From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
I want a world where people can be true to themselves and to live their lives according to who they truly are.
There are really only three types of people: Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who say, 'What happened?' Which group would you rather be in?
Our body operates both quantumly and classically, and the quantum computation within us is far more sophisticated than any quantum computer we could imagine building—so we already possess that capability. Yet consciousness does not reside in our body, however quantum or classical it may be; it resides in the field that we are. This field communicates with the body and, through it, exerts control.
Power is the capacity to get others to do or stop doing something now, or in the future. Power is also a source of order, and a source of comfort for some people. Remember that the extreme situation where nobody has power, is anarchy… and anarchy leads to inferior social outcomes [versus] societies where structures and entities that impose power, limits and rules to create stability and prosperity.
At one site, a mature man carrying a white flag was shot dead by an Israeli soldier. To those less experienced or with a 'soft' generally compassionate outlook, this might immediately seem a clear case of unlawful killing – a 'war crime'. However, the general offered a different perspective. He considered the terrain and highlighted the dilemma faced by the soldier in high-risk situations: might the soldier be genuinely uncertain over whether the white flag genuinely signified surrender?
I was the kid that was wondering what was faster, a car or a bee… what if garbage cans were gold… I'd posit these what-if questions and throw them to people around me.
When you first go to war as a young guy, it's almost like you want to get into combat. Quickly though, you realise that these are real people! You have to bring the human element to the fore. At first it was let's go to war… then it was let's do the right thing… and then it was why are we even doing this?
Electronic systems change not only what we know, but how we know it.
I made a principled decision that none of my wealth will be passed on as inheritance, that my capital will work for philanthropic causes. In other words, philanthropy is the reason I make money.
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.
I can't advertise chewing gum to my children because it's unethical, but I can feed them all sorts of narratives that will have a profound impact on their personal trajectories. It's quite an extraordinarily hypocritical position.
Regrets tell you what you value. We need to think about regrets as photographic negatives of the good life. Each regret reveals what we want out of life. We want stability; a good life is not precarious. We want to do something with our lives; a good life is not without boldness.