Aspen Ideas to Go

So much of adult life is about learning the rules and then using those rules to navigate the world. We become certain that we know what we know — that we’re right, and we’re safer and more secure that way. But certainty, argues neuroscientist Beau Lotto, might actually be one of society’s biggest sources of emotional and physical unwellness. Certainty causes us to have less humility, less creativity, and less tolerance for difference. But occasionally, something amazing knocks us out of those patterns — we’re awestruck. Is it possible to use awe as a tool to make us more open, tolerant people? In Lotto’s talk from Aspen Ideas: Health, he walks us through how that effect actually works in our brains, and shares what he’s learned from researching the topic at his Lab of Misfits, where he’s founder and CEO.

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Hate has unfortunately been a part of the United States since the founding of the country, enshrined at various times in policies and regulations, and showing up in the practices and everyday behavior of individuals. We have made progress in addressing some of those harms and removing some of the structural barriers people face, but we still have a ways to go as a society. And in the last few years, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hateful incidents have been on the rise, putting minority groups at great risk. In this panel at the 2022 Aspen Ideas Festival, civic leaders and researchers who are leading the fight against hate explain its inner workings and tell us what they’ve learned about stopping hate from spreading. Eric Liu, the co-founder and CEO of Citizen University and the director of the Aspen Institute’s Citizenship and American Identity Program, moderates the conversation between Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, and Dana Coester, media professor at West Virginia University.

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People often talk about maintaining their physical health but brain health is an afterthought. It turns out brain fitness at any age heightens and protects brain function and can even prevent brain disease. Sanjay Gupta, author of Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age, Maria Shriver, founder of the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, and Natalie Morales, West Coast anchor of NBC’s Today Show, all have personal stories about dementia. In this episode, they talk about why it's important to link lifestyle with brain health in order to live a longer, happier life.

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Are we experiencing a “crisis of connection"?” Fifty-four percent of American adults report that not a single person knows them well. Our political and social divisions are at the forefront of public life right now, and distrust is widespread. New York Times columnist David Brooks is on a mission to spread the skills of deep listening and engaged conversation, which lead to real recognition and understanding between humans. If you want to get to know someone, you need to know how they see the world, he says. And in this talk, he tells us what he’s learned about how to do that, and gently nudges us all to take a step toward rebuilding trust.

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Do we really understand what’s happening in the economic lives of regular Americans? How is inflation hitting people with middle and lower incomes, and what impact will higher interest rates have on them? What societally valuable assets are we ignoring because we don’t measure them? Some economists believe we’re not collecting the right data, and therefore, we’re not getting an accurate picture of what’s happening to individuals. Gene Ludwig founded the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity to create new economic indicators for unemployment, earnings, and cost of living. He discusses how and why changes could be made to economic metrics with Duke law professor and risk analyst Sarah Bloom Raskin, and Oren Cass, the director of the conservative think tank American Compass. New York Times writer David Leonhardt moderates the conversation, which took place at the end of June.

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Have Democrats become too identified with technocratic ways of speaking — about the economy, the pandemic, climate change? Has this deepened the political divide between those with and those without college degrees? Can Democrats reconnect with working-class voters who were drawn to Donald Trump? A few people inside the Democratic Party, including Colorado senator Michael Bennet, are speaking up to do just that, and figure out how to reorient the party to a compassionate and winning strategy. Harvard political philosophy professor Michael Sandel lays out a similar argument in his recent book “The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?” Bennet and Sandel hash out recent history and imagine a new direction — philosophical, social, economic and strategic — for the Democratic Party and the American people.

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Heat waves. Wildfires. Floods. This summer has served up some of the most extreme weather on record, and it’s clear many of us are overwhelmed by climate change news. We usually hear more about problems than solutions, and it’s often difficult to find helpful information about managing our fear and discomfort. Alaina Wood is a scientist and climate communicator, known for her TikTok videos about uplifting climate-related news. She believes that amplifying positive messages helps people lead healthy lives and stay engaged in activism. She’s joined on stage at this 2022 Aspen Ideas Festival event by clinical and environmental psychologist Thomas Doherty, who specializes in working with people on their concerns about environmental issues and climate change. He aims to help people improve their mental health and build capacity to take action on the issues they care about. NBC correspondent Gadi Schwartz moderates the conversation.

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For many people, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown became an unexpected opportunity to take stock of our relationships. Some friendships deepened and transformed, some slipped away, and many social circles shrank. Which isn’t always a bad thing. Our friendships have an enormous impact on our lives, but this type of relationship hardly gets any attention from social scientists and the media, and we have a lot of misconceptions about friendship. The writers and researchers in this panel from the 2022 Aspen Ideas Festival, psychologist Marisa G. Franco, writer Eric Barker, and author and speaker Jen Hatmaker, are all working to change that. In a lively conversation, they pick apart the inner workings of these unique kinds of bonds and share some tips on making and keeping better friends. Writer Jennifer Senior, author of the viral story in The Atlantic, “It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart,” moderates the discussion.

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We are in a golden age for organized crime and corruption, according to watchdog groups. Technological innovations like cryptocurrency have given criminals new tools for covering their tracks, and allowed them to spread out around the globe. Bad actors have spent decades building tangled webs of enablers and tactics, and they now have more resources and capital than ever to invest in new crime enterprises. The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project has reporters and editors on every continent who put their lives at risk to follow trails of laundered money and trace clues back to the guilty parties. Their reporting uncovers the ways corruption is chipping away at democracy, human rights, and quality of life for regular citizens. The co-founders of the OCCRP, Drew Sullivan and Paul Radu, along with Freezing Order author Bill Browder,  joined NPR host and reporter Mary Louise Kelly on stage at the Aspen Ideas Festival, to explain their methods, share their read on the magnitude of the problem, and speculate about the future of organized, globalized crime.

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Parents have always cared about what their kids are learning in school, but education debates have become particularly explosive in the U.S. in the last couple of years. All over the country, parent groups have introduced bills that try to control and restrict what children learn – especially around issues of race, history, and LGBTQ identity. What’s behind the recent push for parental power over education? And is it pitting parents against teachers? Parents who are also educators, researchers and writers join moderator and New York Times podcast host Jane Coaston to try and untangle this flood of activism and assess its impact. You’ll hear from writer and editor at The Dispatch, David French, Wheaton College theology professor Esau McCaulley, and Stanford internet researcher Renée DiResta.

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