How Do We Fix It?

It's time to put the brakes on the hype about self-driving cars. Despite industry and media forecasts, it may be more than a decade before many fully autonomous vehicles are on the road. 

Lawsuits and patent disputes are among the many hurdles that face auto manufacturers and tech firms.

But this doesn't mean that technology is being thrown into reverse gear. Semi-autonomous cars with vehicle assist and other features are much safer than earlier generations of automobiles. Self-driving delivery trucks and vans are no longer a fantasy.

"Fix It" guest Eddie Alterman, Editor-in-Chief of Car and Driver magazine is deeply skeptical about the widely-touted changes proclaimed by major manufacturers. "It's a scary concept anyway you look at it," he tells us. 

"The autonomous car is a very inelegant, very complex and a very fraught solution to the problem of texting while driving... and of information coming into the car when people should be driving."

For Google, Apple, Microsoft and other big data companies, autonomous cars are a big opportunity. Instead of keeping their eyes on the road, motorists would use their driving time to consume more digital media. 

But Eddie says a mix of self-driving and traditional vehicles on the road would create danger. "People will deal with or accept flawed humans crashing into each other. I don't think people will accept supposedly fail-safe machines crashing into each other."

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The U.S. stock market has soared about 40% since the Trump election. But is it over-valued and ready for a meltdown?

Shortly before the worst one-day crash in history in November 1987, the market had been charging ahead, with a 40% rise that year. The economy was on a roll, just like today. 

What would happen if giant investment funds bailed out of stocks at the same time? Would there be another financial crisis, even worse than the events in 2008?

"We are more vulnerable to a radical readjustment," says our guest, New York Times journalist, Diana Henriques, author of the widely praised "A First Class Catastrophe: The Road to Black Monday, the Worst Day in Wall Street History."

"It is important for us always to remember that markets go up and they go down, says Diana. "What we need to worry about is do they fall apart when they fall."

"Even professional money managers today are alarmed at the fragility of market structures on which they rely."

In this episode, we look at potential solutions, including streamlined financial regulations, guaranteeing that authorities have a 360 degree view of where financial brushfires are erupting, and scrapping the highly fragmented system that we have today. We also take a second look to the findings of the Brady Commission, the post-mortem report after the "catastrophe" in 1987.

Hear more about the financial system and its flaws from our previous guests: Roger Lowenstein on why we need The Federal Reserve; Rana Foroohar, of The Financial Times, on Wall Street's giant threat to the economy; ABC News Chief Business, Technology and Economics Correspondent, Rebecca Jarvis, on fixing everyday money mistakes.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the recent government shutdown to strict partisan votes on taxes and healthcare, official Washington lurches from one fight to the next, with no end in sight.

But the American public is not as polarized as the pundits say.

While elected Republicans and Democrats appeal to their base, and are more divided than ever, the electorate has not changed dramatically in recent years. According to Pew Research and other pollsters, moderate independents outnumber either liberal Democrats or conservative Republicans.  

Stanford University political scientist Morris Fiorina confronts the widespread assumption that voters are neatly split into rival camps, and argues that neither party can hold a majority for more than a few years. His new book is "Unstable Majorities: Polarization, Party Sorting and Political Stalemate." 

We discuss solutions, including open primaries, weekend voting, easier voter registration and independent redistricting-- all designed to encourage citizen involvement in the political system.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

By overwhelming majorities, human beings have faith in the afterlife. While fewer Americans believe in God, as many as 80% still believe in life after death. Surprisingly, this includes one-in-three agnostics and atheists. According to the Roper Center for Public Opinion the numbers have stayed stable in recent decades.

Does this human refusal to accept that all we have is the here-and-now lead to a dangerous belief in religious fantasies and utopia? Do we chase after myths while ignoring practical steps we could take now to improve life for ourselves and others?

Our guest, Michael Shermer, is the publisher of Skeptic Magazine and the author of the new book "Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia." Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson calls him "a beacon of reason in an ocean of irrationality."

Michael walks us through efforts by "techno-optimists" to extend life hundreds of years into the future, from cryonic suspension-- efforts to freeze our brains with all of their neural connects and memories in tact-- to transhumanists, who want to transform us into super-humans.

He is profoundly skeptical of these well-funded efforts, saying that all we have is the present. "Make today count," Michael tells us. "Make every relationship you have count. Make your interactions with community, strangers and society count in just a tiny little bit."

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The fight against sexual harassment was the hot topic in Hollywood at the Golden Globes Awards, with outspoken and inspiring remarks by Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and others. But allegations of bullying or inappropriate behavior by powerful men are still being made almost every day.

Despite widespread outrage, little focus has been given to effective measures that can be taken by employers to reduce the number of cases and improve the workplace environment.  

Our guest is journalist Claire Cain Miller, who writes about gender, families and the future of work for The Upshot, a New York Times site that covers policy and economics. She tells us what works and explains the challenges ahead in the fight for gender equality and respect. 

A recent survey found that nearly half of women said they had experienced some form of sexual harassment at work at least once in their careers. A 2015 study revealed that only one-quarter to a third of women who experience sexual harassment report it.

Solutions:

• Empower bystanders to act, giving everyone the tools to help prevent harassment. Bystander training is still rare in corporate America, but it has been effectively used in the military and on college campuses. In some cases, direct action may work. One example was Charles Sonder, in the Snackman case, who disrupted a fight on a New York subway train by standing between a couple and loudly eating chips. 
• Other examples of how to disrupt harassment: Drop a book, ask the victim to come to a conference room or if they want to get coffee. Talk to the victim to make sure she is OK, You might say: “I noticed that happened. Are you alright with that?”

• Encourage civility: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed a program to create a culture of respect for everyone, such as spotlighting contributions by people who are marginalized. The program also offers helpful things to say in situations when you want to act but don’t know what to do.

• Claire Cain Miller says frequent workplace training programs can help. Employees and managers should be encouraged to report harassment. Professor Ian Ayres of Yale Law School has written "information escrows"-- creative and safer ways to help harassment victims who may fear that reporting wrongdoing to harm their careers. 

• Among other potential solutions: Gender equity with more women in senior executive positions; greater diversity in occupations now dominated by either men or women; generous workplace and family leave policies.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2018 is certain to bring surprises. In this episode, Jim and Richard bravely venture out onto the high diving board of ideas and plunge into the pool of predictions. We also asked listeners and "How Do We Fix It?" guests for their forecasts of the year to come.

Well-known author and skeptic Michael Shermer says "2018 will be the best year in the history of humanity as measured by health, longevity, medicine, technology, science and culture."

Disruptive marketer and communications designer Geoff Colon tells us that "people are tired of how noisy the world has become. So I see more people deleting apps from their phones and spending less time in the Twitter-verse."

Jim and Richard give their predictions on the 2018 mid-term elections and the new tax code (they go out on a limb here). Both forecast troubled days ahead for Facebook, Google and other giant internet firms, as they run into a buzz saw of criticism over their business practices. 

On the international stage, Richard predicts the U.S. will continue its recent retreat from diplomacy and be weaker as a result. China's strength will grow. Jim says U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley will be a shining star in the Republican party.  

What are your predictions? Go to Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Tell us what you think, using the hashtag #FixItForecasts. Our Twitter i.d. is @fixitshow. Find us at "How Do We Fix It?" on Facebook and Instagram.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's time to shift the narrative about food and health from fear to facts. Popular culture promotes all sorts of anti-scientific myths, from astrology and conspiracy theories to vaccine denial and misinformation about GMOs.

On this episode our guest is "Science Mom" Kavin Senapathy, one of five mothers of young children who decided to collaborate on communication and push back against a conspiratorial mindset around biotechnology. They argue that there's an epidemic of bad science and fear-based marketing largely aimed at parents of young children. 

Kavin writes for Forbes and Slate. Other Science Moms are writers and working scientists with PhDs—in biology, genetics, neuroscience. The crowdfunded Science Moms documentary is available for download on the Science Moms website.

On this episode, Jim, Richard and Kavin look at solutions, such as fighting back against hype and anti-science ideas with better education for children and adults. We examine how social media has weaponized debate, including attacks on academics who base their findings on careful research. Too often, science-minded parents are drowned out by shamers and "Celeb Moms" who make bogus claims about food and health.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Billions of people use Facebook and YouTube. But do social media platforms threaten our privacy and our freedom? The problem goes well beyond hate messages and other forms of inappropriate content, or fake news and "dark posts"— targeted ads not visible to the public. 

"The crucial problem here is we have no protections about the data that's collected," says our guest, Professor Zeynep Tufekci. "We have no protections about how that data is used and we have a business model where we are the product and not the customer." 

Zeynep is the author of the critically-acclaimed book, "Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest." At the University of North Carolina, she teaches a class: "Big Data, Algorithms and Society."

"They have all our data...They control all the gatekeeping," Zeynep says of Facebook and other internet giants. "The threat that I fear is that we're building the infrastructure for a sort of soft authoritarianism."  

Much of the information these companies have collected on us is "sold to the highest bidders whatever they may be peddling." 

The ability of tech firms to spy on us, while nudging and seducing users into different forms of behavior, is constantly changing. "The past five years have been mind-blowing. We are growing a form of machine intelligence," says Zeynep. Unlike the past "this one is learning itself and we don't understanding how it's doing what it's doing." 

"How Do We Fix It?" is a solutions podcast. This episode examines potential remedies, including the need for greater corporate transparency, sunsetting data, government regulation and voluntary actions by Facebook and other big tech firms. Those of us who use social media sites should inform ourselves about how they work. This show is a good place to start.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Once again the alarm bells are ringing. A new study by the McKinsey Global Institutes estimates that within 12 years, up to 800 million of today's workers may be replaced by robots or some other form of automation. 

Other recent research reports on the impact of technology are even more disturbing. A survey by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the professional services company, claims 38% of U.S. jobs are at high risk of being replaced by robots and artificial intelligence over the next 15 years.

But what if many experts are wrong? 

Peter Cappelli, Director for Human Resources at the Wharton School is our guest in this episode. His research is both contrarian and eye-opening. Peter has been named one of the most influential thinkers of the decade by HR Magazine, and is the author of "Why Good People Can't Get Jobs." 

In this episode, we discuss the paradox of the tax code, which gives incentives to companies to spend money on new technology INSTEAD of re-training workers. Peter also gives constructive insights into business culture and why it needs to change. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What do you think of when you hear the word “refugee” or “migrant”? If over-crowded rafts or vast tent encampments come to mind, you are not alone.

But there’s a very different— and much more positive side to migration. Across the world, record numbers of people are on the move in search of new opportunities and a better life.

One solution to the vast increase in global migration is to gain a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges resulting from a more deeply connected world.

Former journalist, Leonard Doyle,head of Media and Communications at the UN Migration agency IOM, is our guest. 

This episode discusses immigration reform, the surprising impact of Facebook and other social media platforms in promoting migration and the great contributions many migrants and refugees make to the new societies they join.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.