I have spent a decade working in the public sector in Australia. I have undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in politics and public policy from two of the country’s leading universities. I have advised Ministers and agency heads, and led high-performing teams striving to respond thoughtfully and practically to critical policy issues across portfolios from health to education, transport to economics.

The reason I love the public sector so much, is that it affords me visibility of (and a minor amount of influence over) the way our society is governed. The way rules are made, the way power is exerted, the way change is effected.

Ultimately, I am fascinated by how human beings come together and organise themselves. From family dynamics to global politics, community groups to sports teams, political parties to corporations, even criminal rings and cults—as fundamentally social animals, individuals will always find ways interact, form groups and arrange themselves to create structures. These structures create differentiation as well as belonging, but perhaps most significantly, they create power. Leaders emerge within any group. And the structures and systems these leaders operate within are infinitely more impactful than the leaders themselves.

Over time the structures that govern our societies have necessarily become more complex, as the way we live has become more sophisticated and the challenges that have resulted from our collective evolution have become more and more difficult to keep a grip on.

Preserving the future of our planet and all those who inhabit it is forefront in my thinking.

In addition to this, I have a deep yearning for humanity not only to survive, but to thrive.

We are a brilliant species. A walking miracle. The way we have adapted since we first evolved from apes is truly extraordinary. From creating fire to creating Artificial Intelligence, our evolutionary capacity knows no bounds.

In order to secure a great future for this planet, it is imperative that the systems and structures we create and in particular, those that enable the wielding of power and influence (i.e. our governments, legal systems, communications networks, financial institutions, etc.) are designed with integrity, efficiency and something else far less tangible, which I’m going to call: love.

For it is not enough to simply be intelligent anymore. Just as at some point in history, we realised it was not enough to simply be strong. Humanity’s central, distinguishing characteristic is our capacity to feel—from here we create, we invent, we relate and ultimately, we keep going.

Written by a human, who enjoys the occasional use of an em dash for dramatic effect—not a Large Language Model.