Maggie Jackson (award-winning author and journalist) has just written a book - Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure – that argues that while humans crave certainty, we actually experience a less anxious, more productive, happier life when we embrace not knowing.
Maggie is known for her writing on social trends, particularly technology’s impact on humanity. She’s written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and New Philosopher. But her latest work draws on a wave of new science that shows how building “uncertainty tolerance” (instead of running from what we don’t know or can’t get an immediate answer or fix for) is an antidote to the dangerous complexity of our times. Maggie and I chat about the wild idea of ocean swimming, using hedge words and actively championing leaders who say, “I don’t know” as ways to save humanity.
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AMA: How do you manage information overload PLUS should white women activists get out of the arena?
JOHANN HARI: Is Ozempic a miracle drug or something darker?
AMA: How do you plan your life financially in a collapsing world? Do you bother?
ANNABEL ABBS: The subversive, creative upside of insomnia (oh joy!)
The “Uncles” climate case that could change EVERYTHING
ANNA FUNDER: On Wifedom (and calling out Orwellian “doublethink”)
A FUN BACKSTORY: Because I promised it…
HELEN LEWIS: A heterodox update from TERF island
A PALESTINIAN AND AN ISRAELI FATHER: “We must all stop being victims; victimhood causes the violence!”
LIV BOEREE: Explaining Moloch, the mysterious game theory force breaking the world (plus a fix!)
AMA: How do you, Sarah, deal with a broken heart?
PROF JOEL PEARSON: Gut feeling is (scientifically) real; this is how to use it
PETER FRANKOPAN: How climate collapsed civilisations (and will it ours?)
AMA with a Palestinian peace broker: What should we be doing to help, not hinder, the crisis? Does posting on social media do ANYTHING?
KELLY WEINERSMITH: Why settling Mars is a really dumb idea
DEVIN MOSS: An atheist death row chaplain on how to die without God
AMA: Do we create art in the apocalypse?
AMA: Why does hiking “work”?
MAGGIE DENT: What to do about boys (‘cos you asked)
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