We treat "amateur" as an insult — someone not quite serious, not quite qualified. But the word comes from the Latin amator: lover. An amateur is someone who does a thing for love, not for a credential or a paycheck. In this episode, Annelise Riles explores how amateurs solve problems that stump the experts — and how borrowing an amateur's mindset can help even the pros think again.

Open-source investigator Natalia explains how amateur online detectives — "some guy named Bob in Florida" — crack cases that overwhelm even Interpol, from locating trafficked children to keeping people safe while dating. Consultant and philosopher Christian Madsbjerg describes the "amateur mindset" he uses to advise some of the world's largest companies: showing up knowing nothing, observing, and truly listening — what he calls epistemological humility, and the approach that helped move Ford toward electric vehicles. And Northwestern students share how an outsider's perspective creates room not just for innovation, but for kindness.

Guests

Christian Madsbjerg — author, consultant, and philosopher; founder of ReD Associates, which advises major global companies using the social sciences rather than standard management-consulting methods.

Natalia Antnova — open-source investigator, formerly with the collective Bellingcat; founder of the Safer Dating project.

"Your Turn" voices — Northwestern University students, gathered by on-campus producer Mia Perkins.

More from Annelise Riles at Everyday Ambassador: anneliseriles.substack.com

Chapters

(00:00) The amateur detectives who crack what the professionals can't

(03:44) This episode: the power of the amateur

(04:12) Christian Madsbjerg on the amateur mindset

(06:15) Why Ford studied people's relationship to nature instead of a spreadsheet

(11:02) What "amateur" really means: epistemological humility

(12:35) The costs — slow work, and not being taken seriously

(14:52) Why insight travels on its own, regardless of credentials

(15:47) Curiosity, joy, and the "juicy" question

(17:14) Your Turn: students on the outsider's perspective

(20:32) Closing reflection: the outsider as a source of kindness

Credits: This episode was produced by FP Studios with support from the Humboldt Foundation. Our on-campus producer was Mia Perkins.

On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated the largest nuclear weapon it ever tested at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The fallout poisoned a Japanese fishing crew, irradiated inhabited atolls, and triggered a diplomatic crisis — one the US resolved by paying $2 million and calling it closed, without ever answering the underlying legal questions.

Historian and lawyer Mary X. Mitchell joins Annelise to unpack how this works: the legal technologies that make disputes disappear, what it means to "win" a lawsuit you know you'll lose, and how Marshall Islanders used law as leverage against one of the most asymmetrical power relationships in modern history.

Mary's new book Unsettling Sovereignty is published by the University of Chicago Press. Her new article appears in Environmental History.

Key timestamps:

00:00 — Castle Bravo: what happened on March 1, 1954

01:07 — The bomb and the fallout: what actually came down on Rongelap

03:56 — Evacuation and the Marshall Islands petition to the UN

06:59 — Why the Marshall Islands? The strategic trusteeship and Pacific colonialism

~10:00 — The Lucky Dragon: Japan's fishing fleet and the diplomatic crisis

~14:00 — The ex gratia settlement: $150K offer, $6.7M demand, $2M resolution

~17:00 — What the settlement left submerged: the unanswered legal questions

~19:00 — How to use this: the dishes insight, and reading the real stakes

~22:35 — Losing in court and still winning: Marshall Islander lawsuits as leverage

~30:00 — Rights as a form of articulation: Patricia Williams and why courts still matter

34:38 — Closing: breaking it down as a methodology

Seth Shelden is General Counsel and United Nations Liaison for ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization spearheading efforts to abolish nuclear weapons through the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). 

This episode is in two parts. The first was recorded live during the NPT Review Conference. The second is a retrospective conversation recorded after the conference ended without agreement for the third consecutive time.

What we cover:

What ICAN does and how Seth got there 

What the NPT is, why it matters, and what three consecutive failures mean for the non-proliferation architecture

The final days of the conference: the atmosphere in the hallways, what the TPNW bloc achieved, and what they couldn't hold

The US arguing — in open session — that there is no norm against nuclear testing, and what that signals

Why AI risk language was deleted from the final document

How Seth actually spends his days at these conferences — including meetings with the Trump administration

The TPNW review conference coming in November 2026, and why it matters

A play about nuclear weapons being workshopped across New England (Seth is performing in it)

Seth’s honest five-year bet on where this is all heading

Thank you for tuning into my first monthly AMA!

We covered the collapse of the NPT Review Conference and what it means for nuclear security— plus my dispatches from Tokyo, an update on the Nagasaki house, and a full clinic on the listening move in peacemaking, and a preview of next month's peace-making move, Slicing.

Join my inner c…

This month, we’re exploring listening as a form of peace-building. So I’m re-releasing an episode from the archives that changed how I think about this work.

I recorded this before Everyday Ambassadors existed as a Substack, which means a lot of you haven’t heard it. But it might be the most essential conversation I’ve ever had about listening as a superpower.

Katharine Hayhoe is a climate scientist who has spent her career talking across political divides about climate change. And when I asked her how she actually reaches people who distrust her, who come in skeptical, who are defensive—her answer was disarmingly simple:

She listens.

Not as a tactic. Not to be nice. But because listening is how you learn what matters to the person in front of you. It’s how you understand what they care about. It’s how you find common ground that leads to positive change.

In this conversation, Katharine shares exactly how she does it. What she listens for. How she stays grounded when someone disagrees with her. How she begins every conversation about climate change by asking people about what they value.

Katharine’s approach isn’t complicated. But it requires something we rarely offer each other anymore—genuine curiosity. Real attention. The willingness to listen longer than we talk.

It’s a beautiful gift we can give one another, and one of the most important ways we build real peace.

If you’re thinking about how to listen—to your family, your community, people who see the world differently—this conversation is for you.

So have a listen! Then share it with someone who needs to hear that their listening actually works.

In this episode of Everyday Ambassador, I speak with political scientist Sharon Weiner about one of the most consequential choices in modern governance: the decision to use nuclear weapons. Weiner has worked across the nuclear policy ecosystem—from the White House and Congress to Los Alamos National Laboratory—and has spent decades grappling with a question that first troubled her as a child growing up near U.S. missile fields: why does security rest on the threat of mutual destruction?

Weiner’s career has taken her inside the institutions that shape U.S. nuclear strategy. The risks of nuclear weapons, she argues, have always been present; what changes is whether we choose to look at them.

That conviction led her to create an unusual research project: a virtual reality simulation called The Nuclear Biscuit. In the experience, participants are sworn in as president and then confronted with an incoming nuclear strike. They have just minutes to decide whether to launch a retaliatory attack before U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles are destroyed. The simulation is grounded in real-world timelines and force structures. It’s an inspiring example of this month’s theme at Everyday Ambassador: the practical power of imagination in peace-building—and it reveals something striking. Two-thirds of participants choose to launch nuclear weapons, often escalating the conflict, even when warned of uncertainty or potential false alarms.

Sharon’s findings challenge the common assumption that nuclear decision-making is purely rational and safeguarded by layers of expertise. In moments of crisis, she explains, people revert to learned language and institutional habits—protecting military assets rather than prioritizing human survival. The problem is not simply technical. It is political, psychological, and democratic. Why, she asks, should one individual possess sole authority to end millions of lives? And why do we treat the current force structure as inevitable when it remains a policy choice?

Sharon also shared with me some concrete ideas for how researchers and citizens can make a difference in nuclear security. Nuclear weapons policy is often framed as too complex or too distant for democratic engagement, but Sharon points out that you have a right to have a voice in a set of policies that have such dire possible consequences.

* Citizens: Sharon gave us specific questions you can ask your elected representatives, as they make the rounds during campaign season, to question them about their position on the president’s sole authority to launch a strike, or demand oversight of nuclear stockpile modernization costs.

* Researchers: Sharon outlined a series of key research questions that remain to be answered, like what shapes public opinion on nuclear policy, or defensive alternatives and international law.

Using the power of imagination and virtual reality, Sharon helps us to cut through the bureaucratic abstractions to understand what would really happen in a nuclear crisis. The Nuclear Biscuit project allows people to make up their own minds about the rationality of nuclear policy, and it may lead to changes that make us all a little bit safer.

Timestamps

00:00 – Growing up near ICBMs and questioning deterrence02:27 – From MIT to Los Alamos: searching for nuclear logic04:25 – The origins of The Nuclear Biscuit VR project08:00 – Becoming president in VR: seven minutes to decide11:37 – Building realism: research, design, and behavioral data14:02 – What participants actually do under pressure18:51 – Alternatives to nuclear deterrence and defensive defense21:19 – Why AI won’t solve the nuclear decision problem23:21 – Fiction, empathy, and the power of simulation25:42 – Sole authority and democratic accountability29:30 – What citizens can ask their representatives32:00 – Research frontiers: social movements, law, and accountability

Thank you Betina Cunado, Beverly Kohler, R Slone, and many others for tuning into my live video with Julien Hoez! We covered a lot of ground! Iran, NATO, the UN, the future of the Transatlantic Alliance, France’s plans for a European nuclear umbrella, and much more. Have any questions? Ask them here and we’ll be sure to get back to you.

Hey Friends,

This month, we’re exploring friendship as a tool for rebuilding democracy and peace. So I’m dusting off something from our archives—an episode I recorded before Everyday Ambassador existed as a Substack. A lot of you have never heard it, and honestly? It might be one of the most practical conversations I’ve ever had about what friendship actually requires.

In this episode, I sit down with two remarkable people:

Richard Haass, the former Special Envoy to Northern Ireland, talks about the Good Friday Agreement—and how personal relationships between former adversaries changed the course of history. He shares the risks people took, the trust they built when it would have been easier to stay apart.

Lois Anderson, my longtime friend and Executive Director of Oregon Right to Life, talks about our own friendship—and what we have learned from each other despite having very different political perspectives.

The conversation is a masterclass in what it takes and why it matters.

If you’re thinking about your own relationships across divides right now, this one’s for you.

Listen above.

Shout out to Toby Susan Goldbach who has recruited three friends to the Everyday Ambassador community! Thank you so much Toby! I am so grateful for all your support.

Did you know you can earn an opportunity to join the Everyday Ambassador Salons at no cost when ten of your friends subscribe? All you have to do is to click on the share button below or forward or restack a post. Substack will credit you for those subscriptions.

So if this interview lands for you, share it with your friends. And thank you for all you do!

Hibakusha leader and physician Masao Tomonaga joins Everyday Ambassador to share a lifetime shaped by the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Drawing on decades of medical research, he explains how radiation exposure led to leukemia, cancer, and lasting psychological trauma among survivors. The conversation offers a rare firsthand account of nuclear weapons’ human consequences—and a sober reflection on the limits of deterrence and disarmament today.