From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Serendipity is about active luck, it's about the luck we create for ourselves and how we imbue meaning into the unexpected. Our reaction to unexpected moments can determine what happens in the future; that's a big component of what we perceive as 'luck.'
I think it was recognising that revolution was, in a way, the original problem of political thought. But in fact, constitutionalism is a Greek answer to the problem of revolution. You want to avoid revolution? Then you need to design a constitution in a certain way—so that it's balanced and less likely to be overturned by revolution.
Truth is an aspiration which none of us can ever know that we have attained. Nobody has a pipeline to the truth; nobody is imbued with divine revelation. We seek truth through institutions like science, journalism, governance, justice systems and record keeping. These are the bodies that make us collectively more suited to attain the truth.
It has been said that we went to the moon to explore the moon, but while we were there, we looked over our shoulder and discovered Earth. Seeing the Earth in that perspective upgraded the firmware of all our brains, of everyone's subconscious. Those missions sparked Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency, a comprehensive Clean Air Act... So much activism came from seeing that there's no hint of anyone coming to help us from somewhere, that we're here by ourselves on one planet.
The real mystery is not why organisms as complicated as us age and die, but why there is a kind of immortality through the germ line! There clearly is some way that all the damaging aspects of life that feed into ageing are overcome in the germ line.
Panpsychism does introduce a new Copernican revolution that human consciousness is not something cosmically special, we are not the only physical entity that has an inner qualitative dimension as well as the external quantitative aspects of our nature. Human consciousness for the panpsychist is just a highly evolved form of what exists throughout the universe.
I always tried to run my business in a humane way. I had this idea of business being tough and harsh, and thought I could build a business that was humane and kind. Performance metrics and KPIs are relatively straightforward to follow, but doing the 'right thing' is not nearly so clear cut.
The primacy of overtly scientific approaches to understanding life has come at a tremendous cost; in some ways we see the world in shades of grey rather than in full colour.
Work is preventing us living. So many people use work to avoid deeper topics around their lives, relationships, kids and health – deeper topics that can lead to the positive choices they need to make that will make them happier.
Many of these, I think, would have moral status, meaning it would matter how they are treated for their own sake—not just because an owner might be upset if you destroyed a data center, but because they would be moral patients in the same sense that humans, pigs, dogs, or other sentient creatures are.
Magic is this incredibly weird bondage and discipline you make where you say to someone, 'do this thing to me that's morally wrong… you have my consent…' – once you give your consent, the morality changes.
Even if it's not your mistake, it could still be your responsibility. That's one element of maturity – owning up to things even when they weren't caused by your actions. What you should truly be striving for as an entrepreneur is creating new standards of success, redefining what success means beyond monetary wealth.