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Ramez Naam Biography

Ramez Naam is an American professional technologist and science fiction writer. He is best known as the author of the Nexus Trilogy.

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Ramez Naam Quotes

In the food case in particular, one of the technologies that could help there - genetic technologies that could create better crops with higher yields and less need for water and fertilizer - is tremendously feared. Very little of that fear is scientifically grounded.

Help, Scientifically, Technology, Water, Yield, Yields

You have to be willing to spend an awful lot in that R&D phase before you see the benefits. When you look at the companies that have really won customers over in technology - say, Apple and Google - you find that they spend billions of dollars on R&D each year, often spending that much on a product before they ever make a dime back in profits.

Apples, Google, Say, Technology, Years

I was much more of a naïve techno-optimist than I am now. I still believe that technology can help us come out of this situation with a richer humanity with less impact on the planet, but now I think it has to be paired with effective policy in order to achieve that.

Believe, Help, Situation, Technology, Thinking

Doom yourself to horrific climate change by burning all that carbon and releasing all that CO2. Or power down society, reducing total energy usage around the planet. One leads to ecological collapse. The other is a reversion, in many ways, to poverty.

Energy, Climate, Burning, Planet, Change, Carbon

If you want to feed the planet and keep the forests we have, you need to be able to grow roughly twice as much food per acre around the world. How do you do that? New technology.

Acre, Keep, Needs, Technology, World

New technology lets you grow the resource pie, which is the only way you can get out between that pincer of rising consumption (as we end poverty) and environmental and natural resource depletion.

Technology, Pie, Environmental, Grow, Natural

On almost every environmental issue I care about, in fact, I've been wrong at one point or another. I used to think that climate change was no big deal, that most environmental problems were massive exaggerations, that oil reserves were effectively unlimited, and more.

Deal, Issues, Oil, Point, Problems, Thinking

Often an idea has impact far larger than the person who originated it.

Idea, Ideas, Impact, Larger, Persons

If your incentives are set up wrong - if for some reason you reward people for behavior that's actually bad for your customers or your organization - then you're going to encourage that behavior.

Bad, Behavior, Incentives, Organization, People, Wrong

When it comes to trying to manage how our entire planet-wide market and all the people and businesses in it deal with nature and our natural resources - we first and foremost need to change the incentives.

Change, Entire, Needs, People, Trying

When you're managing a large number of people, you learn that incentives matter tremendously. You really want people to be rewarded for doing the right thing for the customers and the organization.

Learn, Matter, Numbers, Organization, People

Unfortunately, in the environment, I don't see as much willingness to invest heavily in R&D as I do in consumer technology. And that's a pity.

Consumer, Environment, Pity, Technology, Willingness

TNC was once limited by the resources it could directly marshal to buy land. But teaching people a new idea is incredibly more scalable.

Idea, Ideas, Land, People, Resources, Teaching

If the incentives are aligned right - towards better preservation and restoration of nature and natural resources - then you'll see a tremendous amount of activity in that direction.

Restoration, Incentives, Natural, Towards, Preservation

There are really two kinds of optimism. There's the complacent, Pollyanna optimism that says "don't worry - everything will be just fine" and that allows one to just lay back and do nothing about the problems around you. Then there's what we call dynamic optimism. That's an optimism based on action.

Kinds, Optimism, Says, Two, Worry

Today, our incentives aren't set up well - you can make a lot of money burning fossil fuels, digging up wetlands, pumping fossil water out of aquifers that will take 10,000 years to recharge, overfishing species in international waters that are close to collapse, and so on.

Aquifers, Digging, International, Take, Water, Years

Playing God is actually the highest expression of human nature. The urges to improve ourselves, to master our environment, and to set our children on the best path possible have been the fundamental driving forces of all of human history. Without these urges to ‘play God’, the world as we know it wouldn’t exist today.

Children, Expression, Know, Play, Set, Urges

We don't have good global policies in place for climate.

Climate, Good, Place, Policies, Policy

Whatever my current beliefs are, on any topic, they're all open to being changed by the right facts and the right evidence.

Topics, Facts, Belief, Open, Evidence

Often we need to use policy to level the playing field, or to be sure that a technology is managed in a responsible way.

Level, Needs, Responsible, Technology, Use, Way

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