From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Increasingly heavy-handed purges of crime will simply move perpetrators into different industries, increase the severity of crime, or create extremist groups. There is very little more dangerous in the world than individuals with nothing to lose.
In a democracy, an informed citizenry can act as a driving force for more robust and effective foreign policies and strategies related to national security, thereby fostering peace and encouraging prosperity. However, the lack of such comprehensive education has been a stumbling block.
Applying classic negative Jewish stereotypes to Israel is antisemitic. For instance, portraying Israel as orchestrating global conspiracies is essentially repurposing an antisemitic trope. Another broadly agreed point is that holding Jews outside of Israel accountable for the actions of the Israeli state is also antisemitic.
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.
In a democracy, an informed citizenry can act as a driving force for more robust and effective foreign policies and strategies related to national security, thereby fostering peace and encouraging prosperity. However, the lack of such comprehensive education has been a stumbling block. Education is the linchpin in this process.
If you look historically at the historical contours of wealth- it's primarily created through private ownership. That's always been the case- and I believe it always be. Having said that…. the lines begin to get blurred when you start to look at places like Latin America and Mexico where the state-owned enterprises are dominated by individuals- like a Carlos Slim, for example…. or if you look at state-owned assets being privatised in a place like Russia where former KGB agents are now industrial capitalists.
People have lost their belief in the establishment, they believe that the outsider who would bring anger and chaos is much better than the status quo; even if that is against their own interests.
History is not linear, like the chapters of a book… History moves through seasons, and so winters are inevitable.
For every example I could give you of regulations causing problems, I could give you two of regulations creating opportunities. I think this notion that regulation is causing problems is a real red herring.
We are now trapping in the Earth's atmospheric oceanic system that used to go into space dangerous amounts of greenhouse gases which is equal to four Hiroshima sized nuclear bombs per second. Imagine for a moment if we had alien spaceships hovering above earth, dropping four Hiroshima nuclear bombs into our atmosphere every second. What would we do? We would drop everything until we got rid of them.
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.
We've built two great contagion machines. Firstly, international travel which has enabled vast numbers of people to fly over great distances. Secondly, the internet – and in particular, the way the internet has evolved... we saw the rapid growth of clickbait, sensationalist content, and the internet became a machine for disseminating contagious ideas.