Aspen Ideas To Go

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on June 24, 2022, has clear consequences: abortion is no longer a protected federal right in the U.S, and many clinics are shutting down. But the legal arguments the decision relies upon are much more complex, and those details often get lost in the headlines. The 2022 Aspen Ideas Festival brought together a conservative and a liberal constitutional scholar to break down the ruling, explain the nuances and speculate about how Dobbs might impact the legal future of other federal rights, such as contraception access and same-sex marriage. Law professor and writer Jeffrey Rosen, of the National Constitution Center and Yamiche Alcindor, the Washington correspondent for NBC News, moderate the conversation between Sherif Girgis of Notre Dame Law School and Melissa Murray of NYU School of Law. This is the second of three episodes about SCOTUS decisions and the future of the Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, revoking the federal right to an abortion. The Aspen Ideas Festival kicked off the next day, so we quickly shifted gears for the Opening Session and pulled together a stellar panel discussion that centered this groundbreaking legal decision. Laws banning abortion have already gone effect in several states as a result of this decision, and some clinics have reduced services or shut down entirely. Questions remain about what other kinds of legislation this ruling has opened the door for, including criminalization of travel or assistance for abortion, prosecution of miscarriages, or the banning of contraception. Atlantic writer Jennifer Senior moderated a discussion between legal experts Steve Vladeck from the University of Texas School of Law and Katie Keith from Georgetown University Law Center, and writers Jane Coaston, host of “The Argument” podcast and an opinion writer at the New York Times, and David French, senior editor at The Dispatch and

The reversal of Roe v. Wade would make it difficult or impossible for millions of people to obtain abortions, but would also open the doors to criminally prosecute people who seek or obtain an abortion. And in our technological age, that criminalization brings new, frightening opportunities for digital surveillance by law enforcement agencies or anti-abortion vigilantes. In this panel from Aspen Digital, “Digital Surveillance and the Fight for Reproductive Rights,” three experts in digital privacy and civil rights walk us through the risks and existing practices, and share what can be done: Wafa Ben-Hassine from the Omidyar Network, Tiffany Li from University of New Hampshire School of Law and Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, and Cynthia Conti-Cook from the Ford Foundation. The panelists are also joined by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a longtime advocate for digital privacy, and Vivian Schiller, the Executive Director of Aspen Digital, moderates. 

History is taught with textbooks and lectures, but it’s also passed down in more informal ways, within families from generation to generation. Different groups of people can become attached to varying stories of the same past, and some narratives are erased or distorted. Writer and scholar Clint Smith takes a close look at the mechanisms and consequences of those distortions in his new book, “How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America.” He visited historical sites around the U.S., such as Thomas Jefferson’s plantation, Monticello, and a Confederate cemetery, and talked with docents and descendents about how they explain and make sense of what happened in those places. Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic, and a poet and education scholar. As part of the Winter Words series from Aspen Words, he is interviewed by James Merle Thomas, a curator and art history professor, and the director of the Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies at the Aspen Institute.

The Aspen Institute remembers and mourns Secretary Madeleine K. Albright, who passed away on March 23, 2022. She was a diplomat, professor, author, business leader, and the first woman to be the U.S. Secretary of State. In 2018, she raised the alarm on dangerous world leadership with her book “Fascism: A Warning,” calling out the regimes of Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, among others. In July of that year, Aspen Institute President and CEO, Dan Porterfield, interviewed her about the book in front of a live audience as part of the McCloskey Speaker Series. Among her many achievements and accomplishments, Secretary Albright served on the Aspen Institute Board of Trustees starting in 2002, and founded the Aspen Ministers Forum that same year, to strengthen diplomatic ties between the US and Europe. In 2012, she helped establish Aspen Central Europe based in Prague, and was recognized in 2011 as the recipient of the Institute’s Henry Crown Leadership Award. Secretary Albright leaves an enormous legacy as a longt

The industrial revolution and consequent terrible labor conditions sparked a wave of revolutions in Europe, and then a string of laws and protections for workers. As author and innovation expert Alec Ross describes it, we “rewrote the social contract.” But, Ross says, we may be due for another rewrite, as we transition from an industrial economy to one based on information and knowledge. He writes in his book, “The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People – And the Fight For Our Future,” that some corporations have as much power as nations, government regulation is out of date, and workers have lost staggering amounts of wealth and agency. In this talk from the Society of Fellows at the Aspen Institute, Stephanie Mehta, editor in chief of Fast Company magazine, interviews Ross, a board partner at the venture capital firm Amplo and former innovation advisor for the State Department, about what went wrong and how we get back to equilibrium.

Any organization, public or private, with any connection to Ukraine, should be exercising extreme technological vigilance, says cybersecurity expert Sandra Joyce, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Intelligence at Mandiant. In addition to the attacks on the ground, Russia could come at Ukraine virtually, with a wide range of targets and tactics and varying levels of sophistication. On February 18th, 2022, a few days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chris Krebs, the Senior Newmark Fellow in Cybersecurity Policy at Aspen Digital and former director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, interviewed Joyce and Dr. Herb Lin, Senior Research Scholar for Cyber Policy and Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and the Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University. The panelists explore the potential outcomes of cyber attacks, and discuss how the U.S. government’s ability to detect and respon

We may have moved from a time of reckoning on racial equity to a time of transformation, says business leader Dr. Rohini Anand, and that gives her hope. The author of “Leading Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: A Guide for Systemic Change in Multinational Organizations,” Anand advises leaders all over the world on how to get to work and make DEI improvements that stick. Each situation is unique, but the principles Anand has come up with help leaders adapt her expertise to their own organization. Miecha Ranea Forbes, the Aspen Institute’s Vice President of People and Culture, interviews Dr. Anand and shares some of her own expertise in this work. The talk is hosted by Ascend at the Aspen Institute; Ascend is a catalyst and convener for systems, policy, and social impact leaders working to create a society where every family passes a legacy of prosperity and well-being from one generation to the next.

The cornerstone of democracy is the principle that all citizens have the right and ability to participate in their own governance, either directly or via representation. While many Americans today may believe that we’ve lost sight of that inclusive ideal, Rashad Robinson, racial justice activist and the president of Color of Change, points out that for some, the system has never worked as well as it was supposed to. He wants us to come together and look ahead to build a new, more inclusive, more functional version of democracy than what we had before, and be honest about what that requires. In this panel from the State of Democracy Summit, co-presented by the 92nd Street Y and Aspen Digital, Robinson is interviewed by Vivian Schiller, the Executive Director of Aspen Digital.

Anthony Doerr is probably best known for his Pulitzer Prize winning novel All the Light We Cannot See. Just like that book, his latest work, Cloud Cuckoo Land, features protagonists who are dreamers and outsiders who find hope in the midst of danger. He talks with Mary Beth Keane, author of Ask Again, Yes, about the inspiration for his latest book and its focus on technology, destruction, preservation, and humanity’s vast interconnectedness. Doerr and Keane spoke as part of the Winter Words conversation series held by Aspen Words.

People have been thinking about happiness for thousands of years. In fact, ancient thinkers came up with strategies for cultivating pleasures over a lifetime, or creating a lasting capacity to take joy in the world. This long-term flourishing is different from immediate pleasures — it’s a richer notion of happiness. Laurie Santos is a professor of psychology at Yale and an expert on human cognition and the cognitive biases that impede better choices. She’s joined by Yale philosophy professor Tamar Gendler. Their conversation sheds light on the modern science behind ancient discoveries.

Even though women are likely to live longer than men, their hormonal changes make them far more susceptible to age-related memory loss like Alzhemier’s disease and other conditions. Yet gender is often not a primary consideration by the medical community  — but more and more research shows that it should be. Professor of neuroscience, neurology, and radiology Lisa Mosconi directs the Women’s Brain Initiative at Weill Cornell Medical College. Her latest book is “The XX Brain.” She discusses the female brain’s unique risks and strengths and ways to maximize cognitive health with Natalie Morales of NBC’s TODAY Show.

It used to be that having a “bird brain” was an insult. Now, it’s practically a compliment! Turns out the brain of a bird, which is small enough to fit into a nut, is full of neurons. These animals are capable of complex cognition — they can solve problems, count, understand cause and effect, and even communicate in ways that resemble language. Jennifer Ackerman chronicles birds’ intelligence in her book, “The Genius of Birds.” She sits down with Alexander Taylor, an animal psychologist who’s been studying the Caledonian crow — a bird that creates tools and passes on those lessons to younger generations. Flora Lichtman, host of the Gimlet Media podcast “Every Little Thing,” moderates the conversation.Watch the BBC video "Are crows the ultimate problem solvers?" featuring Alexander Taylor.

In the 1950s and 60s, mental health providers used psychedelics to help patients open up about difficult memories. Then, the drugs were banned. Now there’s a resurgence. Psychedelics like MDMA, psilocybin, and ketamine are being studied as solutions for anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Findings show that drugs like MDMA are especially useful in the context of healing from trauma. Rachel Yehuda, director of the Center for Psychedelic Psychotherapy and Trauma Research, and Gita Vaid, a psychologist and psychoanalyst who researches ketamine assisted psychotherapy, discuss psychedelic therapies with Alison Snyder of Axios.

The global Covid-19 pandemic has worsened inequality. Oxfam International found that while billionaire fortunes returned to pre-pandemic highs in just nine months, a recovery for the world’s poorest people could take over a decade. In the United States, wealthier people have kept their jobs and decreased their expenses as they transitioned to working from home, while others have either gone to work on the frontlines or lost their jobs altogether. What caused this widening gap and can it be reversed? Gillian White, of The Atlantic, interviews Beth Ann Bovino, chief US economist at S&P Global Ratings, Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor, and Children’s Defense Fund President Starsky Wilson about how to build wealth equity and create a more prosperous future for everyone.

The Covid-19 vaccine was developed at an unusually rapid pace, and now the public's expectations are high for what science can deliver. It's a good thing we're in a science moment. Gobs of data are being produced, researchers are collaborating more, and the public is engaged. But is the pace of discovery keeping up with the science? Alison Snyder, managing editor at Axios, interviews Darío Gil, senior vice president and director of IBM Research at IBM, Serpil Erzurum, chief research and academic officer of Cleveland Clinic, and Nicholas Dirks, president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences, about the pace of discovery in an age of streamlined research and development processes and advanced computing.

Current political fault lines are fracturing American society as people grow farther apart from one another due to differing beliefs and opinions. We often see people we disagree with as caricatures, and think we can never reconcile our differences. Yet despite that sense of contradiction we are much closer to each other than we think. To bridge the divide, we have to strengthen the bonds that make us human. In this special Thanksgiving conversation, Krista Tippett longtime host of the radio program “On Being,” and Harvard professor Arthur Brooks who writes the “How to Build a Life” column for The Atlantic, discuss ways we can share our humanity and work towards re-creating politics and civil society. Their discussion is part of Unfinished Live, an online event series produced in collaboration with Aspen Ideas partner, Unfinished. Learn more at www.unsfinished.com

Longtime food journalist Mark Bittman says America's food system needs to be reimagined so land is used fairly and well and people have access to food that promotes health, not illness. His latest book, Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal, tells the story of humankind through the lens of food. The frenzy for food has driven human history to some of its most catastrophic moments from slavery and colonialism to our current moment of Big Food. Big Food—driven by corporate greed and gluttony—is exacerbating climate change, plundering the planet, and sickening people. He speaks with Kathleen Finlay, president of the Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming, about what needs to change so that agriculture doesn’t wreck the planet and healthy food is available to all.

It's clear the United States isn't united right now. A Pew Research poll done before the 2020 election showed about 9 in 10 voters worried a victory by the other party would lead to lasting harm for the country. Our partisan divides aren't just endangering relationships and slowing progress in Washington, they're threatening our national security. "The greatest gift the United States can give to our national foes is hating each other. Why? Because it’s the ultimate distraction," says Arthur Brooks, professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School and Business School. He speaks with Amy Walter, editor and publisher of The Cook Political Report, and Susan Glasser, staff writer for The New Yorker, about this month's election results, the psychology behind our partisanship, what history shows us about division, and why there’s hope on the horizon.

Quick Take is a weekly dose of ideas and insights delivered in short form.Today’s episode features Gayle Smith, the State Department’s coordinator for the global response to Covid-19. Watch her full conversation from the Aspen Security Forum. The talk was co-presented with the Aspen Institute Health, Medicine, and Society Program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYXL0PpkvYEFollow us on instagram.com/aspenideas Follow us on facebook.com/aspenideasFollow us on twitter.com/aspenideas