There is a famous Iraqi idiom which states that if you think your opponents can eat you for dinner, then you'd better eat them for lunch. If your opponent is too big and powerful to eat you right-now, you'd better eat them for lunch before they eat you. Commitment problems from our opponents lead us to act, and that's another reason why rational man can go to war.
— Christopher BlattmanThe American general felt that if we confronted the Russians with a determined show of force, they would probably back down. And you know what? He was probably right; but what does probably mean? If it's 90% then there was a 10% chance he was wrong.
I proposed that individuals should prioritize searching for the relationship they desire, not necessarily the person. The person should ideally align with the relationship dynamic you're seeking, akin to meeting the requirements of a job description.
People often talk about life hacks, but for me, the real 'hack' is simply to remain curious and willing. It's about living in a space between willingness and curiosity—willing to embrace discomfort as you pursue questions, without a clear idea of the answers.
There is a lot of misunderstanding about demography and one of the biggest misunderstandings is that it's destiny. If it's destiny, it is not that interesting to study, but it's not destiny.
My personal stance is to respond positively to any question, no matter how awkward or inappropriate. I believe it takes courage to ask, and even if the approach is off, the curiosity is commendable. The key is to create an environment where it's okay to be wrong, as long as there's a willingness to learn and engage respectfully.
Technology claims to be showing us a mirror of what was already present in society- racism, conspiracy theories- but in reality, technology is a funhouse mirror with a feedback loop that's engineered to show us the most egregious parts of society… those parts that are better at keeping our attention. The mirror gets more and more warped, but we mistake it for an honest and neutral view of who we are.
We estimate with the World Bank that US$20-40 billion each year is lost in developing countries through corruption. If you add to that $5 billion each year in stolen assets, it clearly shows that corruption is a serious obstacle to the achievement of the millennium development goals.
The price of technology comes down every year, year after year, and I see no immediate end in sight to that process. What this means is that the poorest people in the world will soon have the possibility to access the Internet in some form, and eventually will have 'ordinary' access to it.
Think about your water kettle. When you heat the water and you see the transition from water to gas, not all water molecules are converted at once. The same happened in the world economy. Since this transition was associated with such a fantastic increase in income per capita, those societies that took off first increased their gap from the rest of the world tremendously.
Most every decision that your team will make is independent of you as a leader. Once in a while, they may update you or ask you a question, but the vast majority of decisions are made either individually, or inside teams- and if those individuals and teams don't know what that end-game truly looks like, the odds of them making the right decision at any moment in time diminishes.
I've often thought that maybe there is a certain hormone in human beings that we can only produce it when we are face to face. And it's the hormone of shame – it becomes absent when you are communicating on social media and you become worse than you are.
In 2013, the International Rescue Committee were looking for a new CEO, and at the interview panel I said that I was applying for the job firstly because I thought some of the questions at the intersection of foreign policy and humanitarian aid were some of the most difficult questions in global public policy. How do you get aid into Syria? How do you educate kids in Afghanistan? How do you tackle sexual violence in the Congo? Those are difficult questions, and I like difficult questions.