the opportunity’s assassin and that is true. Procrastination is one of the main reasons why so many fail to effectively manage their time. Don’t be that guy or gal. Procrastination is a deterrent that sabotages our own efforts. Overcoming it is essential if you want your business to succeed.
Chris J. Gregas
I believe in capital punishment. I believe in carrying out justice for those who commit unspeakable crimes, retribution for those who have been horribly victimized, and strong deterrence for the community to prevent horrific crime from happening again. -p. 144
Ted Cruz (One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History)
That’s called a beautyberry bush. Those flowers are going to turn into bright purple berries by August. Good for pollinators.” It’s a really interesting plant. I wander off the trail to inspect it more closely, crouching to rub one of the leaves between my fingers. “These are a natural mosquito deterrent. They have a chemical called callicarpenal, and mosquitos don’t like them. Maybe I should get some for the patio.
Melanie Jacobson (Betting on the Best Friend's Brother)
It is not the real punishment. The only effectual one, the only deterrent and softening one, lies in the recognition of sin by conscience.” - Father Zosima
Fyodor Dostoevsky
I mean, socially ostracizing people is one of the oldest punishments there is. Shame is a powerful deterrent. But it relies on you to participate.
Deb Caletti (Plan A)
There is the belief that punishment should be retribution, that it should make the offender suffer,” she continued. “Others believe that the main purpose of punishment should be to help the victim feel better. Should a punishment be so terrible that it deters others from committing the same crime? Is punishment ever a deterrent or do offenders always believe they will get away with their crime?
Deborah Ellis (The Cat at the Wall)
In the weeks following my arrest, many of my family members were rounded up by the military as a form of collective punishment for what I had done and for the global attention it had garnered. In a single night, six of my relatives were arrested in predawn raids. Israel’s notoriously racist far-right defense minister justified the arrests by saying, “Dealing with Tamimi and her family has to be severe, exhaust all legal measures and generate deterrence.” And so, the occupation forces continued to target and punish my relatives. It got so bad that some of the parents, with the help of local activists, organized teach-ins to prepare the youth in the village for arrest, blindfolding them to simulate the experience. They also carried out mock interrogations and educated them about their rights.
Ahed Tamimi (They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom)
To the gene, however, faster aging is irrelevant, because aging and death generally occur long after reproduction. If the animal has offspring, the gene will survive even after the individual animal perishes. Evolution requires constant renewal, and longevity is a deterrent to this goal, so it can be considered somewhat “unnatural.” The gene “rejuvenates” itself by letting an older individual die and renewing itself in that person’s children. Evolution favors constant renewal over longevity.
Jason Fung Smith (The Longevity Solution: Rediscovering Centuries-Old Secrets to a Healthy, Long Life)
Her voice was impatient with rage. ‘They say the only deterrent to terror is to kill terrorists. It’s the same argument that dictators have made to murder opponents throughout history. Say it whatever way you want – whether it comes from the mouth of a dictator or as an excuse to repress people of different political views – it’s the same old serpent.’ Halima swept her hand across the evening. ‘All this violence. The idea that killing people solves problems. War is all they know, and they are good at it, so they kill people thinking that war will bring peace. It never brings peace. There is only a pause in the war.’ She was quiet for a moment, struggling with her indignation. ‘They are not a kind people. Some are kind, some are wise, but not the politicians. The opposite of kindness is not cruelty. It is indifference. All this’ – she looked across the bombed city – ‘is indifference. Our suffering isn’t about who we are. It is about who they are. Airplanes and tanks give them the power to be indifferent.’ She sipped her drink, and her voice lowered and softened. ‘Israel’s prime ministers – Sharon, Olmert, Netanyahu – believe they can solve these problems with toughness, but things have changed. The Islamic faith has spread. For better or worse.’ Her hand went to her heart. When she spoke again, her soprano voice was strident. ‘How will they frighten jihadists who love martyrdom?’ She shook her head. ‘God forbid.’ ‘You’re wrong,’ Analise said. ‘Not all Israelis are that way.’ ‘Je le croirai, guard je le verrai.’ She paused. ‘Let them show it.’ She waved dismissively. ‘Beirut survived the Romans, the Ottomans, the French. The land and the people endure. That land has defeated stronger enemies than Israel. Israel is an idea. Ideas come and go. Land endures.’ She lowered her head and looked out at the darkened city. Her words came in quiet lament. ‘The scourge of this land is the curse of revenge.
Paul Vidich (Beirut Station)
And yet Safeway was still hesitant to walk away from the partnership. What if the Theranos technology did turn out to be game-changing? It might spend the next decade regretting passing up on it. The fear of missing out was a powerful deterrent.
John Carreyrou (Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup)
Meissner’s damning admission—that the sustained loss of hundreds of migrant lives on America’s doorstep each year was not enough to cause the government to re-evaluate policy—reveals the extent to which the desert has been weaponized against migrants, and lays bare the fact that the hundreds who continue to die there every year are losing their lives by design. Deterrence-based enforcement has steered the immigration politics of every administration since that of President Clinton, and has resulted in an official tally of more than six thousand migrant deaths along the southern border between 2000 and 2016. This figure, it should be said, does nothing to account for the thousands more who have been reported as disappeared and never found, not to mention those whose disappearances are never reported in the first place.
Francisco Cantú (The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border)
You will be called out/in as you do antiracism work. Making mistakes is how you learn and do better going forward. Being called out/in is not a deterrent to the work.
Layla F. Saad (Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor)
Zain is spelled (ZYN). The three letters enumerate to 67 (or using Nun Final 717) and mean “sword.” A sword is a weapon of both offense and defense. It is the weapon of invoked force. It can be brandished as a deterrent or wielded to enforce the decisions of authority. A sword is also an instrument of division, separating one thing from another (like your enemy's head from his shoulders), and of discretion and analysis, separating one idea from another. In a way, it is just the opposite of Vau, which unites things.
Lon Milo DuQuette (The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford: Dilettante's Guide to What You Do and Do Not Need to Know to Become a Qabalist)
The political situation of the United States is far gone, and so is the country’s military situation. To put it bluntly, we are presently vulnerable to a mass missile strike from China, North Korea, and Russia. Looking at the incapable Mr. Biden, the United States is already pre-decapitated. You can paint whatever Happy Face you want on it, but fraudulent optimism will not stop a Russian or Chinese missile when deterrence finally fails. And yes, deterrence is about to fail. The signs are visible on every side. Our nuclear missiles are overaged and rotting. We will not have new replacement missiles or warheads until 2029.
J.R. Nyquist