#209 - Johann Hari - We Built A World Humans Can’t Survive

Johann Hari is an internationally bestselling author and journalist whose work - including Stolen Focus, Lost Connections, and Chasing the Scream - delves into the structural and societal drivers behind attention collapse, depression, anxiety, and addiction. Moving beyond individual blame, he explores how digital architecture, surveillance capitalism and the erosion of human connection are actively reshaping modern minds.

Johann and I discuss why material progress has failed to deliver psychological fulfilment, how our 19th-century factory-model education system deadens curiosity in children, and why depriving youth of unsupervised, risky play has fuelled a global spike in anxiety.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00:00 - The Kind Are Muffled, The Cruel Get A Megaphone

00:05:31 - The Room In Monaco

00:08:52 - AI Is Like Fire

00:18:35 - The School With No Lessons

00:28:12 - Am I Preparing My Kids Wrong?

00:32:03 - The Hewlett Packard Experiment

00:40:11 - Flair, Football And Changing The Game

00:45:11 - Negativity Bias On Steroids