From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
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.
Mahatma Gandhi once said, 'first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win…' the good news is that society is reaching a critical mass of influence meaning that today, people cannot ignore us, and cannot laugh at us, they have to fight- and if Gandhi was right, we are near the breakthrough towards winning.
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.
We must remember that about one-quarter of the planet is under the control of the indigenous communities of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Arctic. Quite frankly, we will never be able to deal with the challenges of the 21st century unless we engage and empower indigenous communities around the world.
Online trolling and abuse is a real problem now. A lot of people who want to express an opinion now are fearful that they'll get piled-on. And there's no real immunity from it.
The twentieth century has been called the century of the homeless man. The number of persons permanently displaced for political reasons as a result of wars, treaties or sometimes obscure reason is startling.
Nuclear weapons continue to be built for basically two reasons: power and prestige. In almost every case where a country has decided to acquire a nuclear weapon they have done it either for power—the power to protect their country from external threats or a desire to project their power in the region.