If an American teenager were to come to Lahore, they'd have wildly different experiences depending on whom they met. They could party and get drunk and smoke hashish with some, while others would say, "Let's get some religious instruction."

If differences can be hidden, perhaps they aren't differences at all.

I think that right now, the global political crisis that we see all over the place has to do with virulent nostalgia. Everywhere, people are talking about taking us back to the good old days. Whether that's the "caliphate," or Britain before the EU, or "Make America Great Again." But, we can't go back and many people wouldn't want to go back even if we could.

The gun of the father is always the undoing of the son.

You can live in the same city your entire life and still be completely a foreigner when you step out, in your old age, onto the street.

When we aren't collectively imagining hopeful futures, then the way things are going almost invariably seems negative and frightening.

Artists are in the imagining/ prototyping business. Society needs people to be out there thinking of what might be. That cannot be something we just delegate to politicians or technologists.