Aspen Ideas to Go

Death doula Alua Arthur, advocate Dan Diaz, and designer Katrina Spade discuss innovative ways to approach end-of-life experiences. Topics include medical aid in dying, human composting, and embracing mortality. Stanford professor Dr. Lucy Kalanithi moderates the conversation, emphasizing the importance of open conversations about death.

Climate change is demanding an extraordinarily rapid transformation of human society, and we don’t have a manual. The people who have done the least to cause the problem are the people who will be feeling it most, and that pattern of inequality exists both within and between nations. Mapping a course to an adapted planet is an incredibly complex task that requires the cooperation of millions. Atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe is one of those pitching in, and she has co-authored the past four U.S. National Climate Assessment reports. She’s also the chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy and a professor in the Texas Tech University Political Science department. Her multiple insider roles give her a unique perspective on what it will take to solve and adapt to the climate crisis, and her practice of finding hope keeps her engaged. NBC “Today” show weather and feature anchor Al Roker interviews Hayhoe at the 2024 Aspen Ideas: Climate event in Miami Beach, Florida. aspenideas.org

For years, Yale undergraduate students have lined up to take a wildly popular course called Life Worth Living. Bucking the highly competitive tone you might expect at an Ivy League school, the class teaches students to look beyond traditional markers of success for deeper meaning. Theology professor Miroslav Volf is one of the co-teachers, and also one of the co-authors of a book version of the course that came out last year called “Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most.” Podcast and TV host Kelly Corrigan invited Volf to introduce the book and start an extended and lively conversation with a wide variety of writers and thinkers at the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival. After setting the stage with Volf, Corrigan poses probing questions to Mónica Guzmán, the author of “I Never Thought of It That Way” and a senior fellow at Braver Angels, James Ijames, a playwright who won a 2022 Pulitzer for his play “Fat Ham,” Alexandra Reeve Givens, a lawyer and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Rainn Wilson, the actor who played Dwight Schrute on the TV show “The Office” and recently wrote a book about spirituality called “Soul Boom.” aspenideas.org

In the late 1990s, HIV and AIDS was killing people in Sub-Saharan Africa at an astonishing rate. Generations of children were growing up without parents and the workforce of civil society was hollowing out. Drugs effectively treating the disease were just becoming available, and the George W. Bush administration wanted to explore a way to bring treatment to Africa. Anthony Fauci was head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the time, and under near-secrecy, he was assigned to formulate a plan via several fact-finding trips to the continent. When the outline of the program came together, then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist rallied support in congress and led the passage of legislation for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. In today’s talk from Aspen Ideas: Health, Fauci and Frist meet on stage about two decades after the start of PEPFAR to tell the story of how it got started and reflect on where it’s gone since. CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen moderates the conversation. aspenideas.org

Thomas Friedman discusses the global evolution through technology and the importance of rebuilding functional democracy. He reflects on his experiences reporting in the Middle East and the United States, highlighting the best and worst of humanity. The podcast explores the impact of the Industrial Revolution on political parties, the integration of AI in the tech era, and the decline of societal safeguards, emphasizing the hope for rebuilding democratic structures.

It doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to put the generative artificial intelligence genie back in the bottle. But we might still be able to prevent some potential damage. Tools like Bard and ChatGPT are already being used in the workplace, educational settings, health care, scientific research, and all over social media. What kind of guardrails do we need to prevent bad actors from causing the worst imaginable outcomes? And who can put those protections in place and enforce them? A panel of A.I. experts from the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival shares hopes and fears for this kind of technology, and discusses what can realistically be done by private, public and civil society sectors to keep it in check. Lila Ibrahim, COO of the Google A.I. company DeepMind, joins social science professor Alondra Nelson and IBM’s head of privacy and trust, Christina Montgomery, for a conversation about charting a path to ethical uses of A.I. CNBC tech journalist Deirdre Bosa moderates the conversation and takes audience questions.  aspenideas.org

History has the power to teach us what to do in the present, but do we actually make good use of that tool? Many events in our recent past might suggest otherwise. American history is complex and full of pain, suffering and missteps. Harvard professor Imani Perry’s interdisciplinary work draws from African American studies, legal history and cultural studies to find insights into how we live today. In this talk from the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival, she joins author, historian and Vanderbilt professor Jon Meacham for a conversation about how to reckon with the United States’ difficult history. The two touch on the Civil Rights movement, the value of civics education and a collective mindset and what simply getting along with our neighbors can and cannot accomplish. aspenideas.org

Exploring topics such as bad sex experiences despite sex positivity movements, the influence of porn on sexual behavior, consent in young adult encounters, the evolution of sex positivity, and the importance of openly discussing bad sexual experiences for healthy relationships.

Laurence Steinberg is a distinguished expert on adolescence, while Lisa Damour is a clinical psychologist specializing in child development. Together, they tackle the unique challenges faced by teenagers and young adults today, particularly in a post-pandemic world. Their conversation reveals insights on fostering independence, understanding mental health complexities, and nurturing emotional connections. They provide strategies for overcoming generational gaps and supporting young adults navigating societal pressures, including financial expectations and identity affirmation.

Scientists could actually be close to being able to decode animal communication and figure out what animals are saying to each other. And more astonishingly, we might even find ways to talk back. The study of sonic communication in animals is relatively new, and researchers have made a lot of headway over the past few decades with recordings and human analysis. But recent advancements in artificial intelligence are opening doors to parsing animal communication in ways that haven’t been close to possible until now. In this talk from the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival in partnership with Vox’s “Unexplainable” podcast, two experts on animal communication and the digital world come together to explain what may come next. Tragically, a few months after this conversation was recorded in June, one of the panelists, Karen Bakker, passed away unexpectedly. Bakker was a professor at the University of British Columbia who looked at ways digital tools can address our most pressing problems. She also wrote the book “The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology is Bringing Us Closer to the World of Animals and Plants.” The UBC Geography department wrote of Bakker: “We will remember Karen as multi-faceted and superbly talented in all realms.” Aza Raskin, the co-founder of the Earth Species Project, a nonprofit trying to decode animal communication using A.I., joined Bakker for this discussion. The host of “Unexplainable,” Noam Hassenfeld, interviewed Bakker and Raskin. aspenideas.org