Garry Kasparov: 'Real Innovation Is Not the iPhone 6, It's Apollo 6'
Nick Gillespie talks to Kasparov about chess, communism, technology, and Russia's "one-man dictatorship."
"The Free World needs challenges," says chess-champion-turned-human-rights-activist Garry Kasparov. "Wars, and the Cold War, were definitely challenges. We don't want to see those challenges again, but we have to recognize that the real innovation is not the iPhone 6; it's Apollo 6. There is a fundamental difference."
Kasparov had one of the most storied careers in chess history, becoming the youngest-ever world chess champion in 1985 at age 22, then holding the No. 1 ranking for almost all of the next two decades. He also developed an early interest in politics, initially supporting Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms of the late 1980s and eventually challenging the authority of longtime Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin. Today, from his position of exile in New York, Kasparov is leader of the anti-Putin United Civil Front and also chairman of the Human Rights Foundation.
Reason's Nick Gillespie interviewed Kasparov in November at a dinner co-hosted by the Atlas Network, a nonprofit that promotes free market think tanks in the developing world. Click through for a conversation about communism, technology, U.S. foreign policy, and the "one-man dictatorship" that is Russia today.