From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
We like to think of data as being objective, but the answers we get are often shaped by the questions we ask. When those questions are biased, the data is, too.
Distrust in government is very dangerous – what follows is the ability for authoritarian and totalitarian forms of government to take control, and that doesn't do anybody, any good.
Search started as a free product meaning it cannot get any less expensive for the user. You pay nothing, but the benefits of reaching larger and larger portions of humanity accrue to the provider, not to you.
I feel as if our world is moving away from the ideals we subscribed to, and I wanted to reflect that through music. I wanted to create something hopeful and uplifting from this dark material of our times as a metaphor for the questions we are facing as a society.
For me, freedom is living outside social norms, realising that power structures are an illusion and realising that the rules we put on ourselves and others are also illusions. Freedom means that we realise that we don't subscribe to illusions, and free ourselves from dogma.
I'm grateful to be alive during this time. I can't think of a better time than this very moment. Freedom without struggle is an illusion. I love problems. How we deal with problems defines who we are and what values we stand for.
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.
The basic problem is that if you attempt to commit suicide with a gun, you typically succeed. It's also true that there is a more violent culture generally in the US. The US in general, has broader problems with crime, with social dysfunction, narcotics often, and all these work together with guns to create this epidemic.
Like all primates, we are an intensely social species, and having our friends, cohorts, and acquaintances close is important to our general success. In these senses 'keeping the wheels oiled' is critical, hence why we like gossip, and hence why biographies and fiction so wildly outsell anything else in the books market.
In my experience, unless you are directly affected by a human rights abuse, you are unlikely to give it a second thought. How many times do you draw breath a day? It's about 22,000 times – you don't think about it until you can't. That's exactly how most people view human rights- they are generally apathetic and may express some concern or sympathy when they hear about something on the news, but they don't mobilise unless it affects them directly.
I remain a technical optimist… the problem is not artificial intelligence, it's natural stupidity. Through treaties, regimes and pressure we have at least stopped ourselves from the worst excesses in chemical, biological and nuclear science.
Impact investing starts from the other end. It starts with an issue… this could be a problem, a social issue or so on. Impact investors start with an issue and then try to build a viable, sustainable financial model around that.