Most of the time the concept of globalization ends up sounding unnecessarily abstruse - even the name itself sounds clunky and highfalutin.

Most of the time the concept of globalization ends up sounding unnecessarily abstruse - even the name itself sounds clunky and highfalutin.

The New York Times and PBS are gatekeepers of a sort. And they perform that role of gatekeeping with a set of rules and aspirations about where they want to lead their viewers and their readers. They value objective facts, and they attempt to transmit a comprehensive view of the world. And they do have values. And they do lead their viewers and their readers to certain conclusions. But it's different than such monopolies as Apple or Google which are dissecting information into these bits and pieces, which they're then transmitting to people. And it's about clicks.

I don't think Islam has really been understood as a product of globalization. It might be one of these instances where globalism and tribalism ultimately go hand in hand.

People are drawn to radical Islam because they feel their traditional ways of life threatened by the influx of KFC and Hollywood movies and the like.

I don't see tribalism ever really disappearing entirely. I just think that people are almost hardwired to identify as groups. And that sort of group identity always runs the risk of being chauvinistic.

Fifty years ago, the way that we consumed food was revolutionized. We began eating processed foods, and it seemed amazing. And then we woke up many decades later, and we realized that food was engineered to make us fat. And I think that such companies as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple are doing the same thing with the stuff that we ingest through our brains. They're attempting to addict us, and they're addicting us on the basis of data.