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fcdb1b3 Claire Cain Miller pointed out that "for all the jobs that machines can now do--whether performing surgery, driving cars or serving food--they still lack one distinctly human trait. They have no social skills. Yet skills like cooperation, empathy and flexibility have become increasingly vital in modern-day work." Those" Thomas L. Friedman
0386576 The beetle, endemic to Africa's Namib desert--where there is just 1.3 cm of rainfall a year--has inspired a few proof-of-concepts in the academic community, but this is the first time a self-filling water bottle has been proposed. The beetle survives by collecting condensation from the ocean breeze on the hardened shell of its wings. The shell is covered in tiny bumps that are water attracting (hydrophilic) at their tips and water-repelling.. Thomas L. Friedman
e49cfdd Looking back on all my interviews for this book, how many times in how many different contexts did I hear about the vital importance of having a caring adult or mentor in every young person's life? How many times did I hear about the value of having a coach--whether you are applying for a job for the first time at Walmart or running Walmart? How many times did I hear people stressing the importance of self-motivation and practice and taking.. Thomas L. Friedman
b293ace The fact is, for our survival as a species, our very notion of "community" has to expand to the boundaries of the planet. That is a big statement, but it is true: if Mother Nature is treating us all as one, and if the power of one, the power of machines, and the power of flows can touch all of us at once, then we are a community whether we like it or not, whether we admit it or not. And if we are a global community, we have to start to act .. Thomas L. Friedman
8717591 Why is that so hard? Because "the one big bug we have as humans is that we are tribal," answers Marina Gorbis, executive director at the Institute for the Future. "We always need the group to give us identity. We are wired that way. From the first campfire, human beings evolved as tribal beings." And" Thomas L. Friedman
a27e769 It is quite possible to be a good Christian without ceasing to be a happy, merry-hearted man. Anne Brontë
ddd5ff3 In the wake of World War I, however, the British and French took out their imperial pens and carved up what remained of the Ottoman dynastic empire, and created an assortment of nation-states in the Middle East modeled along their own. The borders of these new states consisted of neat polygons--with right angles that were always in sharp contrast to the chaotic reality on the ground. In the Middle East, modern Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestin.. Thomas L. Friedman
190723f I am hardly a technophobe. But we will get the best of these technologies only if we don't let them distract us from making these deep human connections, addressing these deep human longings, and inspiring these deep human energies. Thomas L. Friedman
db68886 If I have to bet, I am going to bet on those lakes. I am going to bet on the basic decency that is still at the core of this community. I am going to bet on that decency expanding to embrace the people it has left out and behind, and on that embrace being reciprocated. Not because anything is "inevitable" but because I met too many people applying hope. It" Thomas L. Friedman
752408a Smartphone technology gave rise to Uber, but before the world figures out how to regulate ride-sharing, self-driving cars will have made those regulations obsolete. Thomas L. Friedman
8eea1ea With so many generous friends and family members from so many places for so many years, how could I not still be an optimist? Thomas Thomas L. Friedman
596c63f it requires a public awakening, establishment of political will, resetting of priorities, sacrifice for the future, and an alliance of governments, businesses, and citizens. Thomas L. Friedman
014e67a Thank you for buying this Farrar, Straus and Giroux ebook. To Thomas L. Friedman
f3a233e If the prospect of this flattening--and all of the pressures, dislocations, and opportunities accompanying it--makes you uneasy about the future, you are neither wrong nor alone. Thomas L. Friedman
b83f1fc Havas Media, observed in a March 3, 2015, essay on TechCrunch.com: "Uber, the world's largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world's most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world's largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening." Something" -- Thomas L. Friedman
c27eefc The Cold War was a struggle between two competing systems of order, dominated by two competing superpowers, who could, relatively speaking, keep their allies ideologically in line, physically intact, and militarily in check. The relevant geographic and ideological dividing lines were East-West, communist-capitalist, totalitarian-democratic. In Thomas L. Friedman
49a0e93 said Seidman. When "freedom from" outstrips "freedom to," amplified actors in the grip of destructive ideas "will cause more harm and destruction, unless they become inspired and enlisted in constructive human endeavors," he argued. "They will be like inmates on the loose." No" Thomas L. Friedman
b606c44 Ownership is the one thing that fixes more things so other things can be made easier to fix," argues the education expert Stefanie Sanford of the College Board. More often than not, she says, when citizens feel a sense of ownership over their country, when teachers feel a sense of ownership over their classrooms, when students feel a sense of ownership over their education, more good things tend to happen than bad. You get outcomes that are.. Thomas L. Friedman
03ae918 When the necessary is impossible but the impossible is necessary, when no power wants to own the World of Disorder but, increasingly, no power can ignore it, it is going to take these hybrid combinations of drones and walls, aircraft carriers and Peace Corps volunteers, plus chickens, gardens, and Webs, to begin to create stability in the age of accelerations. Since Thomas L. Friedman
837b527 Andreas Schleicher, who runs the Programme for International Student Assessment exams, a global evaluation of scholastic performance, observed that those scoring highest are Asian countries that have "ownership cultures--a high degree of professional autonomy for teachers ... where teachers get to participate in shaping standards and curriculum and have ample time for continuous professional development." Thomas L. Friedman
2423d46 I have spent a lot of time, in America and abroad, covering the struggles of different groups to assert ownership over their societies and the consequences of their lack of it. And I am forever struck at how quickly ownership can change behaviors and enable adaptation, self-propulsion, resilience, and healthy interdependencies. In Thomas L. Friedman
66b83df In 2014, when the Ebola virus broke out in West Africa, it was the American military that sent in three thousand troops and $3 billion to wipe it out. There was no Russian or Chinese aid mission that jumped into the breach. Yes, Thomas L. Friedman
13f9a2b Megginson's dictum: "The civilization that is able to survive is the one that is able to adapt to the changing physical, social, political, moral, and spiritual environment in which it finds itself." Thomas L. Friedman
08a5451 QI's research suggested that the quote emerged over time from a speech delivered by a Louisiana State University business professor, Leon C. Megginson, at the convention of the Southwestern Social Science Association in 1963. Megginson reportedly said: Yes, change is the basic law of nature. But the changes wrought by the passage of time affect individuals and institutions in different ways. According to Darwin's Origin of Species, it is no.. Thomas L. Friedman
d6d93eb As the Harvard University strategist Graham Allison summed it up: "Historically, there has always been a gap between people's individual anger and what they could do with their anger. But thanks to modern technology, and the willingness of people to commit suicide, really angry individuals can now kill millions of people if they can get the right materials." And that is becoming steadily easier with the globalization of flows and the rise o.. Thomas L. Friedman
f880657 She would initiate three "races to the top" from the federal level--with prizes of $100 million, $75 million, and $50 million--to vastly accelerate innovations in social technologies: Which state can come up with the best platform for retraining workers? Which state can design a pilot city or community of the future where everything from self-driving vehicles and ubiquitous Wi-Fi to education, clean energy, affordable housing, health care, .. Thomas L. Friedman
e8fc62c In other words, he explained, unless we bear witness to God's presence by our own good deeds, He is not present. Thomas L. Friedman
07eb3d0 In the postbiblical world we understand that from the first day of the world, God trusted man to make choices, when He entrusted Adam to make the right decision about which fruit to eat in the Garden of Eden. We are responsible for making God's presence manifest by what we do, by the choices we make. And the reason this issue is most acute in cyberspace is that no one else is in charge there. There is no place in today's world where you enc.. Thomas L. Friedman
bc0bd92 So, as I wrote in the paperback edition of The Lexus and the Olive Tree, I started telling anyone who asked "Is God in cyberspace?" that the answer is "no"--but He wants to be there. But only we can bring Him there by how we act there. God celebrates a universe with such human freedom because He knows that the only way He is truly manifest in the world is not if He intervenes but if we all choose sanctity and morality in an environment wher.. Thomas L. Friedman
6de5605 As Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee point out in their book, the four key measures of an economy's health (per capita GDP, labor productivity, the number of jobs, and median household income) all rose together for most of the Cold War years. "For more than three decades after World War II, all four went up steadily and in almost perfect lockstep," Brynjolfsson noted in a June 2015 interview with the Harvard Business Review. "Job growth a.. Thomas L. Friedman
8cac14d in October 2014, the United States was inundated with more than fifty thousand unaccompanied children from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. "They're fleeing from threats and violence in their home countries," noted Vox.com, "where things have gotten so bad that many families believe that they have no choice but to send their children on the long, dangerous journey north." Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador are among the most environm.. Thomas L. Friedman
9d48493 Robots can now milk cows. Oil prices have fallen globally, meaning both the petro-states and those indirectly propped up by them are weakened. At the same time, slower growth in China has lately shrunk its voracious appetite for African, Australian, and Latin American commodities. China accounted for more than a third of global growth in recent years, and its growth engine multiplied the growth of many of the countries that exported raw mat.. Thomas L. Friedman
4c67968 On June 20, 2016, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which tracks forced displacement worldwide based on data from governments, partner agencies, and UNHCR's own reporting, issued a report stating that a total of 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, compared with 59.5 million just twelve months earlier. Thomas L. Friedman
bb823c5 Gabriel had been bathed and was lying, for the moment, hugging his hippo placidly in the small crib that had replaced the basket Lois Lowry
b1923e8 President Obama advocated in his Hiroshima speech: "What makes our species unique [is that] we're not bound by genetic code to repeat the mistakes of the past. We can learn. We can choose. We can tell our children a different story, one that describes a common humanity, one that makes war less likely and cruelty less easily accepted. The world was forever changed here, but today the children of this city will go through their day in peace.".. Thomas L. Friedman
55ba0d0 With the steady drop in the price of renewable energy and efficiency, "it now costs the same to destroy the climate or save it," said Harvey. "The price is basically the same, but at the micro scale there will be different winners and losers." Coal and oil companies and traditional utilities will lose out. Wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, and efficient and distributed energy purveyors will win. "At the macro scale, though, the whole world will .. Thomas L. Friedman
abda4cf The political scientist Francis Fukuyama, who wrote a classic book in 1996 on why the most successful states and societies exhibit high levels of trust--Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity--noted that "social capital is a capability that arises from the prevalence of trust in a society or in certain parts of it." Thomas L. Friedman
0da42bf Where trust is prevalent, he explained, groups and societies can move and adapt quickly through many informal contracts. "By contrast, people who do not trust one another will end up cooperating only under a system of formal rules and regulations, which have to be negotiated, agreed to, litigated, and enforced, sometimes by coercive means," wrote Fukuyama. It" Thomas L. Friedman
7a576c6 Gates put it to me this way: "For good stuff to happen, it requires a lot of things to go well--you need many pieces to get stability right." None of it is going to happen overnight, but we need to work with the forces of order that do still exist in the World of Disorder to start building a different trajectory, beginning with all the basics: basic education, basic infrastructure--roads, ports, electricity, telecom, mobile banking--basic a.. Thomas L. Friedman
c2d2792 Patience wasn't just the absence of speed. It was space for reflection and thought." We are generating more information and knowledge than ever today, "but knowledge is only good if you can reflect on it." Thomas L. Friedman
b8396df We have never seen a time when more people could make history, record history, publicize history, and amplify history all at the same time," remarked Dov Seidman. In" Thomas L. Friedman
9282b98 But it is very difficult to persuade people to do something if you can't connect the dots for them in a convincing way--why this action will produce this result, because this is how the gears and pulleys of the Machine work. And, Thomas L. Friedman
4069de6 Consider a New York Times story from April 22, 2014, that reported: Something strange is happening at farms in upstate New York. The cows are milking themselves. Desperate for reliable labor and buoyed by soaring prices, dairy operations across the state are charging into a brave new world of udder care: robotic milkers ... Robots allow the cows to set their own hours, lining up for automated milking five or six times a day--turning the pre.. Thomas L. Friedman
abf7bc7 All I know is that since becoming a reporter in 1978, I have spent a lot of my career covering the difference between peoples, societies, leaders, and cultures focused on learning from "the other"--to catch up after falling behind--and those who feel humiliated by "the other," by their contact with strangers, and lash out rather than engage in the hard work of adaptation. This theme has so permeated my reporting that I have been tempted at .. Thomas L. Friedman