Toby Ord on existential risk, Donald Trump, and thinking in probabilities
Oxford philosopher Toby Ord spent the early part of his career spearheading the effective altruism movement, founding Giving What We Can, and focusing his attention primarily on issue areas like globa...
9 Apr 20201h 24min
Elizabeth Warren has a plan for this, too
In January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the first presidential candidate to release a plan for combatting coronavirus. In March, she released a second plan. Days later, with the scale of economic damage...
6 Apr 202050min
What social solidarity demands of us in a pandemic
There is no doubt that social distancing is the best way to slow the spread of the coronavirus. But the efficacy of social distancing (or really any other public health measure) relies on something mu...
2 Apr 20201h 5min
Coronavirus has pushed US-China relations to their worst point since Mao
The COVID-19 pandemic is a grim reminder that the worst really can happen. Tail risk is real risk. Political leaders fumble, miscalculate, and bluster into avoidable disaster. And even as we try to de...
30 Mars 202059min
Is the cure worse than the disease?
"We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself!" That was President Donald Trump, this week, explaining why he was thinking about lifting coronavirus guidelines earlier than public-health ex...
26 Mars 20201h 4min
An economic crisis like we’ve never seen
“What is happening,” writes Annie Lowrey, “is a shock to the American economy more sudden and severe than anyone alive has ever experienced.” It’s also different from what anyone alive has ever expe...
23 Mars 20201h 23min
"The virus is more patient than people are"
Ron Klain served as the chief of staff to vice presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden. In 2014, President Barack Obama tapped him to lead the administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. ...
19 Mars 20201h 18min
A master class in organizing
The Bernie Sanders campaign is an organizing tour-de-force relative to the Joe Biden campaign; yet the latter has won primary after primary — with even higher turnouts than 2016. So does organizing ev...
16 Mars 20202h
