From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
This has been a heart-wrenching day, and I will never forget the destruction and suffering that I have witnessed. I have visited the scenes of many natural disasters around the world, but nothing like this. The scale is so large: so many people, in so many places, in so much need…
Polarisation presents as a spectrum where people go from disagreeing with each other, to disliking each other and eventually to dehumanising each other. We know that the most important thing it takes to prevent dehumanisation is systemic, regular face to face interaction with the people that might otherwise be dehumanised.
It's only the latest iteration of post-1980s capitalism which has disconnected us so much from the common good, our collective interest in care and compassion. Before that, capitalism wasn't really like that – and if you think about the style of capitalism we observe in continental Europe and Asia – there's been a much higher emphasis on community.
Because of connectivity, India has increased mobility. People from Orissa work in Gujarat, people from Gujarat can start businesses elsewhere. Because of telecommunications, a farmer can now get information on seeds and fertilisers.
Even if we end up with better regulations, we'll still have 300 million guns washing around the US, and that's going to be a huge problem for decades, because guns last a long time.
If you go to any rave, or any football event, you will find people chanting in a rhythm- human beings do that. We have this sense to participate and organise- Music lets you rediscover your humanity, and your connection to humanity. When you listen to Mozart with other people, you feel that somehow- we're all in this together.
Society feels broken because society is broken. When the most powerful nations in the world are spending billions of dollars on ways to kill each-other, and a fraction of those resources on ways to heal each other, we're broken.
Before we came to market, everything in retail was about how cheaply you could pay your employees- and unfortunately, particularly women. There was an attitude in retail that said, '... well, your female employees are just going to get married, have children at 23 and leave, so why invest in them?' The reality of the world was that 60% of university graduates were women- and most women were having children later, entering professional careers.
In order to fix bias you have to admit to them, you have to admit they exist and bring them out of the shadows. Then you can call them out.
The Internet is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies, it's becoming our typewriter and our printing press, our map and our clock, our calculator and our telephone, our post office and our library, our radio and our TV.
A lot of business leaders were watching all this and seeing it as a warning call… they felt that they had to figure out how to operate better or risk losing their operating license.
Connection is not a nice to have. When we lose the right kinds of connections with others, we start to feel we don't exist.