From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Upon arriving in Germany, swimming became my sanctuary during a time when I had no other home. Being new to the country and unfamiliar with its swimming culture, the sport offered me solace and a sense of belonging. It provided a common language that allowed me to connect with others effortlessly, facilitating a smoother integration into German society.
Our contemporary society uses this statistically insignificant variation to support the 'reasoning' behind cultural, social, economic and political practices that cause hundreds of millions of people, every day, to face discrimination.
If someone is commanding in their presence, it directly correlates to how a group judges their skill level! Someone who is commanding in presence is often followed over someone who is far more effective but who is quiet, hesitant, or timid.
We are now living with a great deal of uncertainty, which will increase. As a society, we have to be prepared for threats we cannot conceive, we must build resilience not just in developed countries, but particularly in conflict areas.
Poor families in the informal economy are both producers and consumers. In both roles, they need access to financial services at least as much as wealthier producers and consumers. They may even need it more because they have far less regular income and expense streams and less of an economic cushion to begin with.
We live in a deeply connected world, and if we want stability and prosperity in our connected world, we have to look after the weakest links as well as the strongest parts.
I often tell my students to recognize the implicit messages our clothing conveys about our mood, social status, and more. Soon, our entrance into a room will announce our presence not just visually or audibly, but also electromagnetically. Our interactions with others will encompass sight, sound, and this electromagnetic identity.
Too often when we find someone disagreeing with us, our question is about why. Why do you believe this ridiculous thing? What tends to work better is a how question... This kind of approach helps to view the real complexity of a situation and reveals gaps in knowledge.
Whether it's real-life viruses, or dangerous ideas, they tend to be spread by super spreaders. We know that 20% of infected people do 80% of the spreading of COVID-19. We also know that on Facebook, there is a relatively identifiable cohort of super spreaders of disinformation and misinformation.
A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation.
There's no question that Facebook could have done much, much more in the last few years to address the problem. I don't think we can inoculate people against crazy ideas, they will always have takers- but we can certainly improve the way that platforms like Facebook operate because they don't have any incentive at the moment to restrict the spread of harmful content.
They help us to understand that there is no 'us' versus 'them', and that 'The Other' is, in fact, my brother, my sister; the other is me.