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 BlattmanI've done a few very-right things in my life that I'm proud of, and one of them was getting to know Joey and bringing him into the business. Joey was a gift, and we knew we shouldn't miss out on him.
If you offer no vision for the future, someone else will. Our geopolitics cannot tolerate a vacuum, and if you retreat- whether physically or ideologically- someone else will come up with a plan which may not be complementary for democracy.
Every single process in the body, and every operation of the brain, is powerfully enhanced when we get sleep, and demonstrably impaired when we don't get enough sleep.
We are all strategists or game theorists at heart – it took several decades of people writing-down models and articles before we recognised what we know from playing poker; we don't know our opponent's hand.
Once the cancer of authoritarianism gets into the veins and organs of society, it's not easy to get-out – they have this very specific way of paralysing political mechanisms and dismantling the fundamental human logic.
I learned a long time ago that life is not a race against other people. Life is a competition with yourself. One of the greatest achievements in life is to outperform yourself and live your greatest life possible. Greatness lives in all of us, but we must all find what it is that ignites our souls.
Right now, it's a bit like the early stages of the universe. Lots of hot plasma gas everywhere, but structure takes time to emerge… 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.
Mental health conditions are extraordinarily common, conservatively 1 in 4 of us will suffer from one or more in our lifetime, and I defy you to find someone who hasn't seen the impact firsthand.
I could have been born in the third century as a goat herder in Mongolia, or even as a goat. This is the realization that should open up a mental horizon where we can say, 'I know I'm going to die – maybe in the future, maybe in the next few minutes – and therefore every minute I'm here is precious.'
All of the research we've done exploring space has now allowed small teams- with modest funds- to do what it once took entire governments to do. The design and collaborative power of an individual engineer or technologist is more powerful than it's ever been. The tasks themselves are getting more accessible too.
What truly captured my imagination was his audacious courage to accept the universe as it truly was, despite the daunting consequences that loomed over him. This portrayal imbued in me a sense of science as a form of heroism.
Much like whiskey, advice is best when it's of a high-quality, with provenance, and in short amounts. Have too much? And you're likely to be on the floor unable to make any good decisions.