Yesterday evening I participated in an interesting meeting at Columbia University to talk about the efforts of the Committee on Global Thought. While the name does sound somewhat ominous (vaguely Orwellian? Stalinist?), I believe it is important to call out “global” explicitly. The three most pressing challenges of the world are global in nature: technology’s impact on the economy and society, climate change and infectious diseases. These each have wildly varying local impacts but are fundame...

Yesterday evening I participated in an interesting meeting at Columbia University to talk about the efforts of the Committee on Global Thought. While the name does sound somewhat ominous (vaguely Orwellian? Stalinist?), I believe it is important to call out “global” explicitly. The three most pressing challenges of the world are global in nature: technology’s impact on the economy and society, climate change and infectious diseases. These each have wildly varying local impacts but are fundame...