Aspen Ideas to Go

When poet Elizabeth Acevedo taught creative writing to young women of color in a detention center, she recognized their trauma and avoided the teacher-as-savior mentality. Acevedo spoke at the Aspen Institute’s Summit on Inequality and Opportunity. The Summit brings together policymakers, thought leaders, and social entrepreneurs to talk about widening the opportunity gap. This episode features Acevedo and Arthur Brooks, president of American Enterprise Institute. He talks about the secret to renewal in business, and in life.

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Why do human beings explore? And, why are the most adventurous explorers drawn to outer space? Naturalist and astronomer David Aguilar explains why the drive for adventure fades after childhood, and how we can regain it as adults. Also, a group of physicists dig into what the universe is made of. Janna Levin, Lisa Randall, and Lawrence Krauss debate black holes, and whether they actually exist. Their conversation is led by Ira Flatow, host of Public Radio International’s Science Friday.

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Less than a month into his presidency, Donald Trump made combative and accusatory remarks on Twitter about the intelligence community for a report on Russian connections. Are his messages undermining the legitimacy of the intelligence community? If so, will the agencies be less effective in making decisions around national security? Former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden joins former acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and Juan Zarate, former Deputy National Security Adviser for Combating Terrorism, to discuss the impact Trump’s statements have had. The discussion is moderated by David Ignatius, columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post.

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Kleptocracy presents a growing threat to US national security and international peace, as money laundering and other forms of public “grand corruption” increasingly undermine democracy, cripple development, weaken Western soft power, and accelerate state collapse. Can an International Anti-Corruption Court, modeled on the International Criminal Court in The Hague, tackle the problem? Meryl Chertoff, head of the Aspen Institute Justice and Society Program, leads a discussion with Deborah Connor, acting chief of the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery section at the US Justice Department, senior US District Judge Mark Wolf, and Frank Vogl, co-founder of Transparency International.

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Margot Lee Shetterly, author of Hidden Figures, says “It’s one thing to tell your own story, it’s another thing to take responsibility to tell someone else’s life.” Her book about a group of black women mathematicians who helped catapult the US space program to success became a blockbuster film. In this episode, she tells Michele Norris, former NPR host and director of an Aspen Institute program, that she grew up among the women she wrote about. Later in the show, another award-winning author who writes about race and identity, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, discusses her book Americanah.

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Renowned Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert describes the foibles of imagination and illusions of foresight that cause each of us to misconceive our tomorrows and misestimate our satisfactions. Vividly bringing to life the latest scientific research in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, and behavioral economics, Gilbert reveals what scientists have discovered about the uniquely human ability to imagine the future, and about our capacity to predict how much we will like it when we get there.

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If the 20 years from 1995 to 2015 were shaped in significant measure by digitization and the rise of the internet, what’s next? What will define the next decade? Drawing from his highly-praised New York Times best-seller The Industries of the Future, Alec Ross provides a view into the forces that will carve tomorrow’s economy and the difficult, necessary steps that must be taken to prepare ourselves and our children for a world with powerful artificial intelligence, robotics, and scientific developments that will change our lives at work and home.

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Albert Einstein was no Einstein when he was a kid. He was slow to talk and was even dubbed “the dopey one.” But, Einstein said, slow development gave him time to wonder about things most people don’t spend time on and as a result, his imagination flourished. In this rebroadcast, Aspen Institute President and Einstein biographer Walter Isaacson delves into the source of Einstein’s creativity. Where did it come from? How was it reflected in his life? And what can we learn from it?

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Everything—from the country’s place in the world to the social contract between citizens, government, and the private sector—seems to be knotted in hard, uncompromising debates. In this episode, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, former presidential advisor David Gergen, and Steve Clemons, Washington editor at large for The Atlantic, discuss how the country can regain a spirit of civitas. In the past, civitas—binding laws and mutual commitment of a shared national journey—has assured respect for opposing positions. Have we lost the ability to find common ground? Does national civitas need a reboot?

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Chaos in the Middle East, instability in Europe, and a reckless North Korea are signals that the world is increasingly defined by disorder. Author and Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass says the world needs an updated global operating system. The guidelines and institutions that have led the world since World War II are outdated and unable to deal with modern threats like terrorism, cyber, and climate change. Haass speaks with Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson about his book A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order.

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