202209121025 The world wants new men

The earth does not want new continents, but new men.¹

Spoken by Captain Nemo in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

Captain Nemo is a supporter of revolutionaries around the world and a strong enemy of colonialism. He was a revolutionary in his own country (drafted originally by Verne as a Polish revolutionary against Russia, but later changed to an Indian one against Britain) and lost his family and friends to his oppressor. He renounced his citizenship of all nations of men and took to the seas, fighting (and sinking) colonial ships as well as accumulating riches and giving them to revolutionary causes around the world.

In this context, the quote is lamenting that land and nations are not needed to solve the problems of the world. Instead, men need to fundamentally change ethically and morally in favor of freedom, liberty, and self-determination.

In a broader context, this quote could be interpreted as a general sentiment to re-evaluate the direction something is going in. In tech, if someone said "we need better advertisements that respect people's privacy", I might reply with this quote meaning "we don't need better ads, we need a fundamental shift from this paradigm."