Politics

There's an innate tendency in human-beings to sort ourselves by how much we want power. Some of us don't want it at all, some of us are absolutely obsessed with it. The interaction between the individual and the system is therefore critical.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

How many years or months do we have to be surprised before we realise it's not a surprise that this is a regular pattern? We will have massive waves of forced displacement.

The future is baked into the population of today, and that makes it very convenient for looking at the next couple of decades as our future soldiers are today in nursery school, and our future retirees are entering college.

Politicians often forget that people are much more complex, and are a mix of many identities – and each of these identities can be of differing importance to the individual.

There is a degree of laziness and political correctness which has crept into the justice system. Many judges are appointed not elected. They don't want to offend. Instead of making a decision, they 'cut the baby in half' and everyone is left being a little bit miserable.

Creator and star of TV show "Judge Judy" for 25 years

I don't think it's a coincidence that globally, we're having the biggest crisis of democracy since the 1930s. At the same time as we're finding it hard to focus and pay attention, we also can't listen to each other.

Journalist and author known for books on addiction and depression

You can't force people to change- you have to find their passion and implement based on that. The economist, Dambisa Moyo, showed that even though $2.5trillion has been invested in aid, Africa is now net-poorer than 50 years ago.

With leadership and privilege comes immense responsibility. And in this case, it basically took 20 years for the US to replace the Taliban, with the Taliban. This is a backward step of epic proportions for women's rights.

As a collective, we tend to look at progress as being linear, especially where it concerns women's rights. This is a huge mistake and breeds complacency because we risk losing the hard-won gains.

Women in Iran are quite possibly the greatest threat to the regime, they are courageous and relentless in their pursuit of justice, human rights, and freedom from oppression and make the sacrifices needed to bring about change for future generations.

We go to war not because we ignore the costs, but because we know there are costs, but we are willing to pay those costs because we get something from the war which we wouldn't get otherwise.

Economist specializing in conflict, development, and poverty research

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.

Economist specializing in conflict, development, and poverty research

Every reason why we fight reveals a cost that our society ignored. The grisly, terrible costs of fighting are often 'nil' where, for example in the case of a dictator, the leadership is not held to account.

Economist specializing in conflict, development, and poverty research

The truth is that stable societies are built on the backs of women. Attacking women has a crippling impact on communities.

Nobel Peace Prize Winner & Yazidi Genocide Survivor Advocate

We need to get out of the peacetime footing that we are on and we need to get onto a wartime footing against this climate crisis. During World War II, the US allocated 50% of GDP roughly to fighting, and I believe we need to get to 50% of GDP sustained over 5 to 10 years.

Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, early Bitcoin and cryptocurrency advocate

Markets are good at things that have prices, but certain things cannot have prices. Whenever you have situations where you can't have prices, it's not a question of a missing market, it's that you cannot fundamentally construct this market, and this is when government intervention is required.

Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, early Bitcoin and cryptocurrency advocate