From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
The discovery of new cosmic truths doesn't negate our prior understanding. For instance, despite Einstein's theory of relativity extending beyond the scope of Newton's laws, the latter will remain as valid a million years from now as they are today.
Since citizens' militias are anachronistic, gun owners now use the second amendment merely to defend individual gun ownership, as if that somehow offers protection against tyranny. A reckless, right-wing Supreme Court has agreed with them. As a result, gun ownership has become perversely linked to freedom in the vast gun-owning American sub-culture. But, instead of protection of freedom, Americans nowadays are getting massive bloodshed and fear.
Entrepreneurship is a way of life. For me, entrepreneurship has always been about being a builder. Whether it's about undiscovered artists or working with companies pre-launch, the build process is what attracts me.
When life gets easy, to feel alive, we need to do something hard.
I grew up in the age of space exploration, reading Asimov, Le Guin and Clarke, getting lost in the worlds they had created which were littered with aliens, robots and AI. For me, I think it was a combination of Star Trek, far too much Asimov and the niggling question of understanding ourselves better through computing technologies.
I think in the past, it was more of a zero sum game, and now I think we can play in a positive sum game, which really plays into the whole greenhouse concept, because we can all actually grow together and not feel like we are needing to take in order to achieve.
Islamism is an ideology that is imported from Europe in the 1930s onwards. It was fascism and communism that were imported by Qutb, who became the ideologue of modern day Islamism. He wrote a book called 'milestones' – equivalent (and sharing many similarities) to Das Kapital or Mein Kampf.
At one site, a mature man carrying a white flag was shot dead by an Israeli soldier. To those less experienced or with a 'soft' generally compassionate outlook, this might immediately seem a clear case of unlawful killing – a 'war crime'. However, the general offered a different perspective. He considered the terrain and highlighted the dilemma faced by the soldier in high-risk situations: might the soldier be genuinely uncertain over whether the white flag genuinely signified surrender?
There's a tension amongst the countries who belong to, and who have led, international organisations. Are they there to solve problems which no country can alone solve? Or – are they there to impose one particular view of the world on the rest of the world?
the distinguishing characteristic of humanity is our awareness that death is inevitable and the disinclination to accept that fact. Very simply, Becker says that we're just like all other creatures- we want to survive- but the difference is that we're able to do it using our vast intelligence. We can imagine things that don't exist and make them real.
You are pure awareness. That's who the 'I' is. And awareness is energy. You are pure energy, which is the essence of awareness. Awareness is concentrated energy.
Winning is good, losing is bad! If you're winning, you can give back — to your family, institutions of your choice, and your local communities. If you're losing, your pockets are empty.