Peter Diamandis interview, Wired

Private space pioneer Peter Diamandis, who founded the X Prize Foundation and cofounded Singularity University, from the Wired July issue, interviewed by Ted Greenwald:

Greenwald: Could anything derail us from this path?

Diamandis: Yes: the risk aversion we’ve developed as a society. Lawyers have ubiquitous power. If someone is always to blame, if every time something goes wrong someone has to be punished, people quickly stop taking risks. Without risks, there can’t be breakthroughs. I got this from Internet law expert Jonathan Zittrain: We’ve gone from a society where if something wasn’t prohibited then it was legal to a society where if something isn’t explicitly permitted it’s illegal. In the early days of aviation, you could do anything you wanted as long as it wasn’t illegal. Now the laws are so extensive that they say, “Show me where it’s allowed.”

Peter Diamandis interview, Wired is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system