From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
No matter how poor you are, you don’t really have to wear rags anymore. Why? Because technology automated the production of t-shirts.
We have a blind spot about the ways in which the things we innocently buy and use actually are decaying the environment we depend on, the global systems that support life on the planet. We are super-monkeys- super because of the technology, and our monkeys because our brains haven't kept up with the change.
If you make it easy to steal from you, someone will. Every breach I've been involved with comes down to the fact that someone in the company did something they weren't supposed to or failed to do something they should have done.
Water is the essence of life. On Earth it's used to grow plants and within industrial processes but in space it takes on a whole new form. We can use water as a radiation shield. One cubic metre of water gives the same protection as Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere. Water is a molecule made of hydrogen and oxygen- and that happens to be rocket fuel.
I often tell my students to recognize the implicit messages our clothing conveys about our mood, social status, and more. Soon, our entrance into a room will announce our presence not just visually or audibly, but also electromagnetically. Our interactions with others will encompass sight, sound, and this electromagnetic identity.