From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Without what Becker called 'cultural world views' we would be overwhelmed by existential terror. Beliefs about reality that we share foster psychological equanimity by giving us a sense of meaning and value.
San Francisco is the city of love and compassion, will always be, and will never change that.
We characterise our ideal 'Substacker' in affectionate terms – we call them outsider nerds – they're outsiders insofar as they don't fit comfortably in the dominant media structure for whatever reason – perhaps they feel they can do better work outside of it.
Human beings are naturally liberal about these things, human beings are naturally in pursuit of wealth and in pursuit of love and in pursuit of pleasure. I think that happens more in the West or in developed places because it's more accepted there.
British identity is profoundly tied-up with Europe and vice-versa.
Complex societies needed repetitive rituals in order to get off the ground. Routinizing rituals makes deviations from the standard script easy to detect. And this means that when people step out of line, they can be sanctioned.
Population aging is evidence that we've been doing a lot of things right. We're confident that if we have children, they will live long lives as well and we've never had those trends before in all human history.
In my own experience, I have realised that diverse groups perform better and tackle challenges far more effectively than homogeneous teams. Contrary to what is happening in many parts of the world, the UAE firmly believes in and celebrates the principles of tolerance and diversity.
The first and most important part of tackling mental health challenges is to drive cultural change. If you don't change the culture around mental health- people will continue to be stigmatised, people will continue to stay silent, people will not seek the help they need.
In the case of Brazil, one of the most important things is the huge ethnic and cultural mixture which makes us a country with dynamism, vibrancy, and the ability to understand the psychology of other nations.
People play Farmville, they don't play Zynga! In the same sense, people don't go to Paramount movies, they go to see Mission Impossible.
If you can rank oboists and there's one who's clearly the best in the world, anyone, anywhere, can access that person. So why would you listen to the third-best oboist who happens to live next door?