An Attempt at Civil Discourse

The events of 9/11 triggered the world's largest civilian surveillance programs. Now, two decades later, Eden and Andrew pause to assess the consequences of all this on the complex relationship between people, private data, and the government agencies meant to protect us. Is there an ethical balance between individual privacy and public safety? Can using encrypted communications be proof of criminal intent? Should we trust governments and their employees to responsibly handle personal data, and are encryption "backdoors" ever a good idea? Tune in for a civil discourse on these and other hotly contested questions.

If you would like to suggest future podcast content, please email us at: [email protected]

Making good decisions is absolutely critical - but how to proceed and when to stop! Join us as we dive in and discuss with some fine civil discourse.

As cities begin to return to normality and employees come back to the office, what will the new world of work look like? How successful has the working-from-home experience been, and which of its features are here to stay with us? In their effort to explore the future of work, Eden and Andrew tackle the cultural, technological and even legal aspects of work in yet another pretty civil discourse. If you would like to suggest future podcast content, please email us at: [email protected]

In both relative and absolute terms, the US imprisons more of its population than any other country on earth, and it pays a fortune to do so. This is neither normal nor inevitable. Eden and Andrew meet to dissect the fundamental issues and untangle how this came to be. From plea bargains to the war on drugs, and from racial discrimination to privatized prisons, there is no shortage of controversy in this passionate search of causes and solutions to this age-old problem of crime.

What does it take to resurrect a damaged society? Which conceptions and traditions are holding us back? Eden and Andrew meet once again to unpack why America and other societies are in a dangerous decline. From face mask disobedience to special interest groups to ineffective central governments, nothing is off limits in this ambitious discourse on how to re-engineer a post-crisis society. 

As the US recovers from a barbaric assault on its democracy, Andrew and Eden meet to discuss the country’s challenges and what it could take to fix a seemingly broken system. From voting reforms to mandatory national service, and social heroes to social media – everything is on the table in this civilized quest to understand and to design a better American model.

As governments flood economies with stimulus money, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are reaching ever greater peaks. Where is all this headed? Is the US dollar under any real threat? What should we cherish and what should we fear about the rise of virtual currencies? And will there ever come a day when Bitcoin goes truly mainstream? Eden and Andrew gather around a virtual fireplace to transact in warnings, opinions, and plenty of predictions.

What are cognitive biases, and why do they happen to us? In this episode we examine these mental distortions through plenty of examples, and explore how we can guard ourselves against the most pernicious of them. We'll also find out which cognitive biases afflict Andrew and Eden, both from their own perspective as well as the other's. Last but not least, we go through several polite but effective ways to communicate with someone blindsided by a cognitive bias.