On Thursday, Noam Chomsky practiced his right to free speech by telling a crowd of nearly 800 that the human race is doomed — unless it takes action.
“Once you go up the scale of intelligence, life becomes less probable,” Chomsky said.
Chomsky, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguistics professor and prominent intellectual, appeared in Gerrard Hall and the Student Union as part of the second annual First Amendment Day.
The first event, hosted by UNC’s Parr Center for Ethics, was a brief lecture on the environment followed by several questions. The second event was a Q&A session where students had an hour to ask Chomsky whatever they wanted.
He said society’s dependence on fossil fuels could be disastrous for the human race. He also discussed corporations’ roles in making the public dependant on fossil fuels through what he called “social engineering.”
“We had preexisting infrastructures that were dismantled,” he said, referencing the railroad and trolley systems of the past.
In the Q&A session, he answered questions ranging from freedom of speech to the two-party system.
“The spectrum in which they work is pretty narrow,” he said, referring to the two-party system. He said that the U.S. political system is a one party system — “The Business Party.”
He also expressed concern over freedom of speech, noting that a person can be charged with supporting terrorists if they give advice to a known terrorist organization.
