Katrín Oddsdóttir is a founding mother of the still-not-ratified Iceland Constitution. In 2012, the people of Iceland told their Parliament to adopt a constitution based on the draft that she and 24 other Icelanders crafted. They had crafted their draft based upon the results from two citizens assemblies. We hear about that history and what it can teach us going forward.

Claudia Chwalisz is a social entrepreneur, spreading the gospel of citizen assemblies. In this episode we talk to her about citizens assemblies' potential and how they are spreading across the world.

Not all AI is democracy ending AI. Some can support democracy and make it better. In this episode, I talk to Kim Polese, whose career launching transformative technologies (beginning with Java) has landed with a democracy enhancing AI, CrowdSmart. We talk about its potential, as well as the open source alternative, pol.is.

David Van Reybrouck's book, Against Elections, helped crystalize a movement for citizen assemblies. In my conversation with him, we talk about the origin of this idea, and how it could complement democracy.

Chloe Maxim and Canyon Woodward built a people focused movement in rural Maine to change the way politics works. I talk to them about their book, Dirt Road Revival, and the organization they've launched, DirtRoadOrganizing.org, aiming to change how we do politics, for the better.

Eli Pariser, Executive Director of MoveOn at 23, and founder of UpWorthy, talks to me about creating healthy online spaces, and democratic activism that builds up democracy rather than tearing it down.

After hope, we need health. Josh Greene, professor of psychology at Harvard University and author of Moral Tribes talks to me about building healthier engagement between increasingly polarized citizens.

Jennifer Pahlka, founder of the Code for America and former Deputy CTO, talks with me about improving digital governmental capacity, working from her new book, Recoding America: Why Government is Failing in the Digital Era and How We Can Do Better.

Our first lifeboat is hope — hope that government could actually do good. Brink Lindsey, formerly of the Cato Institute, and now Director of the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center, talks to me about governmental capacity, and how we could make it better.

We can make our unrepresentative representative democracy representative. But AI may mean that's not enough. This episode introduces the final section of this season — lifeboats: the changes we could make to make it so democracy can survive.