Jennifer Pahlka, founder of the Code for America and former Deputy CTO, discusses improving digital governmental capacity and recoding America. They explore the problems with technology in government and the impact of power dynamics. The struggles of Natalie developing a platform for doctors are highlighted. The accountability trap and its impact on veterans benefits are discussed. The chapter also focuses on bending regulations, restoring faith in government, and addressing crucial problems.

Brink Lindsey, formerly of the Cato Institute, talks about governmental capacity and making it better. They discuss the negative effects of policies that redistribute wealth, occupational licensing, and intellectual property debate. They also explore the challenges of consolidating pension funds in Illinois and the consequences of ideologies on governing capacity.

We can make our unrepresentative representative democracy representative. But AI may mean that's not enough. This episode introduces the final section of this season — lifeboats: the changes we could make to make it so democracy can survive.

Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, discusses the harmful effects of AI in social media including the unraveling of shared reality, mental health crisis, polarization, and cyberbullying. He also explores the challenges of self-regulation within technology companies and the potential risks and dangers of AI. The chapter emphasizes the importance of moving at a pace that ensures safety and raises concerns about the current speed of deployment.

What happens when news must compete? How does that affect the news? In this episode, we talk to Ben Smith, a journalist and entrepreneur who played a central role in the transformation of media through social media. His book, Traffic, tells that story better than any other just now.

NYU Stern School of Business Professor Jonathan Haidt discusses the impact of social media on youth, regulation of social media platforms, feeling safe in academic environments, navigating sensitive discussions in academia, identitarianism and its impact on media, and the early days of the internet and the importance of regulation.

Markus Prior, Princeton Professor, discusses the architecture of public media and how it affects politics. They explore the evolution of technology, the rise of broadcast television, the emergence of cable news networks, and the challenges of identifying political interest. They also discuss whether voters are willing to bear short-term costs for long-term benefits, using the example of addressing climate change.

There was a time when the presumption of democracy — that the people were rational and guided our democracy to reasoned conclusions — was true. Or tru-ish. In this episode, we speak with the authors of one of the most important work studying this relatively healthy period, Ben Page and Robert Shapiro. Their 1992 book — The Rational Public — presented an enormous amount of evidence demonstrating how democracy worked. We discuss what made that working possible.

The premise of the first part to this season is that our broken democracy can be fixed. The solutions are clear and achievable. Many of them would be enacted if the Democrats regained sufficient control of our government. But in this part, we explore why these solutions won't be enough. We can right the overturned tables for sure; but there's a gash in the hull that will make even these changes not enough.

The obscure rules of the Senate are an important part of the dysfunction of American democracy today. In this episode, we speak to a former Secretary for the Majority of the United States Senate and, for the last two years of the Obama administration, the Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs at the White House, Martin Paone. There is perhaps no one in America with a better sense of how our Senate works — or doesn't work — or with a better intuition about how to fix it.