The Big Think Interview

“So many things could have happened in a different way that we wouldn't be here at all, both individually, for sure, and certainly as a species.”

“What did you win? You won awkward silence. You won their contempt. You won the first to apologize. When you win an argument, you will lose their confidence, you will lose their respect, you will lose the connection.”

“Anxiety is focused on things that are important to you in life. That is the key.”

"The sense that we are a solid entity, an unchanging entity that exists someplace in our body and takes ownership of our body, and even ownership of our brain rather than being identical to our brain, that is where the illusion lies."

“Invention matters, but implementation matters more.”

"We've sent out one or two little messages, but we certainly aren't investing billions of dollars shouting out into the cosmos saying, "Hey, we are here. Come say hi.""

"It's a very, very beautiful calculation, but it's the best example I know of the relationship between these rather abstract quantities perhaps and something that you can look at in a telescope."

"You can't possibly exaggerate how much better it is to live in a peaceful, orderly society, and to be wealthy, and healthy, and surrounded by people who you love."

“CIA classifies their secrets according to different terminology. There's confidential secrets, there are secret level secrets, and then there are top secret secrets. And the way that they define each of these different levels actually has to do with the impact that would occur if the secret became public knowledge.”

“We know that as little as 10 minutes of walking can improve your mood, that is getting that bubble bath with the dopamine, serotonin, endorphins going, anybody can do that.”

"If we did create beings that were more like non-human animals, we ought to treat them much better than we now treat non-human animals."

“You might as well go for it. You might as well do the thing that you dream about doing for heaven's sake.”

“You can debate all sorts of things about how the texture of American life has changed. What you can't debate is the sheer, objective, existential fact that Americans are more alone than ever.”

“When you think about this interconnection of all these tiny causes and effects which add up to the way the world unfolds, it becomes impossible to imagine that we have complete control.”

"I'd prefer to think about a different axis, which is, should government be more or less effective? Should government work faster or slower?"

“Even if there are beliefs that we hold that are true, if we prevent people challenging those beliefs, we will lose our understanding of why they're true.”

“We are beginning to take our first steps out into the cosmic ocean… and the water seems inviting.”

“The fear of panic has killed more people than most disasters themselves.”

"We are all in orbit around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. How big is this collection of stars? Somewhere between 200 and 400 billion suns in the Milky Way galaxy, about 100,000 light years across."

“The very same time that’s making you anxious is actually your most valuable asset. You can always create more energy and more money—but you can never create more time.”