From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Social media was kind-of created to destroy humanity, in a literal sense. The first notion of the implications of such networks was provided by B. F. Skinner who spoke of the dangers of people who- on networks- were too free, too creative and too uncontrolled.
Fashion is either one of the crowning achievements of western civilization or it is incontrovertible evidence of consumer culture's witless obsession with the trivial and the unreal.
Society at large only sporadically pays attention to the extraordinarily despair-producing conditions in which young black poor youth attempt to survive.
People who haven't benefitted from decades of neo-liberal prosperity are right in their assessment that democracy does work for certain people, but not for them.
The more we trust the 'gold' within ourselves, the more we are able to see it in others. Due to our negativity bias, it's easy to focus on the flaws or defenses in others. However, the more we train ourselves to see the goodness in others, the more we can recognize it.
We have lived through an era where success has been defined only in financial terms- leaving out any consideration of the impact of business on communities or the world. Just because accounting standards don't require you to measure certain things, doesn't mean those things aren't real.
I have not been an urban investor in re-gentrification, which tries to change the character of a community and, candidly, is very speculative. Instead I look at revitalisation, which constitutes investing in existing densely populated and ethnically diverse communities and delivering the goods and services that are sought after but not provided.
Screens are weapons of mass distraction, and as audiences we have to listen and give speakers a chance.
Behold, the lewd, pornographic embrace of two great American pathologies… Race and guns, both of which have conspired not only to take the life of a teenager, but to make that killing entirely permissible.
Bias means your mind, your experiences, and your knowledge is too narrow to take in and truly appreciate the person standing in front of you. We have to hold all humans in respect.
We're moving towards a world of increasing abundance. The poorest and wealthiest can access the same information because of Google; the same information Larry Page has! That same democratisation and demonetisation will occur in other critically important areas of our life.
All participants in a society have a responsibility to it's social contract.