"Community" came to be seen as a chat-group: you switch on as long as your pleasure lasts, then push another button and switch off. Very easy to go in and out, join and leave.

We are already and will remain all in the same boat.

After many years of thinking, reading and writing and looking, I came to believe that there are two basic, essential values which are indispensable for humane, decent, dignified life: one is freedom, and the other is security.

"Once there, always there", would give you less freedom than you recently enjoyed, but more security. Security not in the sense of safety from terrorists, burglars, or pickpockets... but security in the sense of knowing where you are, who you are, on what kind of future you can count, what will happen, whether you will preserve your position in society or whether you will be degraded and humiliated - this sort of security. This sort of security for many, many people - a rising number of people - looks at the moment more attractive than more freedom.

While a few poor countries are catching up with the rich world, the differences between the richest and poorest individuals around the globe are huge and likely growing.

I did not and do not think of the solidity-liquidity conundrum as a dichotomy; I view those two conditions as a couple locked, inseparably, in a dialectical bond.

Relationships, like cars, should undergo regular services to make sure they are still roadworthy.