I'm Sceptical That This Is Going to Happen, Right?

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Politicians have become very good at weaponizing potentially controversial issues. And so this requires leaders who are willing to makee decisions which are in the interests of the polity as a whole. But like you, i worry that we're seeing less and less of it. The increasingly tight hold that donald trump now exerts over he republican party is is a real concern. I think while you're in that environment, it's quite hard to to get the requisite changes that insure that america's democratic idealsare realized.

We’re pretty well-calibrated when it comes to dealing with common, everyday-level setbacks. But our brains aren’t naturally equipped for dealing with unlikely but world-catastrophic disasters. Yet such threats are real, both natural and human-induced. We need to collectively get better at anticipating and preparing for them, at the level of political action. Andrew Leigh is an academic and author who now serves in the Parliament of Australia. We discuss how to move the conversation about existential risks from the ivory tower to implementation in real policies.

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Andrew Leigh received his Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is a member of the Australian House of Representatives representing Fenner. He was previously a professor of economics at Australian National University, and has served as Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury and Charities. His recent book is What’s the Worst That Could Happen? Existential Risk and Extreme Politics.

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