Worth Repeating: Can Tech Save Us?
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
12/01/22
•35m
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Our world has become a weird combination of dangerous, existential challenges and of almost magical, potential solutions. On the one hand, we see accelerating, deadly climate change, proliferating famine, pandemics, war, and growing political and social tensions that could threaten life as we know it. On the other hand, we are witnessing amazing advances in robotics, nanotechnology, genomics, neuro-technology, life sciences and beyond that could be pathways to a more robust, resilient, and prosperous future.
Which is it going to be? Are we doomed or can we save ourselves? Can all those fabulous innovations be transformed into practical realities at the necessary speed and scale, and in ways that allow mankind to flourish?
Scott Cohen believes the answer is a resounding, “Yes!!” He co-founded New Lab, an American based initiative to bring together entrepreneurs, engineers, and inventors to solve some of the world's biggest challenges. And “solve” doesn’t mean someday: it means now. Listen as he discusses how he and his colleagues at New Lab are doing exactly that.
What do you think?
This episode was originally published on August 04, 2022.
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America Votes; Democracy Wins (Maybe)
November 24, 2022
•48m
The US mid-term elections are (almost) over. We know the headlines: Democratic Senate, Republican House, many election deniers denied election. Democrats win by not losing; Republicans prove that when bad candidates deserve to lose, they do. Perhaps most importantly—after all the sturm und drang of the last election cycle—voters voted, ballots were counted, winners celebrated and losers conceded. In other words, America had a normal election.
But is it too early to say that democracy has healed itself? Is the absence of wild allegations of fraud too low a bar for a country that likes to think of itself as the gold standard for representative democracy? What are the implications of the massive amounts of money—almost $17 billion—that candidates raised and spent during their campaigns? Does the way-too-early launch of the 2024 presidential election cycle signal that politicking, rather than governing, is what American politicians are best at?
We invited Richard Gephardt, former Democratic congressman and long-time party leader, and Scott Miller, one of America's most successful political strategists, to sift through the evidence and speculate on the future of democracy in America.
This material was originally recorded during a Tällberg webinar and has been lightly edited for this podcast.
Next Episode
Navigating the World, One Charity at a Time
December 8, 2022
•28m
For many, the holiday season is a time of giving, when people think a bit more about those with less, or those affected by war or other calamities. But those problems and the philanthropic urge to do something about them are far greater than something for Dickens' Scrooge to do on Christmas morning after a night of ghostly encounters.
Globally, private philanthropy is big and growing. Nonprofit foundation Giving Tuesday alone is now a worldwide phenomenon that raised more than three billion dollars last month. The impulse to give is global.
But how to know whether your charity is impactful? Whether the money you aim for refugees or cancer research or policy advocacy hits its mark? Much of the non-profit world is opaque on the best of days.
Cue Charity Navigator, a US NGO whose purpose is to bring transparency to philanthropy. Our guest today on New Thinking For A New World is Michael Michael Thatcher, President and CEO of Charity Navigator, which regularly examines and rates 200,000 American nonprofits, aiming to provide objective criteria to guide giving. Today, the US; tomorrow, the world.
What do you think?
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