Politics

Critical narratives are centered on the idea of moral complicity in these evils and use very sophisticated rhetorical ways to get people to feel that guilt and to believe in their complicity. They use very obscure language that involves a lot of double-meaning and multiple-meaning to words so that people it confronts feel stupid.

Mathematician & Scholar of Critical Theory Criticism & Academic Discourse

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.

Director of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University

There's a tension amongst the countries who belong to, and who have led, international organisations. Are they there to solve problems which no country can alone solve? Or – are they there to impose one particular view of the world on the rest of the world?

Director of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University

When individual countries hit a crisis, they've got 2 options, they can either look after themselves (at the cost of their neighbours) or they can create rules which they (and everyone else) will abide by, which requires institutions.

Director of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University

The gap between the situation of people caught in conflict and the rest of us is growing, not narrowing. The gap is not going to be narrowed by trying to change the words on paper, we have to live up to them.

British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary

The displacement that people face is now over generations not just years. The old model was to keep people alive until they go home. That model is broken, less than 3% of the world's refugees went home last year.

British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary

You should never sacrifice truth at the altar of social justice- that is what idea pathogens do.

Evolutionary Psychologist & Author Known for Consumer Behavior Research

We have to have a conversation about how data can empower or oppress us- we have the opportunity to re-imagine this, it's not a deal that's been done, and it's not too late to imagine a different way of organising, regulating, collecting, contributing and benefiting.

Instead of militaries fighting militaries, we now have militaries or military motivated agents that are able to activate civilians in each other's countries. Social media is global national security threat, and one that we're not even spending billions of dollars to protect against.

Design ethicist & founder of Center for Humane Technology

If Russia or China try to fly a plane into the United States, they'll be shut down by a USAF F35. Meanwhile, if they try and fly an information plane into the United States they're met with Facebook and Google algorithms that run an auction to enable them to get the maximum audience, for the cheapest price.

Design ethicist & founder of Center for Humane Technology

We wouldn't want to live in a world of full transparency. That is a world where I can see into your brain, and you into mine. We all need privacy for our thoughts, and inside government we need politicians and advisers to be able to explore ideas in private.

Former UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator & National Security Adviser

We can't only rely on consumers making individual choices. If you switched your energy to someone who told you they are selling you 100% renewable energy, that's great, but it doesn't shift the energy system to renewables. You need to have energy markets that are designed to encourage investment into renewable energy.

Environmental lawyer and founder of ClientEarth

Once you have transparency on impact, why would you tax all companies for the damage caused by some? You would tax the ones who create the damage. I hope we therefore shift to a fairer taxation system that improves the position of governments.

Founder of Social Venture Network & Pioneer of Social Impact Investing

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.

Organizational psychologist & bestselling author on work culture and human potential

Thanks to monetary policy, business cycles are far less volatile today than they were in the 19th century, when we had huge swings. But if cryptocurrency takes over the way its proponents would like, we could return to the ups and downs of the pre-monetary policy era.

Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics; Mechanism Design Theory Pioneer

Even more seriously, cryptocurrency can interfere with governments' ability to fight recessions with monetary policy. When people are using privately created money (cryptocurrency) rather than ordinary money, the money supply is beyond the government's control, and monetary policy can no longer be conducted. That's a bad thing.

Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics; Mechanism Design Theory Pioneer