People often ask me how I feel about my invention being used to kill people every day and the AK being a common weapon of ethnic conflicts. I want to make it clear that I created my assault rifle to protect my country. You can blame politicians for its spreading out of control on a global scale.
Interpretation
The inventor of the AK-47 reflects on the unintended consequences of his creation, emphasizing his initial intention to protect rather than harm.
In this quote, Mikhail Kalashnikov expresses his ambiguity regarding the use of his invention, the AK-47, in violent conflicts. He highlights the difference between his original intent, which was to safeguard his country, and the way his creation has been utilized in various ethnic conflicts around the world. Kalashnikov suggests that the responsibility for the weapon's proliferation and misuse lies not with the inventor, but with the political leaders who wield it for violent purposes.
In practice
During a peace talk, to highlight the necessity of responsible use of technology.
When a young man, I read somewhere the following: God the Almighty said, 'All that is too complex is unnecessary, and it is simple that is needed.' So this has been my lifetime motto – I have been creating weapons to defend the borders of my fatherland, to be simple and reliable.
My spiritual pain is unbearable. I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed people's lives, then can it be that I a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?
The fact that people die because of an AK-47 is not because of the designer, but because of politics.
It is the Germans who are responsible for the fact that I became a fabricator of arms. If not for them, I would have constructed agricultural machines. (...) If someone asks me how I can sleep at night knowing that my arms have killed millions of people, I respond that I have no problem sleeping, my conscience is clean. I constructed arms to defend my country.
Anti-social behavior is a trait of intelligence in a world full of conformists.
How vainly men themselves amaze, / To win the palm, the oak, or bays; / And their incessant labours see / Crowned from some single herb or tree.
Under the all-encompassing aid system, too many places in Africa continue to flounder under inept, corrupt and despotic regimes who spend their time courting and catering to the demands of the army of aid organizations.
Above or Love, Hope, Hate or Fear, It lives all passionless and pure: An age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years in moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing, O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly; A nameless and eternal thing, Forgetting what it was to die.
I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think about today..." "No, that's giving up... I'm still hpoing that yesterday will get better.
The mercy of the world is you don't know what's going to happen.
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