From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
There is no sense in which we are predestined to our opinions. But the fact that we are predisposed to them rather demands that we understand those predispositions — because otherwise we are, in a sense, victims of them.
A designer is a designer, whether you're designing a dress or a toothbrush. The integrity, skill and creativity are all the same.
I didn't know that having face to face contact with people and being curious would be my medication…. And would save me. I didn't know curiosity was going to become a superpower in my life.
the knowledge that we must die 'the worm at the core' of the human condition
Those who have the most meaningful, purpose filled lives tend to dream so big – that those dreams will rarely be completed in a lifetime. What keeps you going is the beauty you encounter at every juncture of the path.
Technology isn't a 'thing,' it's a social structure that people act upon the universe through. The social structure has incentives, roles and governance which determine the meaning and effect of the technology, not the engineering itself.
Our inner desire to start something new and make it big has been one of the most catalysing factors behind our collective evolution as a species. Our quest to explore and develop markets has persisted since the time humans have been trading goods.
In postmodernism, there are no absolute truths; everything is relative, of course other than the one absolute truth that there are no absolute truths. This is a form of intellectual terrorism, nihilism.
The fact that you and I are alive is against stupendous odds. One day we will die, and that's sad, but there are people who will never die because they were never born. We're the lucky ones, we get to die. You can only die if you were alive.
Consciousness is the most troubling because it's so hard to deny its existence. With all these other tricky, troubling phenomena, it's at least an option to say maybe it doesn't exist, maybe we're not really free in the way we think we are. But with consciousness, it seems hard to make sense of the idea that nobody's ever felt pain. Nobody's ever seen colour.
When I look at my own life- the things that I'm most embarrassed about are the moments where I acted, or didn't act, because of fear. The moments I'm most proud of are those where I acted with some semblance of courage.
The act of humans making choices will become a mere memory. We'll be spectators in a novel arena. But is this the zenith of liberty or just a cage?