From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Our technological distraction is a first order political problem, worldwide. If digital media has become the lens through which we understand and engage with others, we need to figure out how to make that the right kind of lens.
We need to get out of the peacetime footing that we are on and we need to get onto a wartime footing against this climate crisis. During World War II, the US allocated 50% of GDP roughly to fighting, and I believe we need to get to 50% of GDP sustained over 5 to 10 years.
In a geopolitical recession, suddenly the biggest macro risks are by their nature political. And you focus less on growth and more on stability and resilience, and that's a problem because the free market model tells you 'don't focus on resilience and stability, focus first and foremost on growth and everything else will take care of itself'.
When individual countries hit a crisis, they've got 2 options, they can either look after themselves (at the cost of their neighbours) or they can create rules which they (and everyone else) will abide by, which requires institutions.
Today's world reveals a sad truth: impunity for international crimes is more common than prosecutions. Justice and accountability remain the exception rather than the rule.
If the government is too abrupt is abandoning a century-old social convention, it will destabilize inflation expectations, introduce a risk premium into bond pricing, and generally induce unexpected macroeconomic instabilities.
We have reason to be optimistic, but until the public get angry enough about homelessness with politicians rather than the homeless, nothing will change. Politicians respond to public opinions that they believe are electorally significant.
By keeping people feeling they are on the wrong side of history morally, or on the wrong side of the argument intellectually, and by doing so using rhetorical tricks, they are very effective at keeping people on the defensive.
The single greatest deficit that Europe faces today is not a budget, current-account or trade deficit… but a growth one. With stronger growth, a lot of these problems would be quite a bit easier to handle, if not to resolve.
The ice is neither left nor right, it is neither Republican nor Democrat, it is simply melting. The consequences of the sea ice melting are enormous and will be felt everywhere from Texas to China.
Many of our health problems challenges cannot be solved within one specific border. In the old days, we had 'tropical medicine' which was a colonial approach. This led to international-health during the cold-wars which simply meant the health of those far away. Now we have the concept of 'global health' which reflects the globalisation of the world.
Comedy chips at people in power, particularly those who use tyrannical power. It strips their fake respect, and destroys the fake fear they create; and these are people who rely on being respected, and being feared. Comedy and satire make the emperor look naked.