
“Now that we can do anything, what will we do?”
Massive Change (2004)
2000s, Thus Spake Stallman (2000)
Context: Religious people often say that religion offers absolute certainty about right and wrong; "god tells them" what it is. Even supposing that the aforementioned gods exist, and that the believers really know what the gods think, that still does not provide certainty, because any being no matter how powerful can still be wrong. Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can. Injustice is happening now; suffering is happening now. We have choices to make now. To insist on absolute certainty before starting to apply ethics to life decisions is a way of choosing to be amoral.
“Now that we can do anything, what will we do?”
Massive Change (2004)
“Am I miffed now? No! It's the best thing that could have happened. We were saved! We were saved!”
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean [Episode 1]
Context: We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.
Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (28 May 1934); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker
“We would do absolutely nothing. Now that's a blunt, truthful answer.”
When asked what a Labor government would do if Indonesia were to invade East Timor, in an interview three days before the invasion. Sydney Morning Herald (5 December 1975)
2010s, 2015, Presidential Bid Announcement (June 16, 2015)
Speech as Home Secretary on the UK and European Union https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretarys-speech-on-the-uk-eu-and-our-place-in-the-world (25 April 2016)