From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
When you're a child, you define your team as those wearing the same jerseys and your team's goal is to defeat anyone wearing different jerseys. But as you get older, your notion of what constitutes a team evolves.
History is full of changes that were only made because of direct action. In the US context, you need look no further than the civil rights movement. Racial segregation would not have been dismantled the way that it was, to the extent that it was without the work of grass roots movements who were prepared to take risks and break the law.
What's truly astounding is the shared background of many Paralympic athletes. Initially, when the Paralympics and parasports were relatively unknown, these athletes were often the ones overlooked in PE classes, chosen last for teams, and discouraged due to their disabilities. This mindset can lead to incredible achievements, regardless of how unlikely they may seem at first.
income inequality, as a measure of relative depravation, was consistently associated with violent crimes.
The people in the advanced countries now face a choice: we can express justified horror, or we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes. If we refuse to do the latter, we will be contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead.
The crux of the matter is, the human journey is fraught with challenges. It's frequently marked by pain, confusion, and a feeling of helplessness. Herein lies the allure of fiction—it provides what reality often withholds. Fictions grant us a semblance of understanding, a hint of control, and a sense of community during times of solitude. This makes misinformation appealing, as it fulfils these basic human desires: comprehension, control, and community.
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.
People are not born homophobic – or racist or misogynist. That's learned behaviour. This is why the current bid for LGBT-inclusive education in schools is so important.
While people have been worried about AI being embedded in humanoid robots from the science fiction world, our lives have been shaped and influenced by AI which makes tens of billions of decisions each day about what we see, and how we communicate.
On the whole, science is seen as one of the most trusted professions- and we need to retain that trust. It is essential that the public knows how deeply science and technology affect their lives.
We're discussing the challenging feat for our species of being both self-advocating and relationship-oriented, particularly in stressful circumstances. When stressed, we all tend to lean towards self-preservation, which may be perceived as a threat by others.
The essence of public health as a field of action is that it tries to stop problems from happening where possible, and prepares societies for problems that are unavoidable. That's why it requires us to understand the entire population.