Our brains actively construct a model of the world, which is our actual experience. Incoming sensory data serves mainly to verify and correct this internal model.

The world would be a different place today if we would find a way to really empower girls and women globally. It is the solution, and I'm definitely not the only person that thinks that.

[the impact of the internet on liberty and free speech has been] very positive indeed – not so much two steps forward and one step back, as ten steps forward for every step back. By breaking the oligopoly of the established press and letting everyone be a publisher, it has made information much harder for the powerful to control.

Today, we have the worst of the 1970s, with multiple different types of negative supply shocks and not just one.

The objective isn't to become the world number one; it's about consistently reaching your best or performing adequately in moments that matter to you.

We've had hierarchical and bureaucratic structures as far back as we can go in human history. The Chinese civil service goes back to at least 2000BC and militaries have always been structured as hierarchical. Modern bureaucracy is a mash-up of two ideas. Firstly, the command and control structures which have been core to organized human activity for millennia and secondly, the principles of industrial economics.

In war, you're forced to survive. It's kill or be killed, it's the most basic human instinct. You have to unleash that aggressive shadow side of yourself. It gives you a profound sense of being alive, it becomes a dopamine slot machine.

I have grey hair, I'm 64. I grew up in Italy in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s. When I grew-up, I never worried about nuclear war, global pandemic, technology destroying jobs, climate change destroying the world, or stable democracies being taken over by authoritarian extremists.

Chosen suffering is part and parcel of a meaningful life. If you don't have any chosen suffering in your life, you're probably not living the best life you could. To put it primitively, we're the mammal that likes Tabasco sauce! We're the only creature that seeks out suffering and pain willingly.

The industrial age was designed around one group of people making decisions, and a different group carrying them out. That mindset still lingers in our language — 'leaders' and 'followers,' 'blue collar' and 'management,' 'union' and 'executive.' It splits the world into thinkers and doers. That no longer works.

This ease of gaining virtue status on social media, coupled with our innate desire for status, explains the platform's toxicity. We're drawn to the simplest form of status acquisition, and social media facilitates this with minimal effort, creating a cycle of virtue signalling that feeds our need for recognition and approval.

Don't base one's identity on their opinions. This can be a perilous path because it makes it challenging to change one's mind. Instead, it's preferable to root one's identity in their values and character. In a world that's rapidly evolving, it's essential to anchor ourselves to elements that are stable - our values and character, the principles we uphold.