Coming this fall: conversations with Stewart Brand, Rebecca Skloot, Adam Grant and more

A stellar lineup for the rest of 2021, available only for paid subscribers to Adjacent Possible

I mentioned this briefly in my initial FAQ about Adjacent Possible, but one crucial perk of being a paid subscriber is getting access to a series of email-based conversations with some of the smartest people I know. I’m really excited about the lineup for the coming months, so I figured I’d share it so you’d have a sense of what was in the works. (And encourage those of you who haven’t yet signed up for the paid edition to do so now.)

First conversation, starting later this week, is with Stewart Brand, who has been on the vanguard of new ideas and new ways of living for more than fifty years. He’s the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and co-founder of Long Now Foundation, and the author of How Buildings Learn, one of my all-time faves, among many other books.

Stewart’s got a new audio-only excerpt from his new book Maintenance: Of Everything that’s available now on Audible. We’re going to be talking about how we revive the virtues of maintenance in a culture obsessed with innovation, among other topics.

In the coming weeks and months, I’ll also be talking with bestselling author Adam Grant (Think Again) about one of the themes I explored in Where Good Ideas Come From: the importance of embracing error and uncertainty in cultivating a creative mindset.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks author Rebecca Skloot will join me to revisit that classic work on medical science, ethics, and race in the context of the COVID pandemic.

I’ll talk with Conor White-Sullivan, the founder of Roam Research, one of the most interesting knowledge management tools out there, about creating software that finally lives up to the old adage about computers being “bicycles for the mind.”

Rationality author Steven Pinker and I will discuss what the COVID crisis has taught us about risk assessment, and how humans can get better at thinking in probabilities and analyzing threats, both short-term and long.

The founder of Revive and Restore, Ryan Phelan, will talk about her efforts to use genetic science to bring back extinct species, and why we underestimate the value of “intended consequences.”

New York Times columnist Ezra Klein will also be joining around the end of the year to talk about his brilliant book Why We're Polarized and the impact of social media on our political values.

There’s more behind the paywall as well — including new original essays from me every month — but these thinkers alone are worth the price of admission. (And don’t forget there’s also an “Ideal Reader” subscription that includes a signed, personalized copy of each new book I write.) Thanks as always for the support and I’ll see some of you in a few days with the first installment of the conversation with Stewart Brand.

sbj