From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
We seem to be in a strange period of history where our official world view, our official picture of the universe denies the reality of the thing that's most evident and the thing that gives life value. I think people do feel this at an intuitive level, and it can lead to a deep sense of alienation.
Being able to trust is actually what makes us human. It's a very innate thing. And often, distrust and mistrust are learned behaviours that start to set in around the age of four.
I didn't like the rampant tracking and the fact that Google and Facebook effectively ran some of the largest information gathering networks on earth (and that's a very charitable way of describing it).
We are all headed towards aging populations because we are living longer and measuring GDP growth is not the way to decide whether a society or an economy are flourishing. Population aging is evidence that we've been doing a lot of things right.
We've created a reflex for paternalism whereby a donor looks upon the recipients of large assets with an attitude akin to saying 'well, you need me don't you... here I am... take what I have regardless of what you want and need.' There's also a kind of overambition about what money alone can achieve.
I think that most of us, when we give to charity, hope that we ultimately help people live happier, less miserable lives. So we should measure what we care about.
Social media really orients us around our identity and our interests because of the way those connections are formed. It's going to suggest people for you to follow, groups for you to join, and so it slots you according to what you're most likely to be interested in based on your individual and group identity.
Every child deserves the chance to survive and thrive, to learn and be protected from harm. When we invest in children, we invest in our collective future.
Sometimes it's hard to shake the feeling that we are slipping backwards, but I'm an optimist at heart. We have a long way to go, but if history has taught us anything, it's that women rarely win anything without a fight!
It serves society and improves quality of life. It's a physical manifestation of the society's wishes to be civilised! …public domain being the obvious place which encapsulates this as buildings, alongside being art and science, are part of the public domain.
We are no longer sovereign-islands protected by fortified walls and arbitrary map-lines- we are an interconnected global family who depend on each other in incredibly profound ways.
Fundamentally, we must slow-down the process of change. We should recognise that most change is not progress- and therefore, it is in our interests to slow down without interfering too much with actual solution making.