Global Complexity Quotes

We only have to look around us to see how complexity and psychic 'temperature' are still rising: and rising no longer on the scale of the individual but now on that of the planet. This indication is so familiar to us that we cannot but recognize the objective, experiential, reality of a transformation of the planet 'as a whole.'

About the idea of a clash between cultures, between civilisations, I don't believe in it. It's something some political leaders tried to use, and that the media tried and are still trying to sell us, in order to simplify the world and their work.

We live in an increasingly sophisticated world that makes it difficult to make simple comments on stuff. There are too many people on both sides of the border who are taking advantage of circumstances and the situation.

What is the alternative to understanding the complexity of the world?

In a very complex world, you can no longer expect everyone to be great at everything.

We don't have a public that really understands the world anymore, and in the age of complexity, that problem becomes much more difficult.

Global conditions are far too complex to be able to imagine that they could ever be really controlled by one power.

We have all been brought up with an ethical system of 2,000 years ago, an industrial-managerial system of 200-300 years ago, a statecraft system of 200 years ago, and so on. None of this is working very well for the requirements of a time as complex and variegated as our own. So we stand shuttering at the threshold, with no clear map.

That our world is so massive that it is completely out of our control, that we cannot possibly be as large as we feel.

I don't care how big and fast computers are, they're not as big and fast as the world.

That [American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant.

This is a complicated time to govern in the world today because of so much going on and it's coming at us at such an unprecedented rate.

I would still describe China as a vast, invigorating puzzle that will never make sense to my western upbringing.

I think we've got to understand the complexity of the world that we are facing and no place is more so than in the Middle East.

The more complex our world becomes, the more we rely on that electronic window to help us process it all. And the greater the responsibility we must shoulder to see that it is used as fairly as it is fearlessly.