Aspen Ideas to Go

Conversation is facing a crisis in our culture. We regularly put people on "pause" in conversation to check our phones. We treat machines as if they are almost human. We want technology to step up, as we ask humans to step back. And having nothing to forget about how we used to relate to one another, children embrace these new rules for talking to machines. In this talk, Sherry Turkle, MIT profess...

We've all had great teachers who opened our minds — and maybe even changed our lives. But how can we make every teacher a star teacher? Elizabeth Green's New York Times best-selling book 'Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (and How to Teach It to Everyone)' presents teaching as a complex skill — one that requires infrastructure for support and training. She gives examples of the methods...

Our brains are getting older, but there's still much to be optimistic about. Neuroscientists Susan Greenfield and Gary Small discuss the aging brain with journalist Sam Kean. aspenideas.org

David Brooks writes about character. Aaron Sorkin writes about characters. The opinionator and consummate storyteller join in a conversation about how Sorkin's connection to and love of character distinguishes his writing and his craft. They discuss Sorkin's new movie Steve Jobs. Aaron Sorkin is a screenwriter, playwright, and film and television producer. His screenplays include the 2012 film ada...

Anne-Marie Slaughter provides a sneak peek of her new book, 'Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family'. Inspired by her 2012 article "Why Women Still Can't Have it All," one of the most-read pieces in the history of 'The Atlantic' magazine, Slaughter has refined her vision for what true equality between men and women really means and how we can get there. Anne-Marie Slaughter is president and CE...

How can our medical and social systems support or hinder dying? Do we have the right to bend the arc of our own death, or that of a loved one? How can we approach the final passage with grace? Dan Diaz (the husband of Brittany Maynard, who died in November 2014 from a brain tumor) discusses the matter with BJ Miller (executive director of Zen Hospice Project and an assistant clinical professor of...

Nancy Gibbs, editor of TIME magazine, leads a conversation with: Michael Gerson, a nationally syndicated columnist whose writing appears twice weekly in 'The Washington Post'; Matt Malone, president and editor in chief of America Media, which publishes 'America: The National Catholic Review'; and Garry Wills, professor, historian, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author ("Why I Am a Catholic" and "The F...

Internet TV is growing globally in ways that traditional TV just isn’t. Netflix is a change-maker that is dramatically influencing our consumption of story-telling. This episode features Katie Couric in conversation with Ted Sarandos, the gutsy program chief of Netflix, whose platinum successes include 'House of Cards', 'Orange is the New Black', and now 'Grace and Frankie'. aspenideas.org

Featuring William Deresiewicz, author of 'Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life' and New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks. At a time when traditional notions of college are under attack — in the shift to online instruction, in the emphasis on STEM fields and the denigration of the liberal arts, in the continued privatization of public highe...

Former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has had unprecedented access to modern China’s political and business elite. As head of Goldman Sachs, he had a pivotal role in opening up China to private enterprise. Then, as treasury secretary, he created the Strategic Economic Dialogue with what is now the world’s second-largest economy. Paulson and the Aspen Institute's Walter Isaacson recently spoke...

Aspen Lecture featuring Laura Carstensen, Fairleigh Dickinson Professor in Public Policy, Department of Psychology, Stanford University; Director, Stanford Center on Longevity. We are approaching a watershed moment in human history; a time when old people outnumber children and living to 100 is commonplace. There are major challenges associated with this dramatic and sudden increase in life expect...

Homicide remains an endemic, seemingly unsolvable problem in America. And violent crime afflicts African-American communities to a much greater degree than others, as does mass incarceration — and police violence. What is the cause of this crisis? What is the role of culture? Are there any solutions? This episode features New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu who has been confronting this crisis head-o...

The President’s Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor tells us what keeps her up at night and how she is working to make us all safe. Lisa Monaco, Deputy National Security Advisor and Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; Moderator: Mike Isikoff, Chief Investigative Correspondent, Yahoo News. For more, visit: www.aspensecurityforum.org - Follow @aspensecur...

Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) discusses faith and public life with Jim Wallis. The conversation begins from an agreement that the separation of church and state is imperative but that moral values should not be segregated from public life. Coons, who graduated from Yale Law School and Yale Divinity School, has said, "I think it’s foundational to our country that if we allow people to choose their p...

Scientific evidence suggests that we can change our brains by transforming our minds and cultivating habits of mind that will improve well-being. These include happiness, resilience, compassion, and emotional balance. Each of these characteristics is instantiated in brain circuits that exhibit plasticity and thus can be shaped and modified by experience and training. Mental training to cultivate w...

Maajid Nawaz shares his remarkable journey from Islamist extremism to liberal democratic values. Nawaz is the co-founder of Quilliam, a counter-extremism think tank based in London, and engages in counter-Islamist thought-generating, social-activism, writing, debating, and media appearances. He served four years in an Egyptian prison as an Amnesty International "prisoner of conscience" until he be...

Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security advisor to President Obama, was the chief US negotiator in the secret normalization talks with Cuba and has been a central player in the making of American foreign policy since 2009, both as a key advisor and as the president’s chief foreign policy speechwriter. Rhodes and Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for The Atlantic, discuss the worldv...

Recorded just four days after the SCOTUS ruling, this episode features a wide-ranging discussion of the cases and history behind the Marriage Equality ruling. Featuring the legal dream team that helped make this a reality, former Solicitor General Ted Olson and star litigator David Boies. Neal Katyal, former Acting Solicitor General, moderates the conversation. aspenideas.org

During the Ebola crisis, strong grassroots relationships and homegrown leadership made the difference between life and death. Drawing on that learning, movers and shakers from the Aspen New Voices Fellowship will share their stories about the silo-busting connections that can be forged under stress. From Sierra Leone to Nepal, these kinds of bonds keep our most vulnerable communities healthier and...

In many ways, artificial intelligence has become the norm. From autopilot on airplanes to language translation, we've come to accept once novel concepts as just something thinking machines do. What we have ultimately learned is that human thinking is just one way of thinking. So, how far will artificial intelligence go? This episode features a conversation between Danny Hillis and Alexis Madrigal....

The discussion of "designer babies" often revolves around gender or hair color, but as Nita Farahany and Marcy Darnovsky explore, the medical debate is far more complicated. Farahany is Professor of Law and Philosophy, Director of Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, Duke University; Member, Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Should we screen embryos for disease? Shou...

From co-founding Artists for a Free South Africa, to working in failing schools to turn them around, actor and 2014 Harman-Eisner Artist in Residence Alfre Woodard has played a role in making change as an activist artist. Woodard joins the Aspen Institute's Damian Woetzel in a conversation about her career and work as an artist on the front lines. aspenideas.org

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu says that nowhere is America's crisis of violence more evident than in the African-American community.  In this talk, he asks: What’s the real cost of violence? And how do we change it? Since taking office in 2010, Landrieu has reformed the city’s police department and launched NOLA for Life, an initiative to reduce murders. And it seems to be working, at least inc...

What is new about how teenagers communicate through services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? Do social media affect the quality of teens’ lives? Youth culture and technology expert Danah Boyd talks with The Atlantic’s Hanna Rosin about what Boyd sees as the major myths regarding teens’ use of social media, exploring tropes about identity, privacy, safety, danger, and bullying. Boyd argue...

This episode features Nicholas Burns and Strobe Talbott discussing Russia and Putinism. Burns is director of the Aspen Strategy Group and Talbott is an ASG member and president of the Brookings Institution. In this discussion, they follow up on a lecture Talbott gave at the Aspen Institute back in August. That lecture, entitled "Putinism: The Back Story", focused on Russia’s current policies, turn...