From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
GDP and GNP shouldn't be scrapped, they're of value, but they don't even give us an indication of economic well-being let alone individual well-being
We can cut our carbon emissions while achieving economic growth by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and energy efficiency. The technologies are already there, all we need is the political will.
Without the existence of Europe, smaller countries like mine [Estonia] would have a difficult time to survive economically or even from a defence perspective. The internal European market is absolutely vital for the functioning of the very different economies of the continent.
We must act now, before we reach economic checkmate.
Nuclear weapons were invented out of fear. The United States was afraid that Hitler was developing an atomic weapon, and they had to get one to deter him from ever using it. When the U.S. Manhattan Project that built the bomb began, no-one ever thought we would use a weapon like this; it was considered beyond the pale—a weapon that would indiscriminately kill hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
what turns a developing into a developed nation is not the amount of foreign aid it attracts, but how the money is spent.
I am in favour of quotas and targets. I think affirmative action works, and we've had affirmative action in the opposite direction for centuries. So sometimes we have to shock the system. We have to do it to normalise things, to get to a tipping point and then let the system just takes care of itself.
We have to get out of this 'tax to spend' mentality and think about using resources to create investment funds that support local businesses, while also expecting to get something back as those businesses appreciate.
So Manchester and Sheffield had to apply to Transport for London for money to allocate to their bus routes. This is so comically bizarre that if you put it in a novel it would seem too silly. But that's how it is. The power is amazingly concentrated in Whitehall with a few very clever technocrats who go into it as their first job.
There has been a pathetic failure of governments to invest in educating people about the rights that they hold and enjoy; I suspect because if people knew their rights, they would claim them and put the governments of the world under pressure.
The idea that if you are proud to be British you need to be proud of British history is nonsensical. Does it mean you have to be proud of all of history? Of slavery? Of abolition of you? Or me? Or Lenny Henry? You might as well be proud of biology or jelly. It makes no sense…
The cumulative impact of these legal instruments indicates, perhaps unsurprisingly, that initiating war is rarely, if ever, lawful. However, responding to acts of war can be justified.