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In a well-functioning democracy, people do not live in echo chambers or filter bubbles; rather, citizens are exposed to myriad ideas and perspectives even if not their own. Constitutional scholar Cass Sunstein suggests that our current obsession with social media and our online friend groups narrow the scope of the kinds of daily and serendipitous interactions that might otherwise broaden our perspectives, nurture our curiosity, and fuel our compassion. What happens to a society in which its citizens fail to listen to one another? Why does it matter?
- 2017 Festival
- Technology
- USA
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Technology
Most Americans today would agree that the dream of supporting a family and living a good life on one full time salary is not available to vast numbers of people. Wages have no...
Artificial intelligence is making world-changing advances every day. But these powerful tools can be used for malicious and nefarious purposes just as easily as they can be us...
Climate change catastrophes are already happening with increasing regularity, and it’s clear we need to take action. The Biden administration has set a target of zero carbon e...
A technological future where our brain waves could be monitored and our thoughts decoded and analyzed — sometimes against our will — is not as far away as we think. But our ex...
Even when the economy is booming and unemployment is low, millions of Americans still face economic hardship. And in the last few years the United States has dealt with supply...
Whether expressed through systems that are easy to navigate, devices that are friendly to their users, and spaces that are pleasing to the eye, thoughtful design can break dow...
Setting audacious goals helps to redefine what is achievable in health, medicine, and science. As we deepen understanding of the human genome, unravel the mysteries of the bra...
Artificial intelligence is clearly going to change our lives in multiple ways. But it’s not yet obvious exactly how, and what the impacts will be. We can predict that certain...
When Sal Khan created Khan Academy, he was trying to scale up the successful experiences he’d had tutoring his cousins one-on-one in math. He saw how effective it could be for...
Everywhere you look, there’s a headline about the power of artificial intelligence and how it will impact our lives in ways we have not yet imagined. From advancing medicine t...
Almost everyone agrees that immigration policy in the United States is lacking, but despite decades of debate, Congress has not been able to pass comprehensive reform on the i...
How do we sustain growth in a volatile and rapidly changing economy? What’s the best way to foster productivity and fulfillment at work? How will A.I. change the job market? C...
Americans seem more culturally and ideologically divided than at any point in most of our lifetimes, with no prospect of bridging those divides any time soon. The only thing w...
It’s a fact: In communities where voting rates are higher, health outcomes are better. That’s why ER physician Alister Martin, the Founder of Vot-ER and CEO of A Healthier Dem...
The automotive industry is going through a time of profound transformation, facing internal and external pressure to electrify America’s fleet of personal vehicles. General Mo...
Populations around the world have been electing more and more autocratic leaders in the past couple decades, via supposedly free, fair, and democratic elections. The freedom o...
Merely defining gun violence is difficult, and coming to agreement on what to do about it often seems near-impossible in the United States. But people on all sides of the deba...
Can technology bolster democracy? MIT’s Deb Roy thinks so.
The U.S. Supreme Court continues to issue major decisions that have profound impacts on the lives of Americans and the political future of the country. During the term that ju...
At the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival, we dug into some of the most important and fascinating issues of our time, from rebuilding trust in our institutions and the promise and peri...