Emotions are the brain's way of making us pay attention immediately to what is most important so that we can react as quickly as possible. In evolution, that meant 'survival' – the rustle in the bushes may be our next meal or may make us its next meal – something that we have to chase, or run away from – and in either case, we don't want to have to stop and think.

I never had an ethical dilemma with what was going on as a child, it was about pure survival. The kids that survived were the ones who were clever enough to continually get a meal.

There's an innate tendency in human-beings to sort ourselves by how much we want power. Some of us don't want it at all, some of us are absolutely obsessed with it. The interaction between the individual and the system is therefore critical.

There is a rationality to believing in conspiracy theories that purport to identify somebody acting in secret to harm or gain an advantage that's illegal or immoral, over somebody else without their knowledge or consent.

They tend to have quite a power of persuasion and dominance in person. That gets diminished when they are reduced to words on a page.