Wisdom in fragments

On the whole, science is seen as one of the most trusted professions- and we need to retain that trust. It is essential that the public knows how deeply science and technology affect their lives.

Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry for Ribosome Structure Studies

In the United States, we had over $940 billion dollars of fraud in 2017, that's almost $1 trillion. There isn't enough law enforcement in the world to deal with that.

Notorious con artist and impostor who inspired the film "Catch Me If You Can

Criminals are not looking for challenges, but opportunities. Every breach I've been involved with comes down to the fact that someone in the company did something they weren't supposed to or failed to do something they should have done.

Notorious con artist and impostor who inspired the film "Catch Me If You Can

The truth is that we live in a very unethical society. We don't teach ethics at home, schools or university. As a consequence most businesses don't have a code of ethics or conduct.

Notorious con artist and impostor who inspired the film "Catch Me If You Can

Dehumanizing the victim through the internet has enabled people to commit crimes and not worry about their conscience.

Notorious con artist and impostor who inspired the film "Catch Me If You Can

For the vast majority of financial crimes, embezzlement, credit-card scams, information selling and so on; this comes down to one simple motivation- making oneself richer, greed. I've been teaching at the FBI academy for 42 years, and the level of greed you see out there is unbelievable.

Notorious con artist and impostor who inspired the film "Catch Me If You Can

People who haven't benefitted from decades of neo-liberal prosperity are right in their assessment that democracy does work for certain people, but not for them.

Scottish Writer, Broadcaster & Anti-Poverty Activist & Poet

It's a very precarious situation we're in right now; and the biproduct of our current policies is that a tidal wave of radioactive social problems is coming. I worry that we'll just repeat the mistakes of the past where drug addictions, drug related deaths, alcoholism and suicide spike out of control.

Scottish Writer, Broadcaster & Anti-Poverty Activist & Poet

Today's politicians can't lead public opinion, because they're frightened of it – and we're so consumed by constitutional crises, that there's just no real chance that politicians can give these issues sufficient thought.

Scottish Writer, Broadcaster & Anti-Poverty Activist & Poet

Currently, public services are extraordinarily hostile to those in poverty; a doctrine we've seen clearly in how the Home Office has handled the Windrush generation. This ideology believes people will respond positively to being treated with hostility; but that only works for emotionally regulated people who didn't grow-up in adversity. Our public services are emotionally illiterate.

Scottish Writer, Broadcaster & Anti-Poverty Activist & Poet

What really characterises the experience of poverty is emotional stress. Stress is a natural human response to emotional strain, and whilst it can be useful in short doses as a catalyst, a motivator, a wake-up call, in the long term it can impact development, damage relationships and lead to self-defeating compulsive, addictive behaviours.

Scottish Writer, Broadcaster & Anti-Poverty Activist & Poet

It can be understood as the undermining of the human will. It starts with distraction in the moment where our ability to focus is fragmented – but then it runs deeper into how it distracts us into living according to certain habits, values and norms.

Distraction is one of those epidemics that we didn't realise existed until quite recently. At a societal level, it's inevitable that our distraction will be impacting our ability to communicate with each other, and will lead to a lowering of focus and attention across our whole population.

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.

The concentration of power in technology corporations is a moral and political problem that we simply don't have a precedent for. More people use Facebook than speak English for example, so the implications of Facebook, as just one platform, are at the scale of language itself.

Our apps and platforms are addictive by design. We know this both because the tech titans behind them have admitted it publicly, and because the dominant apps and social media platforms use the same suite of techniques that are well-proven to ensnare us.

Psychologist & Author specializing in behavioral psychology and irrational decision-making