Top Highlights

• He stood, not triumphant atop the corpse of his enemy (the standard portrayal), but ready, with the implacable resolve of one who knows his next step but not its outcome. And then they saw the artist’s meaning clearly: Michelangelo carved David in that fateful moment between decision and action, between realizing what he must do and summoning the c...
• For the first time ever, the number of poor people in the world has plummeted (by over one billion people since 1990) and the overall population has swelled (by some two billion) at the same time. Scientists alive today outnumber all scientists who ever lived up to 1980, and – in part thanks to them – average life expectancy has risen more in the p...
• All this feels like old news when set against the headlines since the turn of the new millennium: 9/11; devastating tsunamis and hurricanes; a global financial crisis that struck dumb the world’s highest-paid brains; a nuclear meltdown in hyper-safe Japan; suicide bombings in the heart of Paris, City of Love; riots over inequality – and happier eve...
• Shock is our own personal proof of historic change – a psychic collision of reality and expectations – and it has been the relentless theme of all our lives. It agitates and animates us. It will continue to do so. Right now we don’t talk much about geoengineering, organic energy, super-intelligent machines, bioengineered plagues, nanofactories or a...
• We don’t know where we’re headed, and so we let ourselves get pushed around – bullied even – by immediate crises…