From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Walls are seductive though… what politician hasn't said, 'I can make it like the old-days again…' Bridges sound harder – how do you build them? What will they cost? Who will pay? In truth, build walls almost always yields a negative result.
Monetary support for development in itself will not accelerate growth in the real economy to artificial or unsustainable levels. It is how the finance is used – or misused.
There's a cliché that astronauts don't see borders- but we do. The India-Pakistan border is clearly visible from space, as is the North-South Korea border. You can see our politics playing out – you can see the glow of humanity thriving, and the absence of light where it doesn't. We need to figure out our politics – it really determines the quality of life for all.
We must always remember, in the West as democracies, that we have to do this within the character of a free society. That will hopefully always be what separates us from them: that we defend ourselves, but we do so within the character of a free society.
Size continues to be important, but is no longer the main factor shielding the powerful from the challenges of newcomers and new arrivals.
Fiscal austerity is the primary focus of policy in terms of response. That is both a misdiagnosis and compounds the problem.
In my book, the reason I call figures like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc., red leviathans is that they're actually serving a role that's necessary in a modern progressive revolution: they're the ones who say what is revolutionary and what isn't. Because it turns out that's not an easy question to answer.
There are two key advantages of thinking of guns as a public health issue. First of all, it removes some of the emotion from the issue. Secondly it moves the debate to be about evidence; where we can empirically show what works, at what cost.
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.
So many of our systems of power are reliant on people putting themselves forward and guess what- people who are power-hungry will put themselves forward for positions of power. We need to seek out people not just rely on self-selection. We need to headhunt people who have demonstrated leadership capability and integrity rather than just relying on those who speak well or who are members of the right 'club.'
Online trolling and abuse is a real problem now. A lot of people who want to express an opinion now are fearful that they'll get piled-on. And there's no real immunity from it.
We're afraid of living under constant terrorism, and the constant threat of a neighbour who wants to kill you and destroy everything you care about. The escalation is already here.