Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The Wake Up: Michelle Mijung Kim on the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change Oct 07, 2021

Show notes

The Black Lives Matter and Stop AAPI Hate movements, among others, have brought international attention to widespread social injustices that have been ignored by society for far too long. As a result, many individuals have been inspired to make positive changes toward a safer and more inclusive world. But pursuing equity and justice can be a complex and confusing undertaking. Good intentions do not necessarily lead to good outcomes. Inspiration can easily be derailed by feelings of confusion, the trap of performative allyship, and misguided attempts to take action. When it comes to helping instead of harming, the hardest part can often be figuring out where to begin.

Michelle MiJung Kim will unpack hot button issues—cancel culture, inclusive language, representation, and more—in a way that is accessible to people regardless of their current understanding of inclusive practices.

Join us for an in-depth conversation Michelle MiJung Kim, followed by a book signing for her new tome, The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change.

SPEAKERS

Michelle Mijung Kim

Author, The Wake Up; Co-founder and CEO, Awaken

Michelle Meow

Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors; Twitter @msmichellemeow—Co-Host

John Zipperer

Producer and Host, Week to Week Political Roundtable; Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club—Co-Host

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 28th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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George Dobbins' Exit Interview Oct 07, 2021

Show notes

What is the secret sauce behind The Commonwealth Club’s 500-plus annual programs? George Dobbins has led the Club’s programming effort for more than 22 years, responsible for the production of more than 9,000 forums. Sadly for the Club, he will retire on September 30, 2021.

Dobbins has seen all the trends in public issues and public debate over the past two decades. He has dealt with myriad politicians, kings, princes, scientists and celebrities, recently ranging from Dr. Anthony Fauci to Rep. Liz Cheney. He has handled it all with diplomacy, tact and inspired leadership. Please join us on September 28 at 12:30 p.m., in-person at the Club or online, as Club CEO Gloria Duffy debriefs George Dobbins on his role of the past 22 years, and he tells a few behind-the-scenes stories that will both keep us laughing and underline the wisdom and care with which he has handled his important position.

SPEAKERS

George Dobbins

Vice President of Programs, The Commonwealth Club of California

In Conversation with Dr. Gloria Duffy

President and CEO, The Commonwealth Club of California

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Max Chafkin: Peter Thiel and the Pursuit of Power in Silicon Valley Oct 06, 2021

Show notes

Over the past two decades, no industry has had a greater impact on the world than the tech industry, born and bred in California's Silicon Valley. And perhaps few individuals have done more to shape Silicon Valley than the enigmatic tech investor and entrepreneur, Peter Thiel. The billionaire venture capitalist and tech leader has been a behind-the-scenes operator influencing the tech industry and countless aspects of our contemporary way of life, from the technologies we use every day to the delicate power balance between Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Washington, particularly during the Trump administration. But despite his power, no public figure might be quite so mysterious as Thiel.

In the first major biography of Thiel, reporter Max Chafkin traces the trajectory of Thiel's singular life and worldview, from his upbringing as the child of immigrant parents and years at Stanford as a burgeoning conservative thinker to his founding of PayPal and Palantir, early investments in Facebook and SpaceX, and relationships with fellow tech titans Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Eric Schmidt. Chafkin's book, The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power, explores the extent to which Thiel has sought to have influence far beyond California's tech industry, including funding the lawsuit that destroyed the blog Gawker and supporting conservative political candidates, including Donald Trump in 2016.

To understand Silicon Valley and its impact, particularly on American political and civic life, an understanding of Thiel is a critical piece of the puzzle. Please join us for an important discussion on this critical player in the tech industry and American life. The discussion will be led by Brad Stone, best known for chronicling another enigmatic tech mogul, Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

SPEAKERS

Max Chafkin

Features Editor and Technology Reporter, Bloomberg Businessweek; Author, The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power

Brad Stone

Senior Executive Editor, Global Technology, Bloomberg News; Author, Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 27th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Freedomville: A 21st-Century Slave Revolt in India Oct 06, 2021

Show notes

A celebrated revolution brought freedom to a group of enslaved people in northern India. Or did it?

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Laura Murphy, who will join us live from the United Kingdom to talk about the fascinating story of Freedomville, a town founded by slaves in India.

Millions of people today are still enslaved, and nearly 8 million of them live in India, more than anywhere else. Murphy reveals the story of a small group of enslaved villagers in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh who founded their own town of Azad Nagar―Freedomville―after staging a rebellion against their slaveholders. International organizations championed it as a non-violent "silent revolution" that inspired other villagers to fight for their own freedom. But Murphy, a leading scholar of contemporary global slavery who spent years researching and teaching about Freedomville, found that there was something troubling about Azad Nagar's success.

Freedomville's enormous struggle to gain and maintain liberty shows us how realistic radical change is, and how a global construction boom is deepening and broadening the alienation of impoverished people around the world.

About the Speaker

Laura T. Murphy is professor of human rights and contemporary slavery at the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. She is the author of The New Slave Narrative: The Battle over Representations of Contemporary Slavery, Survivors of Slavery: Modern-Day Slave Narratives and Metaphor and the Slave Trade in Western African Literature. Her work has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the British Academy, the National Humanities Center, and the Department of Justice.

SPEAKERS

Laura Murphy

Professor of Human Rights and Contemporary Slavery, Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice, Sheffield Hallam University (UK); Author, Freedomville: The Story of a 21st-Century Slave Revolt; Twitter @LauraTMurphy

Michelle Meow

Producer and Host, "The Michelle Meow Show," KBCW and Podcast; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors; Twitter @msmichellemeow—Co-Host

John Zipperer

Producer and Host, Week to Week Political Roundtable; Vice President of Media & Editorial, The Commonwealth Club—Co-Host

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 23rd, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Mary Trump: The Reckoning Oct 05, 2021

Show notes

With her first book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, trained clinical psychologist Mary L. Trump focused a spotlight on their family's complex history to explain how her uncle became a historically disruptive national figure. The book was a international bestseller, appearing in the midst of a heated presidential election and providing deep insight into the nation's 45th president.

Now in The Reckoning: Our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal, Mary Trump examines America's national trauma, rooted in our history but dramatically exacerbated by the impact of current events and the Trump administration's divisive policies. She says that our failure to acknowledge this, let alone root it out, has allowed it to metastasize. Whether the trauma manifests itself in rising levels of rage and hatred, or hopelessness and apathy, the stress of living in a country people feel they no longer recognize has affected millions. It’s a collective PTSD that a new leader alone cannot fix.

Mary Trump explores how our current trauma is the logical outcome of the stories we tell ourselves, the myths we embrace, and the lies we perpetuate. Trauma shapes us in ways we may not be aware of, and will always do so unless we face what has happened to us, what we’ve done to ourselves, what we’ve done to each other. She says an enormous amount of healing must be done to rebuild our faith in leadership, and our hope for this nation, and it starts with the reckoning.

Mary L. Trump holds a Ph.D. from the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University, and has taught graduate courses in trauma, psychopathology and developmental psychology.

SPEAKERS

Mary Trump

Psychologist; Author, The Reckoning

In Conversation with Molly Jong-Fast

Editor at Large, The Daily Beast

Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker

Journalists; Authors

In Conversation with Yamiche Alcindor

Host, "Washington Week," PBS

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 26th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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Mary Roach's Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law Oct 05, 2021

Show notes

Mary Roach wants to let us in on a secret: The greatest number of repeat criminal offenders are outside, all around us, and you’ve probably even seen some today—animals. It has only been three centuries since animals had to stand trial for their misconduct, in a court of law, with legal representation. Yes, really.

In her newest book, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, the science enthusiast turned writer deep-dives into human-animal conflict. As human land consumption creeps further into the natural habitats of these so-called troublemakers, it becomes more pressing to realize a symbiotic coexistence. The question becomes: Who is in the wrong, animals living according to their instincts or the humans that increasingly police them? To answer this question, Roach trots the globe from the Himalayas to Vatican City making friends with rats and foes with a macaque. Ultimately she reaches the conclusion that there is true, untamed hope for working with rather than against our critter counterparts.

At INFORUM Roach will regale us with stories as wild as they are true, such as her foray into rat-bait taste testing. Further she will serve as our safari-guide in the conversation of how to bring outdoor and indoor worlds together safely and justly at a time when this work is needed most. This conversation is moderated by Kara Platoni, Wired's science editor

SPEAKERS

Mary Roach

Author, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

Kara Platoni

Science Editor, Wired—Moderator

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 21st, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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CLIMATE ONE: Katharine Hayhoe on Hope and Healing Oct 01, 2021

Show notes

Despite her identity as an evangelical, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe doesn't accept global warming on faith; she crunches the data, analyzes the models, and helps engineers, city managers and ecologists quantify the impacts. In her new book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, Hayhoe argues that when it comes to changing hearts and minds, facts are only one part of the equation.

“The biggest problem we have is not the people who willfully decide to reject 200 years of basic science,” she says. “The bigger problem is the number of people who say, ‘it's real’ but they don’t think it matters to them.”

Hayhoe says we need to find shared values with others to drive conversations and collective action on climate disruption.

Guest:

Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist and chief scientist, The Nature Conservancy; author, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World

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“Asian for All”—How to Be a 21st Century Museum Sep 29, 2021

Show notes

The mass movements of summer 2020 brought together millions and compelled museums across the country to confront their own legacies with urgency and openness. Director of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco Jay Xu will share how the museum navigated these challenges while endeavoring to transform the 55-year-old museum into a 21st century experience accessible and welcoming to all.

Through an ever-growing contemporary art collection, investment in accessible digital technologies, a new pavilion helping to reenergize Civic Center, and an expansive look at what it means to be a culturally specific museum during a surge in anti-Asian racism, Xu will talk about his team’s efforts to inspire and connect audiences from around the world—with art as well as with each other. The discussion will be moderated by Deborah Clearwaters, director of education and interpretation at the Asian Art Museum.

NOTES

MLF: Asia-Pacific Affairs

SPEAKERS

Dr. Jay Xu

Barbara Bass Bakar Director & CEO, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

Deborah Clearwaters

Director of Education and Interpretation, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco—Moderator

Introduction by Jim Brown

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on February 11th, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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A New Era of Experiential Medicine: From Video Games to Psychedelics Sep 28, 2021

Show notes

A fundamental challenge of our health-care system is the enhancement of cognition for millions of people who suffer from psychiatric and neurological conditions. Despite 70 years of global effort in attempting to identify molecules deliverable as pills to accomplish this goal, we have largely failed to deliver truly effective, accessible and low-side-effect treatments for cognitive impairments associated with medical conditions, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD and dementia.

It is important to be aware that for thousands of years we humans have been creating experiences to enhance the quality of our lives and support our mental health. However, this approach has largely been marginalized as “alternative” and has not been embraced within the core of mainstream medicine. Dr. Adam Gazzaley will describe his mission to develop and validate experiences as medicine by integrating neuroscience-guided design, invention and experimentation. In this talk, he will discuss his invention of a closed-loop video game that has now become the first FDA-cleared video game for any medical condition, and the first digital treatment for ADHD. He will share how the next generation of experiential medicine will incorporate advances in artificial intelligence, sensory immersion, virtual reality, multimodal physiological recordings and noninvasive electrical brain stimulation. He will conclude with a deep dive into his newest undertakings to explore the intricacies and possibilities of one of man’s oldest experiential medicines—psychedelics.

Dr. Adam Gazzaley obtained an M.D. and Ph.D. in neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, completed neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania and postdoctoral training in cognitive neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently the David Dolby Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco and the founder and executive director of Neuroscape, a translational neuroscience center at UCSF engaged in technology creation and scientific research.

MLF ORGANIZER

Patty James

NOTES

MLF: Health & Medicine

SPEAKERS

Dr. Adam Gazzaley

M.D., Ph.D., David Dolby Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco; Founder and Executive Director, Neuroscape

Patty James

M.S., N.C. Nutritionist; Chef; Author—Moderator

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 22nd, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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A Conversation with Peter Coyote Sep 28, 2021

Show notes

Peter Coyote has acted in more than 130 films (including E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Cross Creek, Jagged Edge,Patch Adams, Erin Brockovich, and Hemingway & Gellhorn), is an Emmy Award-winning narrator of more than 200 documentaries (including, for Ken Burns, The West, The National Parks, Prohibition, The Dust Bowl, The Roosevelts, The Vietnam War, The Mayo Clinic, and Country Music), and is a political activist, singer/songwriter and a Buddhist priest.

He has also penned two memoirs. He is the author of the new book of poetry, Tongue of a Crow, and a forthcoming December book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Meet Buddha: Masks, Meditation, and Improvised Play to Induce Liberated States, in which he "reveals how to use masks, meditation, and improvisation to free yourself from overthinking, self-doubt, and fixed ideas of who you think you are."

Join a fascinating conversation with Peter Coyote about his amazing life, career, and the lessons he's learned along the way.

NOTES

This program is part of The Commonwealth Club's Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation.

SPEAKERS

Peter Coyote

Actor; Political Activist; Author, Tongue of a Crow and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Meet Buddha: Masks, Meditation, and Improvised Play to Induce Liberated States (forthcoming)

In conversation with John Boland

President Emeritus, KQED; Member, Commonwealth Club Board of Governors

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on September 2st, 2021 by the Commonwealth Club of California.

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