From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Digital media has allowed a complete bypass of those structures – there's less control around power – and people can amass huge followings for totally irrational reasons.
Our nations cannot exist independently, we are intrinsically linked to the global economy, and another-nations problems will, invariably, affect us.
In the Fourth Generation war, the state loses its monopoly on war. All over the world, state militaries find themselves fighting non-state opponents such as al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Almost everywhere, the state is losing.
We've built two great contagion machines. Firstly, international travel which has enabled vast numbers of people to fly over great distances. Secondly, the internet – and in particular, the way the internet has evolved... we saw the rapid growth of clickbait, sensationalist content, and the internet became a machine for disseminating contagious ideas.
China has created a new form of capitalism- state capitalism. Some people call this 'market Leninism' or a communist party without communism. It's a hybrid system which has been very economically successful, and only certain Asian countries have been able to use this remarkable system.
Populism is the act of politicising and mobilising ignorance to the point of political and moral insanity.
The world simply cannot manage Covid-19 without international cooperation around the production and distribution of medical equipment, research and distribution of a vaccine, and the cooperation between economies needed to ensure that we all return to growth.
More than one hundred million have been uprooted in the first eighty years of the twentieth century- millions permanently displaced as a result of revolutions, division of countries, annexations or boundary changes and other territorial arrangements. The political refugee has become the symbol of worldwide political and social change.
The people of the world are gambling for colossal stakes. Two centuries of scientific enquiry, founded in basic physics and powerful evidence, indicate that the risks from a changing climate over the next hundred years and beyond are immense.
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.
It's not that capitalism is failing, but rather that the organisation of capitalism is succumbing to wealth and power. People with extraordinary power and wealth will organise and enforce markets in such a way that it benefits their wealth and adds to their power- it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy- a vicious cycle of more wealth and power.
We don't need to have CNN, NBC and their counterparts. Anybody can report on the most important news of the day. The best example recently was the video circulated of that young girl who got killed in Iran; that had an unbelievable impact on our knowledge of what was going on in that country.