The Brave New World Is Here: Are We Ready?
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
02/20/25
•35m
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We live in an increasingly complex technology-driven world. How we learn, how we create, how we make and grow things, how we interact with each other is being transformed by new technologies that themselves are rapidly evolving. In a perfect world, this technological transformation would lift all boats, make people smarter, healthier, more prosperous, maybe even wiser and more human.
This, obviously, is not that perfect world—in part because the unpleasant fact is that too many people in too many places lack the skills to cope with even the day-to-day realities of modern life.
That is the stark conclusion of a massive study of adult skills in 31 major countries across Europe, the Americas, and East Asia recently published by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Simply put: adult literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving skills are declining or stagnating almost everywhere. That’s the exact opposite of what our societies need.
No wonder so many people in so many places seem dissatisfied—seem to fear the future, not embrace it—and no wonder democracy seems to be in trouble.
Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills at the OECD, oversaw the organization's Survey of Adult Skills. In this conversation with host Alan Stoga, he explains the good, the bad, and the ugly of what his team of researchers discovered.
Do you have the skills you need to use technology, or are you being used by it? Please tell us what you think here.
Previous Episode
Best New Thinking: Can the Amazon Be Saved?
February 13, 2025
•32m
What happens in the Amazon is of planetary consequence. Its rainforests influence weather and rainfall around the world. Its rivers account for 1/4 of the available fresh water on earth. Its drainage basin is more than twice as large as that of the Congo River in Africa, which is the world's second-biggest. It harbors an estimated 10% of the planet's known lifeforms.
Our guest this week on New Thinking for a New World is Fernando Trujillo, Colombian marine biologist, 2024 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize winner, and National Geographic Explorer of the Year. Trujillo, who is a global expert on river dolphins, leads a team that is working to keep the Amazon's freshwater basin alive. That is particularly important at a time when the region is suffering from record drought. River levels are low—in some cases historically so—and water temperatures are at intolerably high levels, especially if you're a fish. Continuing deforestation makes everything worse, of course.
Obviously, none of the consequences of the Amazon wasting away would be good for any of us. Can it be stopped? Listen as Trujillo explains his search to answer that question.
Please tell us what you think here.
This episode was originally published on December 11, 2024.
Next Episode
What’s Going On in the United States???
February 27, 2025
•57m
Donald Trump has been president for five weeks now. In light of the blizzard of executive orders, funding and hiring cuts, endless nominations and appointments, and above all the nonstop controversial policy declarations on every imaginable topic (and some of which literally are unimaginable), it seems like months or even years.
It's already clear that President Trump intends to change, not only how Washington and the United States work, but how the whole world works.
No president has ever started with this much activity, for better and for worse. The American custom is to wait to the hundred-day mark to assess the launch of a new presidency. But all this frenetic and even radical activity justifies an earlier stocktaking.
To do that, the Tällberg Foundation recently convened a webinar. Alan Stoga, Tällberg’s chairman, engaged in an extended conversation with Aziz Huq, professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and Scott Miller, a leading strategist for businesses, politicians, and governments in the U.S. and globally.
Do you think Donald Trump is good for the United States, your country, or the world? Please tell us what you think here
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