82 episodes
What Could Go Right? The Progress Network with Zachary Karabell and Emma Varvaloucas
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- Society & Culture
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4.5 • 38 Ratings
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What if instead of being on the brink of disaster, we’re on the cusp of a better world? No one can deny the challenges the world faces, from pandemics to climate change to authoritarianism. But pessimism and despair are too easy a response. Each week, Progress Network Founder Zachary Karabell and Executive Director Emma Varvaloucas convene a diverse panel of experts to discuss the central issues of our era, including sustainability, polarization, work, and the economy, and make the case for a brighter future. They emerge from their conversations with a counterintuitive but informed take: progress is on its way.
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Progress Check: Politics and AI, Homeless Vets, and STDs with Zachary Karabell and Emma Varvaloucas
How much of a threat is AI to elections with new disclosure rules from big platforms in place? What's going on with infant mortality trends? And why can't we test for more illnesses at home? Zachary Karabell and Emma Varvaloucas are back to discuss the latest news stories we might have missed.
What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate.
For transcripts, to join the newsletter, and for more information, visit: theprogressnetwork.org
Watch the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/theprogressnetwork
And follow us on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok: @progressntwrk
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Change Is the Operative Force of History with Drew Gilpin Faust
What are the dangers of not acknowledging what has gotten better? How do we understand the marks history leaves on individuals? And what does a former president of Harvard think of higher education in the US today? We hear from historian, civil rights activist, and the first woman president of Harvard, Drew Gilpin Faust, about how her story and how activism can actually make a difference.
What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate.
For transcripts, to join the newsletter, and for more information, visit: theprogressnetwork.org
Watch the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/theprogressnetwork
And follow us on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok: @progressntwrk
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Not Too Late for the Climate with Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua
Is climate discourse doomerism based on the right facts and frameworks? Are we not giving the potential of change enough credence? And where does the climate movement go from here? Today, we hear from the authors of "Not Too Late," Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua, whose climate activism is deliberately removed from despair.
What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate.
For transcripts, to join the newsletter, and for more information, visit: theprogressnetwork.org
Watch the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/theprogressnetwork
And follow us on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok: @progressntwrk
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Progress Check: Climate Dads, Cell Phone Bans, and Asteroid Sampling with Zachary Karabell and Emma Varvaloucas
Who is going to work these days and who is staying home? How should schools handle cell phones on their grounds, and what is the UK doing about them in particular? And what did NASA scientists find in their latest asteroid sample? Zachary Karabell and Emma Varvaloucas are back to discuss the latest news stories we might have missed.
What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate.
For transcripts, to join the newsletter, and for more information, visit: theprogressnetwork.org
Watch the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/theprogressnetwork
And follow us on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok: @progressntwrk
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Navigating Israel-Palestine with Ian Bremmer
Will there be peace in the Middle East, or will the current conflict escalate? How can we understand the situation with moral nuance? And how do we parse information in the "fog of war"? On today's episode, we talk with Ian Bremmer, foreign affairs analyst and president and founder of Eurasia Group, to examine the complicated crisis of Israel-Palestine.
What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate.
For transcripts, to join the newsletter, and for more information, visit: theprogressnetwork.org
Watch the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/theprogressnetwork
And follow us on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok: @progressntwrk
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
The Great Awokening's Great Mistakes with Yascha Mounk
Are identity politics getting in the way of real progress? How did these marginal academic ideas go mainstream? And is it possible to make progress without diminishing the progress we have already made? Yascha Mounk, contributing editor at The Atlantic, host of The Good Fight podcast, and author of "The Identity Trap," offers his ideas on the pitfalls of the "identity synthesis" and how we can create a more inclusive society without it.
What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and The Podglomerate.
For transcripts, to join the newsletter, and for more information, visit: theprogressnetwork.org
Watch the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/theprogressnetwork
And follow us on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok: @progressntwrk
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Customer Reviews
Thoughtful and Realistic
I really enjoy this podcast because it moves past the fashion of oversimplification, needless over complication, cynicism, and tribalism. I also deeply appreciate that the hosts are not Pollyannas.
Classic Case of Rescuer Syndrome
They overly catastrophize everything, so they can come in and play the White Knight and rescue everyone from their previous doom and gloom. I grew up in a proselytizing religion that was just like this. They spend all this time trying to convince people things are so bad by misrepresenting headlines and events, taking quotes from doomsayers as if they were experts, then comes their sales pitch. Jesus, pollyanneism, crystals, essential oils, more sleep, less sleep, whatever it is that will solve the problems they just tried to convince you is making you miserable.
The biggest issue I have is the sheer amount of misinformation they put out. Left wing misinformation is just as harmful as right wing misinformation, they both get in the way of the people trying to get things done. They avoid true researchers and instead bring in people who wrote a book, a book that seeks facts to fit their narrative. Plenty of people available who can give you the ins and outs and the nuances, but nope, let’s get people who are on a book tour. In the few episodes I listened to - in the hopes it would get better - I literally learned nothing, and the only benefit possibly obtained was the eye exercise I got by reflexively rolling my eyes every other sentence while they spewed misinformation.
I’ll save you a lot of time: everything is the fault of white males and the only solution is for white males to give all their money to everyone else - anonymously of course because otherwise it would be colonialism - and just stop existing.
Weak hosts, simplistic ideas
Seems like the got the idea from the truly ground breaking What Could Possibly Go Right podcast. Unfortunately hosts that don’t even know the definition of Capitalism? Really? It’s 2023.
Kinda simple and lacking in intelligent insight AND zero sense of humor. Hard pass.