26 Apr 2023

Why society needs to grow up

From Afternoons, 3:10 pm on 26 April 2023

We're supposed to get wiser and more mature as we get older.

But when Wait But Why blogger Tim Urban looks at the world today, with all of our political divisiveness, cancel culture and conspiracy theories, he sees behaviour that's more and more childish.

American blogger Tim Urban

American blogger Tim Urban Photo: Supplied

Society needs to grow up, Urban argues, and we all need to learn how to focus more on how we think, not just what we think.

His new book is called What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies.

One of Jesse Mulligan's favourite interviews of 2023:

"If you know something is wrong with the world but have difficulty figuring out what, my interview with Tim Urban might help explain a few things. He dove deep into human history to find answers to our most modern problems (tribalism, polarisation, cancel culture) then turned it into a digital book with amusing illustrations. I've never heard someone speak so clearly about what's gone wrong for humanity and what we might do about it" - Jesse Mulligan