Published on the eve of you-know-who’s second inauguration, Kurt Gray’s new book Outraged focuses on why Americans are so divided and how they might find common ground despite their political differences. Gray argues that both sides of the political spectrum are driven by a desire to protect themselves, their families, and their vision of America from perceived threats. He suggests that humans evolved not just as predators but as prey, making us naturally attuned to threats and vulnerability. This perspective helps explain why different groups feel victimized and outraged by their political opponents. Rather than focusing on facts, which are often disputed, Gray advocates in favor of storytelling and listening as ways to bridge political divides. He emphasizes that most Americans belong to an "exhausted majority" who simply want to live their lives peacefully. Maybe. But then is there a danger that in arguing all communities as driven by the same emotions, Gray is relativizing morality and perhaps even excusing any kind of political behavior?

Dr. Kurt Gray is a Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he directs the Deepest Beliefs Lab and the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. He is also an Adjunct Professor in Organizational Behavior at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC, where he teaches about organizational ethics and team processes. Dr. Gray received his PhD from Harvard University.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

A new book by the acclaimed neuroscientist Lisa Genova is always a big event. Genova, best known for her best-selling 2007 novel, Still Alice, has a new novel out this week, More or Less Maddy, which follows a 20-year-old aspiring stand-up comedian who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The protagonist, Maddy, grows up in affluent suburban Connecticut with a father who disappeared when she was young, leaving mysterious boats stranded on their front lawn – a hint at his own undiagnosed bipolar disorder. In our conversation, Genova emphasizes the importance of accurate representation in her fiction, having conducted extensive research with psychiatrists, psychologists, and people living with bipolar disorder. She explains that bipolar disorder affects about 2% of the general population and has a genetic component, with children of bipolar parents having a 10% chance of inheriting the condition. Our conversation explores how bipolar disorder manifests through episodes of mania and depression, with Genova noting that the average time to correct diagnosis is 7-10 years. She discusses the challenges of treatment, including medication side effects and the stigma associated with mental illness. Genova advocates for using the term "neurological disorder" rather than "mental illness" to reduce stigma. She explains that the new novel uses stand-up comedy as a backdrop, not just for its inherent ups and downs that mirror bipolar episodes, but also to explore themes of normalcy and identity. Genova stresses that while bipolar disorder is a serious condition, with proper treatment and support, individuals like the fictional standup comic Maddy can live functional and fulfilling lives.

Acclaimed as the Oliver Sacks of fiction and the Michael Crichton of brain science, Lisa Genova has captured a special place in contemporary fiction, writing stories that are equally inspired by neurological conditions and our shared human condition. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels STILL ALICE, LEFT NEGLECTED, LOVE ANTHONY, andINSIDE THE O'BRIENS. Her first TED talk, "What You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer's" has been viewed over eight million times. Her most recent TED talk, "How Memory Works--and Why Forgetting is Totally OK" was the sixth most watched TED talk of 2021. A sought-after speaker/edutainer, she has headlined in speaker series alongside Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Gloria Steinem, Jay Leno, Malala Yousafzai, Bryan Stevenson, and Goldie Hawn.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

The world is shutting its borders to immigrants. Yesterday, we featured a conversation with Laurie Trautman who dates the Covid crisis of 2020 as the tragic moment when the entire world closed its doors to immigrants. But even in the internationalist EU, border policy is tightening. According to Washington Post’s Isaac Stanley-Becker, author of the new book Europe Without Borders: A History, borders have emerged as a critical geopolitical flashpoint within the EU. Against this backdrop, Stanley-Becker examines the 40-year history of Europe's Schengen Agreement, which eliminated internal borders between participating European nations. He explores how this landmark agreement, signed in 1985 in a small Luxembourg town, represented both a practical economic arrangement and a bold experiment in post-war European integration. Stanley-Becker reveals the complex negotiations between France and Germany that drove the initiative, as well as how the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 dramatically reshaped the agreement's implementation. He also delves into current challenges to Schengen, including the rise of populist parties, immigration pressures, and Germany's recent decision to reinstate border controls. Through this historical lens, Stanley-Becker offers valuable context for understanding how Europe's experiment with borderless travel relates to an illiberal world now shutting its borders to immigrants.

Isaac Stanley-Becker is staff writer at the Washington Post focusing on intelligence and national security. He has been an investigative reporter on the national staff and reported from across Europe. He earned his PhD in history from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes scholar. He was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2024 for “American Icon,” a series exploring the role of the AR-15 in American life.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

From MAGA and the UK’s Reform Party to the German AfD, aggressively nationalist borders controls are back in political fashion. According to Laurie Trautman, an expert on immigration at Western Washington University, we can date much of this back to 2020 and the Covid-19 tragedy. The co-author of When the World Closed its Doors, Trautman sees the global Covid crisis as the unintentional trigger for much of what is being taken for granted around the world now in terms of limiting or even eliminating immigration. But Trautman, who directs the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University, offers a practical internationalist alternative to the reactionary nationalism of MAGA and the AfD.

Dr. Laurie Trautman is the Director of the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University. She engages in a range of research on the US - Canada border, particularly in the Cascadia region. Topics include trade, transportation, human mobility, and security. In addition to working with faculty and students, she collaborates with the private sector and government agencies to advance policy solutions that improve border efficiencies and strengthen the region. Laurie participates in a number of working groups focused on cross-border collaboration, including the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, the International Mobility and Trade Corridor Program, the Canada - US Transportation Border Working Group, and was recently appointed to the steering committee of the Cascadia Innovation Corridor.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Nicholas Carr has been amongst the most persistently prescient observers of the digital revolution over the last quarter century. Take, for example, his 2012 essay "The Arc of Innovation Bends Towards Decadence," which, in many ways, foresaw our current technological and social predicament. Carr's thesis was that technological innovation increasingly moves toward fulfilling self-indulgent desires rather than addressing fundamental human needs, following a pattern similar to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Carr accurately predicted the shift from idealistic views of technology as tools for self-actualization to their current role in feeding narcissism and anxiety. The timing of his essay proved particularly significant, as 2012 marked a crucial turning point when smartphones became dominant and social media reached mass adoption. This period coincided with what social psychologists like Jonathan Haidt identify as the beginning of a sharp rise in anxiety and decline in self-confidence, especially among young people. Carr's insights extend to current debates about AI, where he sees a potentially "decadent" trend of outsourcing fundamental human activities like writing and thinking to machines. He frames this as part of a broader pattern where technology, instead of enhancing human capabilities (in the manner of Steve Jobs' "bicycle for the mind"), increasingly substitutes for them entirely. Most notably, Carr recognized early on that digital technologies, while promising connection and democratization, often trigger "our worst instincts." His analysis helps explain why, despite growing awareness of social media's negative effects, we remain unable to disentangle ourselves from these technologies - a phenomenon he describes as "mis-wanting." Essential stuff, as always, from the great Nick Carr.

Nicholas Carr writes about the human consequences of technology. His books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains and the forthcoming Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart, have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. He has recently been a visiting professor of sociology at Williams College, and earlier in his career he was executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. In 2015, he received the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity from the Media Ecology Association. He writes the Substack newsletter New Cartographies. A New York Times bestseller when it was first published in 2010 and now hailed as “a modern classic,” Carr’s The Shallows remains a touchstone for debates on the internet’s effects on our thoughts and perceptions. A second edition of The Shallows, updated with a new chapter, was published in 2020. Carr’s 2014 book The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, which the New York Review of Books called a “chastening meditation on the human future,” examines the personal and social consequences of our ever growing dependency on computers, robots, and artificial intelligence. His latest book, Utopia Is Creepy, published in 2016, collects his best essays, blog posts, and other writings from the past dozen years. The collection is “by turns wry and revelatory,” wrote Discover. Carr is also the author of two other influential books, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google (2008), which the Financial Times called “the best read so far about the significance of the shift to cloud computing,” and Does IT Matter? (2004).

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Is there really a data-driven science that enables us to predict and change human behavior?Mind Masters author and Columbia Business School professor Sandra Matz certainly is a believer. But I wonder whether Matz’s observations about psychological targeting and data analysis through large language models represent anything fundamentally new or original. I’m also not convinced of her glib take on mental health applications. In contrast with Matz, I fear that AI-driven mental health monitoring could exacerbate rather than solve existing cultural problems. My advice: don’t trust people who call themselves “data scientists”. The data lies as much as humans. It’s how we use and abuse it that matters.

Sandra Matz is the David W. Zalaznick Associate Professor of Business at Columbia Business School in New York. As a computational social scientist, she studies human behavior and preferences using a combination of Big Data analytics and traditional experimental methods. Her research aims to understand how psychological characteristics influence real-life outcomes in a number of business-related domains (e.g. financial well-being, consumer satisfaction or team performance), with the goal of helping businesses and individuals to make better decisions. She was named as one of the Poets & Quants 40 under 40 Business School Professors in 2021.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Everything old is new again in international politics. According to Jill Kastner, co-author of A Measure Short of War: A Brief History of Great Power Subversion, today's international tensions over Ukraine, Taiwan and Greenland mark a return to historical normalcy after a brief period of global American unipolarity. Kastner explains that subversion—defined as hostile or unwanted action on a rival's territory—has been a constant tool of statecraft throughout history. She presents subversion as a rational choice between diplomacy and war, where states make cost-benefit calculations about their actions. Citing historical examples from Thucydides’ Athens and Elizabeth I's England to modern-day geopolitics, she explains how nations use subversive tactics when diplomatic channels fail, but war seems too costly. Let’s hope she’s right when it comes to heading off a Chinese war over Taiwan or an American invasion of Greenland.

Dr Jill Kastner is an independent scholar and historian based in London. Her work focuses on international relations from the Cold War to the present, with an emphasis on intelligence and subversive activities both covert and overt. Jill completed her PhD at Harvard in 1999 under the guidance of Ernest May and Philip Zelikow before joining the Presidential Recordings Project at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center for Public Affairs. She has contributed book chapters on various Cold War crises, including Suez and Berlin, and written for The Nation and Foreign Affairs. She served as the executive editor and collaborator for Hope and History: A Memoir of Tumultuous Times, the political memoir of Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel. She is currently collaborating with William C. Wohlforth on a book about the history of subversion, due out with Oxford University Press next year. Prior to her PhD, Jill worked as a television news producer on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. She is a member of Chatham House, the Pilgrims of the US/UK, and the Harvard Club of New York.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

What’s wrong with the U.S. economy? Not much according to Wall Street. But according to Adam Chandler, author of 99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life, there’s a fundamental contradiction at the heart of American capitalism. While the U.S. leads in AI investment ($50 billion of $56 billion globally in 2020) and Wall Street performance, Chandler notes, there's significant labor unrest at companies like Starbucks and Amazon. He argues that while the American economy appears strong, many workers aren't seeing the benefits. He notes that real wages have declined over 40 years for people of color and those without college degrees, despite recent technological advances. He critiques the American ethos that equates hard work with success, arguing that this overlooks structural barriers and the role of public investment in success stories. Chandler advocates for better worker protections, clearer work-life boundaries, and stronger social safety nets, citing successful pandemic-era programs like expanded child tax credits and unemployment benefits. He also discusses the concept of a "third life" - spaces outside work and home where people can socialize and engage as citizens, arguing these are crucial for democracy but increasingly rare. Our discussion concludes with a discussion of Universal Basic Income as a potential solution to workforce disruption from AI, with Chandler citing encouraging results from various pilot programs.

Adam Chandler is a journalist and author based in New York. A former staff writer at The Atlantic, his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, WIRED, Vox, Slate, New York Magazine, Texas Monthly, Esquire, TIME, and elsewhere. Chandler is the author of Drive-Thru Dreams: A Journey Through the Heart of America’s Fast-Food Kingdom and a recurring guest on The History Channel’s The Food That Built America. He regularly appears across television, radio, and digital platforms including CBS Sunday Morning, NPR’s Planet Money, Morning Edition, and Here & Now.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a good one. Former mobster Louis Ferrante discusses the second volume of his history of the American mafia, Borgata: Clash of Titans, covering the critical period between 1960 and 1985 when the mob was at its height of power. The era began with the Kennedys' rise to power, where Joe Kennedy paradoxically used mob connections to help JFK win the 1960 election, particularly in Illinois and West Virginia. However, Robert Kennedy's aggressive pursuit of organized crime as Attorney General created deep animosity with the mob. The period was marked by the complex relationship between the mafia and Jimmy Hoffa's Teamsters Union. While Hoffa wasn't a mobster himself, he needed mafia support to maintain his position as Teamsters president. The mob had significant control over the U.S. economy through their influence over unions, construction, and various industries. Ferrante presents hard evidence that the mafia, particularly Carlos Marcello, was involved in JFK's assassination, describing failed assassination attempts in Florida and Chicago before the successful Dallas plot. After Kennedy's death, the mob's influence grew as federal law enforcement, under J. Edgar Hoover, focused more on communism and civil rights protesters than organized crime. The period ended with Hoffa's disappearance in 1975, which Ferrante attributes to mob retaliation after Hoffa threatened to expose their activities when trying to regain control of the Teamsters from Frank Fitzsimmons. According to Ferrante, this era represented the apex of mafia power in America, before increased violence and internal conflicts began to tear the organization apart in the 1980s. Great stuff from Ferrante, who is establishing himself as the semi-official historian of the American mafia.

Louis Ferrante is an international bestselling author, global speaker, and television host for Discovery Networks International. His books have been translated into twenty languages and his television series has aired in over 200 countries and territories around the world.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Addiction specialist and former meth addict Dr. Adi Jaffe challenges everything we take for granted about addiction and recovery. Opening our KEEN ON conversation with his own dramatic story of a SWAT team arrest that turned his young life around, Jaffe goes on to deliver some startling insights: nearly half of all Americans are hooked on something, whether it's drugs, porn, social media, or the latest "miracle" weight loss medications. The author of Unhooked: How to Free Yourself from Addiction Forever takes aim at America's puritanical approach to addiction, arguing that complete abstinence isn't the answer and that even Alcoholics Anonymous emerged from failed Prohibition policies. In a particularly provocative segment, he dismisses the common recovery mantra that "you're always one drink away from relapse" as absurd and potentially harmful. The conversation takes unexpected turns into America's complicated relationship with addiction, from Donald Trump's teetotaling narcissism (ie: addiction to himself) to RFK Jr.'s controversial history with heroin. Most surprisingly, Jaffe argues that substance use itself isn't the real problem – it's merely a symptom of deeper "hooks" like trauma, beliefs, and habits that need addressing. His radical conclusion? You don't need to eliminate addictive behaviors; you need to replace them.

Dr. Adi Jaffe holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He teaches courses at UCLA that address addiction specifically, research statistics or biological psychology and behavioral neuroscience more generally. Well-known for his online and academic writing, Dr. Jaffe’s views on addiction and his research on the topic have been published widely in both academic journals and popular magazines and websites. He has appeared on several television shows including Good Morning America, The Dr. Oz Show, The Doctors and Larry King Now and in numerous documentaries discussing current topics in addiction. He has also been the guest on notable podcasts including Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, Almost Thirty, Dr. Drew, Cleaning Up the Mental Mess with Dr. Caroline Leaf and many more.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.