Radio Live - Podcasts - Keen On America - Finally Some Good News: Why We Might All Be Altruistic Creatures

Finally Some Good News: Why We Might All Be Altruistic Creatures

Author: Andrew Keen May 13, 2022 Duration: 34:07

Podcast episode

Keen On America

Keen On America is a sharp, fast-moving podcast hosted by author and commentator Andrew Keen. Known for asking impertinent questions, Keen cross-examines some of the world’s most thoughtful voices on politics, economics, history, culture, the environment, and technology. Each episode digs beneath headlines and hype to uncover what is really shaping America today and how those forces connect to global change. Listeners can expect challenging conversations rather than easy talking points, as Keen presses guests to explain not just what is happening, but why it matters and what might come next. Whether you are trying to make sense of polarized politics, rapid technological disruption, or shifting social norms, this show offers a bracing, critical lens. Tune in and listen episodes of Keen On America to hear Andrew Keen interrogate the ideas and assumptions that define contemporary American life.

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now.

In this episode, Andrew is joined by Stephanie D. Preston, co-author of The Altruistic Urge: Why We’re Driven to Help Others.

Stephanie D. Preston is professor of psychology and director of the Ecological Neuroscience Lab at the University of Michigan. She is coeditor of The Interdisciplinary Science of Consumption (2014).

More episodes

Episode 2164: Keith Teare asks if Europe is Dying

18.08.2024 Duration: 37:11

It’s ironic that Keith Teare, editor of That Was The Week newsletter, just spent two idyllic weeks in Europe, enjoying the Paris Olympics and London theater. Because his first newsletter on his return to the United State…

Episode page

Episode 2163: David Masciotra on Kamala and America's "Harrisist" Moment

18.08.2024 Duration: 38:45

We are living in interesting political times. A month ago, the Presidential election appeared over. Today, however, it appears as if it’s barely begun. So in my conversation today with the prolific columnist David Mascio…

Episode page

Episode 2162: Bethanne Patrick on the Hypocrite, Hitler's People and Hum

16.08.2024 Duration: 43:06

What do Hum, Hitler’s People and The Hypocrite have in common? They are all recommended new books from KEEN ON’s best read regular guest, Los Angeles Times book critic Bethanne Patrick. As usual, she recommends six books…

Episode page

Episode 2061: Mimi Casteel explains the how to fix America, one sip of wine at a time

15.08.2024 Duration: 25:09

Last month, we were in western Virginia talking to the pioneering regenerative farmer Joel Salatin about how American can fix itself one bite at a time. Today we are on the other coast, in western Oregon, talking to anot…

Episode page

Episode 2160: Steve Benen on how the Republicans have become the Orwellian Party of Big Brother

15.08.2024 Duration: 42:21

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, which he wrote in 1948,George Orwell imagined the “Ministry of Truth” to be the central institution that Big Brother used to reinvent reality and make war on the recent past. Three quarters of a…

Episode page

Episode 2159: Richard J. Evans on how leading Nazis were, in some ways, just ordinary middle class Germans

13.08.2024 Duration: 43:18

As author of the authoritative three volume Third Reich Trilogy, Richard J. Evans is probably the most respected scholar of Hitler’s Third Reich in the world today. And his latest book, Hitler’s People, is an attempt to…

Episode page

Episode 2158: Robin Bernstein on the Marriage of American Capitalism with the American Prison System

12.08.2024 Duration: 54:03

In her new book, Freeman’s Challenge, the Harvard historian Robin Bernstein reveals the early 19th century origins of America’s for profit prisons. Telling the tragic story of William Freeman, an Afro-Native teenager gui…

Episode page

Episode 2157: Lindsey Cormack on How to Raise a Citizen

12.08.2024 Duration: 34:56

In an America riven with both civic discord and ignorance, how can we nurture a next generation of responsibly informed citizens? That’s the all important question Lindsey Cormack addresses in her new book, How to Raise…

Episode page

Episode 2156: James Muldoon exposes the hidden human labor powering the AI revolution

10.08.2024 Duration: 38:41

There are two core critiques of AI. The first is that it is an existential threat because it replaces humans with algorithms. The second is that AI is a mirror that only compounds preexisting injustices. James Muldoon, a…

Episode page

Episode 2155: David Daley Gets Inside the Far Right's 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections

10.08.2024 Duration: 40:24

How democratic is American “democracy”. Dramatically less so that it was. That’s at least the rather worrying conclusion of David Daley, the author of ANTIDEMOCRATIC, a new book which exposes what he says is “the far rig…

Episode page

Episode 2154: Shad White on Brett Favre's Mississippi Swindle

08.08.2024 Duration: 47:12

Shad White has an uncanny resemblance to J.D. Vance. Born in a tiny town in Mississippi, White went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, then Harvard Law School and is now the State Auditor of Mississippi. Like Vance, the life…

Episode page

Episode 2153: Lola Milholland on Group Living and Other Deliciously Polyamorous Recipes

07.08.2024 Duration: 42:27

If it’s lunchtime, it must be KEEN ON time. At least that’s what it seems, given the long menu of food guests recently on the show. First there was the lunatic regenerative farmer, Joel Salatin, fixing America one bite a…

Episode page

Episode 2152: Peter Wehner on the Fate of "His" Republican Party

06.08.2024 Duration: 52:58

Peter Wehner is the conscience of American conservatism. Having worked in three Republican administrations, the ex Republican is now a regular contributor to the New York Times and the Atlantic, writing compelling moral…

Episode page

Episode 2151: Edmund Fawcett compares the Futures of Liberalism and Conservatism

05.08.2024 Duration: 46:53

Were politics chess, liberals had white; they moved first. Conservatives had black; they countered liberalism’s opening moves. In time, the initiative changed hands. Conservatives, who began as anti-moderns, came to mast…

Episode page

Episode 2150: Jonathan Taplin on why American Exceptionalism lies in its Powers of Creativity

05.08.2024 Duration: 33:11

So what’s exceptional about America? According to the writer, film producer and scholar Jonathan Taplin, American exceptionalism lies its uniquely global cultural influence. For Taplin - the tour manager for Bob Dylan &…

Episode page