People I (Mostly) Admire

• 156. A Solution to America’s Gun Problem

  Jens Ludwig has an idea for how to fix America’s gun violence problem — and it starts by rejecting conventional wisdom from both sides of the political aisle.  SOURCES:Jens Ludwig, professor of economics at the University of Chicago and director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab. RESOURCES:Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence, by Jens Ludwig (2025)."Scope Challenges to Social Impact," by Monica Bhatt, Jonathan Guryan, Jens Ludwig, and Anuj Shah (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2021)."Citywide cluster randomized trial to restore blighted vacant land and its effects on violence, crime, and fear," by Charles Branas, Eugenia South, Michelle Kondo, Bernadette Hohl, Philippe Bourgois, Douglas Wiebe, and John MacDonald (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018)."Thinking, Fast and Slow? Some Field Experiments to Reduce Crime and Dropout in Chicago," by Sara Heller, Anuj Shah, Jonathan Guryan, Jens Ludwig, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Harold Pollack (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2016).Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman (2013)."Homicide and Suicide Rates Associated With Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act," by Jens Ludwig and Philip Cook (Journal of the American Medical Association, 2000).The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs (1992).The University of Chicago Crime Lab."Becoming a Man" (University of Chicago Crime Lab). EXTRAS:"Do the Police Have a Management Problem?" by Freakonomics Radio (2023)."From prison to Ph.D, this activist fights for peace in Chicago," by Kenya Downs (PBS News, 2016).

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• 155. Helping People Die

  Ellen Wiebe is a physician who helps seriously ill patients end their lives in Canada, where assisted suicide is legal. Is death a human right? SOURCES: Ellen Wiebe, clinical professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia. RESOURCES: "The Last Decision by the World’s Leading Thinker on Decisions," by Jason Zweig (The Wall Street Journal, 2025)."Most Americans Favor Legal Euthanasia," by Rachael Yi (Gallup, 2024).Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers."Medical Assistance in Dying: Overview," (Government of Canada). EXTRAS: "Can Robots Get a Grip?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2025)."Remembering Daniel Kahneman," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024)."Does Death Have to Be a Death Sentence?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman (2011).

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• Yul Kwon: “Don't Try to Change Yourself All at Once.” (Update)

  He has been a lawyer, an instructor at the F.B.I. Academy, the owner of a frozen-yogurt chain, and a winner of the TV show Survivor. Today, Kwon works at Google, but things haven’t always come easily for him. Steve Levitt talks to Kwon about his debilitating childhood anxieties, his compulsion to choose the hardest path in life, and how Kwon used game theory to stage a victory on Survivor. SOURCES:Yul Kwon, vice president of product management at Google. RESOURCES:Teacher Application for ASU Prep Tempe. EXTRAS:"Are Our Tools Becoming Part of Us?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024)."Yul Kwon: 'Hey, Do You Have Any Bright Ideas?' (Part 2)," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021)."Robert Axelrod on Why Being Nice, Forgiving, and Provokable are the Best Strategies for Life," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).

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• 154. Can Robots Get a Grip?

  Ken Goldberg is at the forefront of robotics — which means he tries to teach machines to do things humans find trivial. SOURCES:Ken Goldberg, professor of industrial engineering and operations research at U.C. Berkeley. RESOURCES:"The Bitter Lesson," by Rich Sutton (UT Austin, 2019).R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama in Three Acts and an Epilogue, by Karel Capek (2019)."The Robot in the Cloud: A Conversation With Ken Goldberg," by Quentin Hardy (New York Times, 2014).Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence, by Hans Moravec (1990)."Stochastic Plans for Robotic Manipulation," by Ken Goldberg (Carnegie Mellon University, 1990)."The Two Cultures And The Scientific Revolution," by C. P. Snow (Cambridge University Press, 1959).Dex-NetAncient Wisdom for a Future Ecology: Trees, Time, and Technology.Ambi Robotics."The Telegarden." EXTRAS:"Feeling Sound and Hearing Color," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024)."Are Our Tools Becoming Part of Us?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2024).“My God, This Is a Transformative Power,” by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023)."Drawing from Life (and Death)" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023)."Aicha Evans Wants You to Take Your Eyes Off the Road," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).

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• 153. We’re Not Getting Sicker — We’re Overdiagnosed

  Suzanne O'Sullivan is a neurologist who sees many patients with psychosomatic disorders. Their symptoms may be psychological in origin, but their pain is real and physical — and the way we practice medicine, she argues, is making those and other health problems worse. SOURCES:Suzanne O'Sullivan, neurologist and author of The Age of Diagnosis How Our Obsession with Medical Labels Is Making Us Sicker. RESOURCES:The Age of Diagnosis: How Our Obsession with Medical Labels Is Making Us Sicker, by Suzanne O'Sullivan (2025)."Associations of Depression, Anxiety, Worry, Perceived Stress, and Loneliness Prior to Infection With Risk of Post-COVID-19 Conditions," by Siwen Wang, Luwei Quan, Jorge Chavarro, Natalie Slopen, Laura Kubzansky, Karestan Koenen, Jae Hee Kang, Marc G. Weisskopf, Westyn Branch-Elliman, and Andrea Roberts (JAMA Psychiatry, 2022)."How beliefs about coronavirus disease (COVID) influence COVID-like symptoms? – A longitudinal study." by Liron Rozenkrantz, Tobias Kube, Michael H Bernstein, and John D.E. Gabrieli (Health Psychology, 2022)."Risk factors for worsening of somatic symptom burden in a prospective cohort during the COVID-19 pandemic," by Petra Engelmann, Bernd Löwe, Thomas Theo Brehm, Angelika Weigel, Felix Ullrich, Marylyn Addo, Julian Schulze Zur Wiesch, Ansgar Lohse, and Anne Toussaint (Frontier Psychology, 2022).The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness, by Suzanne O'Sullivan (2021).Brainstorm: Detective Stories from the World of Neurology, by Suzanne O'Sullivan (2018)."The Trauma of Facing Deportation," by Rachel Aviv (The New Yorker, 2017).It's All in Your Head: True Stories of Imaginary Illness, by Suzanne O'Sullivan (2015).The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk (2014)."Explaining the Rise in Youth Suicide," by David Cutler, Edward Glaeser,and Karen Norberg (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2001). EXTRAS:Counted Out, documentary (2024)."Bringing Data to Life," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023)."Adding Ten Healthy Years to Your Life," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023)."America’s Math Curriculum Doesn’t Add Up," by Freakonomics Radio (2019).Race to Nowhere, documentary (2010).Data Science for Everyone.

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