We go to war not because we ignore the costs, but because we know there are costs, but we are willing to pay those costs because we get something from the war which we wouldn't get otherwise.
— Christopher BlattmanIf I ask better questions, they come up with better answers.
Arguably, though, it could be more comparable to the rise of Homo sapiens itself, or even to the origin of life on Earth.
We are the first generation that through its neglect could destroy the relationship between humans and the planet, and perhaps the last generation that can prevent dangerous climate change.
Robustness is being in a good place and having a plan, resilience is being able to implement that plan and stay in a good place.
The plan is the lists, milestones and responsibilities- not the document that describes them.
We recently set ourselves the goal of educating 10 million children in the next decade; it's ambitious, but we're attracting incredible people and partners to help us on this journey, and I genuinely believe we'll achieve it.
Like everyone, investors get hurt by the implicit loss of purchasing power of each dollar inflation implies. However that is only the tip of the iceberg, as this loss is likely to be compounded by the tendency for traditional investments to suffer additional erosion.
China for example, aims to increase their buying by 400,000 barrels a day in the last quarter of 2012, and will be adding over 750,000 barrels of new refining capacity. That economic engine is still turning, but what people want is to be able to price that trade-flow.
Any time you get angry, frustrated or disappointed, it's worth remembering that those emotions are just a first draft. You would never publish a draft version of your blog, right? The same is true of emotion- a lot of people just go ahead and 'publish' – internalising how they feel – without stopping for a second and thinking that maybe they ought to do a revision.
We have to recognise that if we ignore or downplay the human side, we could lose. That, I think, is really the key insight for why and how things should be done differently.
Most people do not realise what will happen when they cross the divide- they've already accepted a story about who's on the other side, and have already decided that the other is frightening, delusional and dangerous. In truth, we are all confused. This era is nothing if not confusing. We all see some things with clarity, we all see some things upside down, and we all have blind-spots.
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.