Radio Live - Podcasts - Keen On America - Michael Stein on Accidental Kindness: A Doctor's Thoughts on the Importance of Empathy

Michael Stein on Accidental Kindness: A Doctor's Thoughts on the Importance of Empathy

Author: Andrew Keen October 28, 2022 Duration: 42:44

Podcast episode

Keen On America

Society Commentary Culture News

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 Michael Stein, author of Accidental Kindness: A Doctor’s Notes on Empathy.

Michael Stein, M.D., is award-winning author of six novels and four books of nonfiction, most recently Broke: Patients Talk About Money with Their Doctor. He is professor of health policy at the Boston University School of Public Health and executive editor of PublicHealthPost.org.

More episodes

Here Comes the Sunstein: Cass Sunstein on Why American Liberalism Now Needs Defending More Than Ever

10.09.2025 Duration: 46:04

There are few more prolific Americans than the Harvard scholar, activist and athlete Cass Sunstein. The author of almost 30 books (including the best-selling Nudge) as well as an influential advisor in the Presidencies o…

Episode page

Can We Get To 2125? Humanity's Most Existential Threats Over the Next 100 Years

09.09.2025 Duration: 42:34

Can we humans make it to 2125? According to Gary F. Bengier, author of Journey to 2125, our species faces three existential threats over the next 100 years. His horsemen of the apocalypse are climate change, nuclear war…

Episode page

The Art of a Deal with the Devil: on Faustian Bargains from Shakespeare and Goethe to Thomas Mann and Donald Trump

09.09.2025 Duration: 38:51

For anyone who has seen Michael B. Jordan’s excellent new movie Sinners, it’s clear that any sort of deal with the devil - what has become known as the Faustian Bargain - is still very much alive. So relevant, in fact, t…

Episode page

When the United Nations Actually Mattered: Remembering the Burmese Schoolteacher who Ran the U.N. in its Glory Days

08.09.2025 Duration: 56:23

How to bring peace to Gaza and Ukraine? Maybe the United Nations can help. Or, sadly, maybe not. But there really was a time, in the second half of the 20th century, when the United Nations could help bring peace to supp…

Episode page

How Evil 'Big Car' Has Killed More People Than World War II

06.09.2025 Duration: 36:02

Lead in gasoline powered cars have killed more people than those that died in World War Two. That’s the astonishing claim of David Obst who, in his new Saving Ourselves From Big Car, lays out a strategy to kick our self-…

Episode page

The Double Life of Robert McNamara: How America's 'Best and Brightest' Led the Nation into Vietnam While Knowing the War Was Unwinnable

06.09.2025 Duration: 58:11

There is no more shakespearean parable of the tragic rise and fall of the postwar American meritocratic elite than Robert Strange McNamara. War hero, Harvard Business School, head of Ford, begged by JFK to take a role -…

Episode page

The World's Worst Bet: How America Gambled Dumbly on Globalization and Lost

05.09.2025 Duration: 43:58

Dumb globalization: America’s worst bet. That, at least, is the view of the Washington Post financial writer David J Lynch and author of The World’s Worst Bet. From Clinton to Bush, Lynch argues, America has bet stupidly…

Episode page

Demystify Science and Humanize Scientists: How to Rebuild Scientific Trust in our Angry MAHA Times

04.09.2025 Duration: 41:54

In our angry MAHA times, how can we get people trusting science and scientists again. According to MIT’s Alan Lightman, one of America’s greatest scientific writers, we need to both demystify science and humanize scienti…

Episode page

From Borges to Brain Scans: How our Minds Invent Reality

03.09.2025 Duration: 45:52

The human brain is so unbelievably complex that we barely understand its most basic functions. According to the British neuroscientist Daniel Yon, our brains - which some speculate are the most mysteriously complicated t…

Episode page

The Hypocrisy of Trump's War on Universities: How Wealthy Families Game the College Admission Process

02.09.2025 Duration: 39:48

According to former college president Beverly Daniel Tatum, Trump’s war on university admissions is deeply hypocritical. On the one hand, she argues, his attack on affirmative action admissions policy is made in the popu…

Episode page

Borders are Back, Baby: From Trump and Transylvania to Brexit and Bolivia's Navy

01.09.2025 Duration: 38:11

Globalization is dying, maybe even dead. Borders are back, baby. That’s the message in Jonn Elledge’s sparkling Brief History of the World in 47 Borders. In this romp around world history , Elledge introduces us to 47 of…

Episode page

Beware of another Silicon Valley Win-Win-Win: Can users, publishers and tech companies really all benefit from the AI revolution?

31.08.2025 Duration: 45:32

When somebody says “win-win” in Silicon Valley, check your pockets. It’s usually some elaborate prelude to a sales pitch. And the only thing dodgier than a two-way win is the “win-win-win” narrative that my friend Keith…

Episode page

Every Day, Computers are Making People Easier to Use: The Return of IN FORMATION

30.08.2025 Duration: 47:45

It’s only been a quarter century, but IN FORMATION magazine is now back. Published by David Temkin with the tagline “Every Day, Computers are Making People Easier to Use”, IN FORMATION was originally designed in 1998 as…

Episode page

Is Roman Polanski really worth defending?

30.08.2025 Duration: 32:37

Is the convicted sex criminal Roman Polanski worth defending? Particularly in the context of “An Officer and a Spy”, his vaguely autobiographical 2019 movie about the Dreyfus case, the first Polanski film in a decade to…

Episode page

How Parents Have Become the Social Media in Their Kids' Lives: So Taking Away Phones Won't Alone Fix the Teen Mental Health Crisis

29.08.2025 Duration: 48:11

It's become the new orthodoxy: social media is the cause of the epidemic of anxiety amongst adolescents. So the way to fix this is by taking away their smartphones. But according to Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times…

Episode page