The Next Big Idea Daily

Today, Ben explains why democracy and security are such uneasy bedfellows.• Ben Ansell is professor of comparative democratic institutions at Oxford and author of “Why Politics Fail”• Want to go behind the scenes of this show? Sign up for our newsletter• To hear more interviews, audio e-courses, and hundreds of author-read book summaries, download the Next Big Idea app Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why is it so hard to create a sense of national unity and civic responsibility here in the Divided States of America?• Ben Ansell is professor of comparative democratic institutions at Oxford and author of “Why Politics Fail”• Want to go behind the scenes of this show? Sign up for our newsletter• To hear more interviews, audio e-courses, and hundreds of author-read book summaries, download the Next Big Idea app Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why has the American political system failed to arrest accelerating inequality, and is there anything we can do about it?• Ben Ansell is professor of comparative democratic institutions at Oxford and author of “Why Politics Fail”• Want to go behind the scenes of this show? Sign up for our newsletter• To hear more interviews, audio e-courses, and hundreds of author-read book summaries, download the Next Big Idea app Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As you may have noticed, modern democracies aren’t doing so hot. In country after country, income inequality soars while solidarity plummets. Resentment simmers while national unity cools. In places like the US and the UK, beacons of liberal democracy, words like “autocracy” and “anarchy” are thrown around with alarming regularity. Meanwhile, our ability to take action on existential threats like AI and climate change is stymied by sniping politicians who are obsessed with point-scoring and eerily disinclined to agree on a shared set of facts.Given all this, it’s not unreasonable to wonder: Are we doomed?This week, on the 247th anniversary of America’s birthday — and the dawn of the modern democratic experiment — we’ll get to the bottom of that unsettling question with Ben Ansell, professor of comparative democratic institutions at Oxford and author of “Why Politics Fail.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her final mini masterclass, Shelby warns you not to be so focused on reaching the finish line that you may miss the epic views along the way.• Shelby Stanger is the host of REI’s “Wild Ideas Worth Living” podcast and the author of “Will to Wild: Adventures Great and Small to Change Your Life”• Want to go behind the scenes of this show? Sign up for our newsletter• To hear more interviews, audio e-courses, and hundreds of author-read book summaries, download the Next Big Idea app Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When scaling a steep rock wall or surfing gnarly waves, it’s easy to let fear get the better of you, but today, Shelby explains how you can use humor to stay loose.• Shelby Stanger is the host of REI’s “Wild Ideas Worth Living” podcast and the author of “Will to Wild: Adventures Great and Small to Change Your Life”• Want to go behind the scenes of this show? Sign up for our newsletter• To hear more interviews, audio e-courses, and hundreds of author-read book summaries, download the Next Big Idea app Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before you embark on a wild adventure, you obviously need to do some planning. But don’t go overboard. Give yourself a deadline, and get to work.• Shelby Stanger is the host of REI’s “Wild Ideas Worth Living” podcast and the author of “Will to Wild: Adventures Great and Small to Change Your Life”• Want to go behind the scenes of this show? Sign up for our newsletter• To hear more interviews, audio e-courses, and hundreds of author-read book summaries, download the Next Big Idea app Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you have a strong why for pursuing a wild adventure, you’re more likely to find a way to get it done.• Shelby Stanger is the host of REI’s “Wild Ideas Worth Living” podcast and the author of “Will to Wild: Adventures Great and Small to Change Your Life”• Want to go behind the scenes of this show? Sign up for our newsletter• To hear more interviews, audio e-courses, and hundreds of author-read book summaries, download the Next Big Idea app Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where are you listening to this podcast? In your car? At your desk? Puttering around your house? If Shelby Stanger had her druthers, you’d be listening in the great outdoors — maybe while hiking on a scenic trail, or pedaling down an open road, or sitting astride a surfboard (while wearing waterproof earbuds, of course).Shelby is a journalist and adventurer: as a journalist, her work has appeared in Outside Magazine and on ESPN; as an adventurer, she’s surfed from Canada to Costa Rica and paddled remote stretches of the Amazon River. Her new book, “Will to Wild: Adventures Great and Small to Change Your Life,” is a guide to getting out of your comfort zone and into the wild world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Data, demographics — these things only take you so far. That's the final lesson Marcus Collins has to share with us. If you really want to get to know someone, he says, you've got to look past what they "do" and try to figure out who they "are."• Use the code DAILY to get 10% off a Next Big Idea Club membership• Learn more about our event in NYC on June 28th by visiting betaworks.com/event/ai-consciousness• Subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices