Kurt Andersen explains that fame is all you need in America. America was founded with all the fertilizer needed to make that true but needed social media to bring it to full fruition.
Working people throughout the developed world feel their governments are letting them down and forcing them to pay the lion's share for policies that are actually working against them. The telling exception is Japan.
Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about life in the universe, dark matter and field goals. Should the search for like be limited to the Goldilocks zone around a star? What is dark matter and how do we know it exists if we can't detect it? Could the spin of the earth decide the winner of a football game.
In 2009 an Iridium satellite and a defunct Cosmos satellite collided in space creating a debris field that would likely destroy any satellite or space craft passing through it. From this event and other objects launched into space the orbital paths around the Earth are cluttered with junk putting at risk the space technologies our civilization relies on. To mitigate this problem ESA is sponsoring the ClearSpace-1 mission to capture and dispose of a derelict piece of space junk.
Sam Harris discusses the societal challenges of political fragmentation, the necessity of conversation to prevent violence, and the transformative potential of beliefs, cooperation, and mindfulness.
