Wisdom in fragments

The traditional sources of capital for ideas — investment, charity, rich relatives, grants — are nowhere near sufficient to the number of good ideas in the world. Now, the internet has democratized this, and you don't need to be wealthy to be a patron. You can help bring something to life with $10 because you like the project, not because you see it as a financial return.

Founder of Kickstarter, crowdfunding platform pioneer

What feels similar is the pursuit — by artists and entrepreneurs — of the actualization of an idea borne in their minds; and then pursuing bringing this vision to reality. Especially at the beginning, it takes just the right amount of delusion to dedicate yourself to something ambitious. The reality is you're more likely to fail than succeed and so you need strong belief to commit your heart and soul to an idea; as well as a bit of over-optimism (delusion) to make the sacrifices they are often called for to bring anything to life.

Founder of Kickstarter, crowdfunding platform pioneer

The internet has a natural pressure to bubble us up and vulcanise society, it makes it less comfortable for us to be around people who think differently, and more comfortable to be around people who think the same as us.

We now have religion based not on theology but on sociology. In principle, that's not a bad thing, but when your sociology has decided that the point of studying society is to change it (which was Marx's dictem), you've got a problem.

Technology presents a difficulty for our world right now. Everyone is simultaneously an individual who can have a conversation, and a broadcaster. So we're getting on social media and training ourselves to think in broadcast mode, but then we go out in public and get our wires crossed.

We have a very parasitic ideology; it operates like a virus. To stop a virus, you have to understand how it attaches to cells... you have to create an immune response via a vaccine... or by having the disease and fighting it.

Critical theories give proposed solutions to legitimate problems that could not possibly be more open to manipulation and grift. The manipulators and grifters have filled the vacuum to the point where they're only ones who can benefit.

If the role of government is, as Thomas Hobbes put it, to stop life being nasty brutish and short because humans unregulated are at each other's throats, then government has to step up to that plate now and start rethinking what it can do to ensure cohesion in societies where you will always have disagreement.

Director of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University

You can go and build a schoolhouse in any village or community, but it will do nothing without impassioned and brilliant teachers. In many ways, the teacher is more important than the building because a good teacher can teach anywhere.

Director of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University

Polarisation presents as a spectrum where people go from disagreeing with each other, to disliking each other and eventually to dehumanising each other. We know that the most important thing it takes to prevent dehumanisation is systemic, regular face to face interaction with the people that might otherwise be dehumanised.

Director of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University

For large corporations, globalization opened up opportunities without the correlate responsibilities which usually travel with that- so things that banks must do at home (in terms of being carefully regulated) they didn't have to do abroad... This took globalization out of balance, into a vicious cycle – and we're now dealing with the consequences of that.

Director of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University

When individual countries hit a crisis, they've got 2 options, they can either look after themselves (at the cost of their neighbours) or they can create rules which they (and everyone else) will abide by, which requires institutions.

Director of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University

We live in a deeply connected world, and if we want stability and prosperity in our connected world, we have to look after the weakest links as well as the strongest parts.

British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary

I recently heard from a woman in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo who said, 'until I met the IRC, I didn't know that rape was a crime… I didn't know rape was even a word…' that was immensely powerful.

British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary

If you don't give people legal routes to hope, they will find illegal routes and put themselves in the hands of criminals. That's the reality. We have record numbers of refugees and displaced people, and so for criminal gangs this is a business which is at scale.

British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary

When you empower people economically, your social programmes go further. The idea that there is a stark separation between a social program that's sustainable and economic program that's a luxury doesn't fit the reality. When you join economic empowerment to social protection, you get double the benefit.

British Labour Politician & Former Foreign Secretary