Wisdom in fragments

We have engineered a world where going into leadership or public office creates huge worry. That's a problem as it means that the people who go forward for these roles are those for whom power is the reward, not doing the work.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

There's an innate tendency in human-beings to sort ourselves by how much we want power. Some of us don't want it at all, some of us are absolutely obsessed with it. The interaction between the individual and the system is therefore critical.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

Our brains are adapted to pick leaders based on characteristics that are no longer adaptive, or necessary today. In times of crisis for example, we are wired to gravitate towards strong men – strong males who are overconfident and speak of solutions in simplistic terms. That's what historically it took to survive.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

Digital media has allowed a complete bypass of those structures – there's less control around power – and people can amass huge followings for totally irrational reasons. Social media has broken the stranglehold that hierarchy often has in organisations for better and for worse.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

So many of our systems of power are reliant on people putting themselves forward and guess what- people who are power-hungry will put themselves forward for positions of power. We need to seek out people not just rely on self-selection. We need to headhunt people who have demonstrated leadership capability and integrity rather than just relying on those who speak well or who are members of the right 'club.'

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

We have to create systems that make people think twice before they behave badly. People need to credibly believe that there will be consequences to their actions if caught in random stings. If you are in a position where you are uniquely able to wield power- politics, police, corporate leadership- you should be randomly subject to attempts to see if you behave badly when offered the opportunity to do so.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

Despite our huge scientific advances, we're still very-much at the early stages of discovery. Many of our great questions are also stepping into the realms of philosophy. Do we all see the same way? Do we all perceive the same way? It's a hidden frontier.

Sleep medicine specialist and NHS consultant neurologist studying sleep disorders

From a rather dispassionate, clinical perspective, and if you remove the awful consequences that people experience when something does go wrong, you can see conditions like synesthesia as nature's experiments. We can learn a lot about the underlying functioning of our nervous system.

Sleep medicine specialist and NHS consultant neurologist studying sleep disorders

Smell is an outlier. The way smell works is that the brain essentially sent out a little tentacle into the world, those nerve fibres are the only contact between the central nervous system and the external world. This is the point at which there is no barrier between the brain and the outside world.

Sleep medicine specialist and NHS consultant neurologist studying sleep disorders

There are significant distinctions between what we perceive to be reality and the cold, hard, molecular world we inhabit. Our brains are constantly taking shortcuts to inform us about the world and this introduces an intrinsic error which our brains are filling in.

Sleep medicine specialist and NHS consultant neurologist studying sleep disorders

We have no idea about the world that we inhabit and that what the brain is doing is really creating an entire shortcut that enables us to understand the world without being able to physically really understand the reality in which we inhabit, which is a mind-blowing concept.

Sleep medicine specialist and NHS consultant neurologist studying sleep disorders

Our senses are the conduit between the external world and our interior. When we're born, we have some wiring, but essentially a very limited experience of the exterior. To really understand the world we inhabit, we need to try and observe it. In order to function in the world, we need to have a model of the world upon which we base predictions.

Sleep medicine specialist and NHS consultant neurologist studying sleep disorders

It took Jesus 2000 years to reach a billion people. It took Larry Page, I think, around 12 or 10. It took Facebook around 7. And it's not unthinkable that something will happen today that will reach a billion users by the end of the year.

Former Google Executive & Author of "Solve for Happy

I think the answer, really, in my view, is that we cannot control them because they are smarter. As simple as that, we only know that the smartest hacker in the room will always find a way through our defences. So maybe we should stop our arrogance for a minute.

Former Google Executive & Author of "Solve for Happy

The smartest being on planet Earth is life itself. And if we mimic the intelligence of life, life creates with abundance, not with scarcity. Life does not want to kill the tigers for the deer to survive. Life basically says more deer, more tigers, more poop. Everyone's happy.

Former Google Executive & Author of "Solve for Happy

These are technologies that are autonomous in many, many ways. They are independent in many, many ways – they have free will. They can replicate. And that makes a difference because then we teach them how to learn, but we have no idea what they will do with that ability to learn and develop intelligence.

Former Google Executive & Author of "Solve for Happy