The Next Big Idea26 Mai 2022

IMAGINABLE: How Anyone Can Predict the Future (Yes, Even You)

In January 2020, when the coronavirus started making headlines around the world, Jane McGonigal’s inbox was flooded with emails from Silicon Valley execs, government officials, and non-profit leaders. They all had the same question: “Jane, didn’t you run a simulation of a respiratory pandemic?” Yes, she had. All the way back in 2010. Jane is a game designer. She builds simulations that help players imagine the unimaginable. And in 2010, she invited nearly 20,000 people to immerse themselves in a future world besieged by a global pandemic. “How would you change your habits?” she asked. “What social interactions would you avoid? Can you work from home?” A decade later, when COVID went from nascent threat to full-blown crisis, Jane started hearing from folks who had participated in the simulation. “I’m not freaking out,” one of them said with relief. “I already worked through the panic and anxiety when we imagined it ten years ago.” According to the latest research in psychology and neuroscience, we can all learn to make the shift from panic to poise by training our brains to think about the unthinkable. But what does that training look like? In her new book, “Imaginable” — and on today’s episode — Jane shares evidence-based techniques you can use to see the future coming. URGENT OPTIMISTS: Want to participate in one of Jane's Simulations? Visit urgentoptimists.org NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB: Want to hear hundreds of authors summarize their books in just 12 minutes? Download The Next Big Idea app today at nextbigideaclub.com/app

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(376)

AI Has Gone Rogue. Here’s What We Should Do About It.

"This Is Really Bad." That's the not-so-comforting headline of Stephen Witt's mega-viral New York Times essay about a dawning realization among Silicon Valley researchers that "AI may no longer be ent...

24 Sep 57min

You Don't Have Free Will. That's Good News. (NBI Vault)

Do we have free will? Do we have a choice in what we do? Philosophers and theologians have debated these questions for centuries; Robert Sapolsky answered them when he was 14. Free will, he concluded,...

21 Sep 1h 7min

The Art of Fighting

We’ve gotten very good at cutting people off. But have we forgotten how to work through our differences? In The Art of Fighting, bestselling author and conflict resolution expert Priya Parker challen...

17 Sep 1h 7min

Is America a ‘Country of Lords’?

America was founded on a radical promise: all people are created equal. But for 250 years, some of the country’s most powerful thinkers have been arguing the opposite. In Country of Lords, historian ...

14 Sep 53min

A Storytelling Masterclass with Will Storr (NBI Vault)

Will Storr is the author of the dazzling books The Science of Storytelling and A Story Is a Deal, and in this episode, he tells us everything he knows about humanity’s greatest invention: story. More ...

10 Sep 1h 34min

What Can Henry David Thoreau Teach Us About Work?

Henry David Thoreau was a philosopher, poet, and pencil-maker. He was a great resigner and, above all, a superb writer whose masterpiece, "Walden," is considered by many to be America's first environm...

7 Sep 45min

How French Philosophy Wired Modern Thinking

How did a group of notoriously difficult French philosophers become intellectual rock stars on American college campuses — and how much do their ideas matter today? In The Frenchmen, writer and edit...

3 Sep 1h 4min

A Nobel Prize Winner’s Plan to Save Democracy

Democracy is in the dumps. OK, that's a bit dramatic. But it's definitely not working as well as it used to. Good thing Daron Acemoglu — Nobel laureate, MIT Institute Professor, and one of the world's...

31 Aug 57min