What Could Go Right?

Life has gotten a lot better for a lot of people. But the story of upward movement, while true overall, is not felt equally across society. We see the consequences of that playing out in the United States, where tension over our immediate failures, not celebration over our big-picture successes, carries the day. In this episode, we speak with public intellectual John Wood Jr, a national leader at Braver Angels, an organization dedicated to depolarizing politics, about the power of inner transformation to fuel societal change and how a multiplicity of American identities and stories can be unproblematic if we develop a new national sensibility of goodwill.What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you hear the word "economics," do you hit the snooze button? Yet, how we structure our economies, whom they serve, and even what we decide to measure has an enormous impact. A few changes could mean the difference between a world we've sucked dry and one where we all flourish. We talk through the unknown outcomes of a post-COVID economy and why we need to move beyond GDP with Diane Coyle, co-director of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, who conducts interdisciplinary research on key policy challenges of our times.What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If politics is the new religion, we're in desperate need of reform. Alison Goldsworthy, CEO of The Depolarization Project, and Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University Stern School, examine how we've landed in the middle of a polarization hurricane and how we can get out if it. In the long run, they tell us, things are likely to settle. But short-term, Gen Z in particular might be in for a rocky ride.What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Not too long ago, the Internet was seen as humanity's great hope. Today it feels more like our undoing. We see social media amplifying negative voices and harassment and producing political partisanship and interpersonal dysfunction, and it seems like no one knows to fix it—except maybe these two. Today we're joined by Danielle Keats Citron, a leading expert on information privacy, free speech, and civil rights, and Eli Pariser, co-founder of Upworthy and the author of "The Filter Bubble," who now leads the New_ Public project. Together they share their views on the Internet's current trajectory and how we might course correct.What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The way we work is in constant evolution. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, do we have a chance to redesign the workplace and workforce for the better? Or will we go back to the way things were before the world locked down? Zeynep Ton, president of the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute, and Joan C. Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law, join us to examine how we might improve the future of work.What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The bad news? The social contract is broken. The good? It can be mended. An entrepreneur working at the intersection of geopolitics, markets, and technology, Alec Ross has traversed the private and public sectors in his varied career, including a stint as Senior Advisor for Innovation in the Obama administration. In his new book, "The Raging 2020s," he looks at how we might restore the balance of power among government, citizens, and business.What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices