Neil deGrasse Tyson:

In the 20th century, Americans led the world in major inventions. But the ambitions of the nation have flatlined. You go through the school system and come out on the other side, and there's no grand vision to walk into. To get everyone thinking about the future again may require another big project where we dream the impossible dream and achieve the impossible goal.

Kathryn Schulz:

If you choose to be invisible, it's a superpower; if it's forced upon you, it's a plight. The same goes for being visible.

Zeynep Tufekci:

Technology in the workplace is as much about power and control as it is about productivity and efficiency.

David Brooks:

People on the road to character understand that no person can achieve self-mastery on his or her own. In the realm of action, a person of character is committed to tasks that can't be completed in a single lifetime.

Max Eulenstein and Lauren Scissors:

People are worried about missing important updates from the friends they care about.

Tom Standage:

We sell the antidote to information overload -- we sell a finite, finishable, very tightly curated bundle of content.

Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen:

As Hayek emphasized, the market does not require perfect knowledge to function, rather it is the means by which imperfect knowledge is made to function in the social interest.

Jess Bidgood:

Law enforcement officials around the country have taken to monitoring social media for signs of potentially dangerous parties.

Stewart Brand:

In some cultures you're supposed to be responsible out to the seventh generation -- that's about 200 years. But it goes right against self-interest.

Zeynep Tufekci:

This problem is not us versus the machines, but between us, as humans, and how we value one another.

Freeman Dyson:

At Trinity College, Cambridge, they planted an avenue of trees in the early 18th century, leading up from the river to the college. This avenue of trees grew very big and majestic in the course of 200 years. When I was a student there 50 years ago, the trees were growing a little dilapidated, though still very beautiful. The college decided that for the sake of the future, they would chop them down and plant new ones. Now, 50 years later, the new trees are half grown and already looking almost as beautiful as the old ones. That's the kind of thinking that comes naturally in such a place, where 100 years is nothing.