Nayef Al-Rodhan Quotes

What makes our existence meaningful is highly subjective and ultimately determined by sustainable neurochemical gratification.

Ultimately, I conclude that however we understand existence, what gives meaning to our lives are those things that serve our neurochemically based emotional self-interest in a sustainable way.

All knowledge is acquired through the application of reason and has a physical basis.

Our new concept of just power argues that the promotion of justice should be the aim of modern statecraft, not for altruistic reasons, but because it is the only sustainable way that states can promote progress and stability in a globalised world.

Harmonious interstate relations will be guided by the paradigm of Symbiotic Realism that stresses the importance of absolute rather than relative gains.

Circumstances will determine what I term the survival value of humankind’s moral compass. Being highly moral in an immoral environment will almost certainly be detrimental to one’s survival and vice versa.

3D printing is going to transform our societies, our freedoms and our sense of security.

All policies should be packaged with full awareness of the limitation of human nature (amorality, emotionality and egoism) in both the short- and the long-term.

Those who are outside the centres of power, because of the need for a positive and not simply a stable identity, are likely to find an independent identity appealing.

Cultural and ethnic diversity benefit humanity’s future, survival, strength and excellence, promoting what I call cultural vigour, similar to the way in which molecular and genetic diversity promote “hybrid vigor” in nature and thus strength, resilience and a higher potential for a problem-free future.

There is a physical neurobiological substrate to all human knowledge, including thoughts, memories, perceptions and emotions. To this end, mental states and thought processes are physical.

People should be educated about the links between education, ideology, and politics as a way to promote the virtue of humility.

Much like addictive drugs, power uses ready-made reward circuitries in the brain, producing extreme pleasure.

Many of the great achievements in history that are commonly attributed to one geo-cultural domain often owe a great debt to those of others. In this sense, some of the greatest achievements of human civilisation have been collective efforts and are part of the same human story.

Much of what we often consider knowledge is actually a point of view held without sufficient grounds: in a word, dogma.