Are our competitors - for example, China, which is a deeply authoritarian nation - becoming more authoritarian or more liberal over time?

You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody even by a wrong call. And then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with. And attack you on that basis to sort to derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.

If Congress is going to investigate baseball players about whether or not they told the truth, how can we justify giving the most powerful intelligence official, [James] Clapper, a pass? This is how J. Edgar Hoover ended up in charge of the FBI forever.

People do not like being lied to, and they do not like having their rights violated. So as soon as [officials] stop making arguments, you see support for me starts to rise.

That's the key - to maintain the garden of liberty, right? This is a generational thing that we must all do continuously. We only have the rights that we protect. It doesn't matter what we say or think we have. It's not enough to believe in something; it matters what we actually defend.

As a technologist, I see the trends, and I see that automation inevitably is going to mean fewer and fewer jobs. And if we do not find a way to provide a basic income for people who have no work, or no meaningful work, we’re going to have social unrest that could get people killed. When we have increasing production - year after year after year - some of that needs to be reinvested in society.

As inequality grows, the basic bonds of social fraternity are fraying - as we discussed in regard to Occupy Wall Street. As tensions increase, people will become more willing to engage in protest. But that moment is not now.