If we can put a man on the moon and sequence the human genome, we should be able to devise something close to a universal digital public library.

There are a lot of weapons that we've developed which we've pulled back from - biological weapons, chemical weapons, etc. This may be the case with armed autonomous robotics, where we ultimately pull back from them.

We have a new generation of very rich people who want to do more with their money than buy a lot of expensive toys. They want to live meaningful lives.

If governments did not mislead their citizens so often, there would be less need for secrecy, and if leaders knew they could not rely on keeping the public in the dark about what they are doing, they would have a powerful incentive to behave better.

Marx saw that capitalism is a wasteful, irrational system, a system which controls us when we should be controlling it. That insight is still valid; but we can now see that the construction of a free and equal society is a more difficult task than Marx realized.

There is a growing movement called effective altruism. It's important because it combines both the heart and the head.

People may hope that the meat they buy came from an animal who died without pain, but they do not really want to know about it. Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed do not deserve to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy.