The Next Big Idea Daily

Space looks spectacular in photographs. But what would you actually see if you were standing on another world? Astronomer Philip Plait takes us beyond the telescope in Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe, imagining the view from worlds with twin suns, Saturn’s rings, and places where space and time get very strange. Then theoretical physicist Chandra Prescod-Weinstein widens the lens in The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred, exploring both the universe’s unseen ingredients and the human choices that shape who gets to study it. A journey through the cosmos—and a reminder that the night sky belongs to all of us.⁠⁠⁠⁠

🎁 Save 20% on a Next Big Idea Club membership when you use code PODCAST at⁠ ⁠nextbigideaclub.com⁠⁠

✉️ Get big ideas in your inbox with our daily newsletter. Subscribe at⁠ ⁠bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com⁠⁠

Sponsored By:Notion — Learn more about how Notion can support your business, at ⁠⁠notion.com/daily⁠⁠Quince — Make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to ⁠⁠quince.com/nbid⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returnsKeeper — Right now, Keeper's offering podcast listeners! 60% off personal and family plans at Keepersecurity.com/DAILY.

Why does the next new thing always seem like the thing that will finally make life better? In Saying No to New: Why New Things Are Stealing Your Time, Money, and Happiness—And How to Take Back Your Life, New York Times editor Eric Athas explores our appetite for novelty and the tactics businesses use to keep it fed. Katy Kelleher takes that question beneath the surface in The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption, uncovering the tangled human and environmental histories behind objects we covet, from perfume to gemstones. Two perspectives on what drives our desires—and whether enjoying something beautiful has to mean owning it.⁠⁠⁠⁠

🎁 Save 20% on a Next Big Idea Club membership when you use code PODCAST at⁠ ⁠nextbigideaclub.com⁠⁠

✉️ Get big ideas in your inbox with our daily newsletter. Subscribe at⁠ ⁠bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com⁠⁠

Sponsored By:Notion — Learn more about how Notion can support your business, at ⁠⁠notion.com/daily⁠⁠Quince — Make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to ⁠⁠quince.com/nbid⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returnsKeeper — Right now, Keeper's offering podcast listeners! 60% off personal and family plans at Keepersecurity.com/DAILY.

Why do bad feelings have such staying power? In The Opposite of Happiness: How Bad Feelings Make and Break Us, behavioral economist George Loewenstein explores how evolution shaped our emotional lives—and why sadness, anxiety, and regret so often crowd out pleasure. Psychotherapist Whitney Goodman takes on our response to those feelings in Toxic Positivity: Keeping It Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy, examining when well-meant encouragement becomes pressure to pretend we’re fine. Together, they invite us to understand difficult emotions rather than rush to erase them—and reconsider what it really means to support someone who’s struggling.⁠⁠⁠⁠

🎁 Save 20% on a Next Big Idea Club membership when you use code PODCAST at⁠ ⁠nextbigideaclub.com⁠⁠

✉️ Get big ideas in your inbox with our daily newsletter. Subscribe at⁠ ⁠bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com⁠⁠

Sponsored By:Notion — Learn more about how Notion can support your business, at ⁠⁠notion.com/daily⁠⁠Quince — Make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to ⁠⁠quince.com/nbid⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returnsKeeper — Right now, Keeper's offering podcast listeners! 60% off personal and family plans at Keepersecurity.com/DAILY.

Smart people can make terrible decisions—or brilliant ones. What makes the difference? In Goodthink: The New Science of Collective Intelligence, Damon Centola, a University of Pennsylvania professor who directs the Network Dynamics Group, shares two decades of research showing that a group's structure matters more than its talent. Put doctors in the right kind of network, and their diagnostic accuracy doubles; put them in the wrong one, and error explodes. Then we revisit Damon's book Change: How to Make Big Things Happen for the flip side: how ideas actually spread through social networks, and why ordinary people—not influencers—are often the ones who tip the balance. If you've ever left a meeting wondering how everyone agreed on the wrong answer, this one's for you.

🎁 Save 20% on a Next Big Idea Club membership when you use code PODCAST at ⁠nextbigideaclub.com⁠

✉️ Get big ideas in your inbox with our daily newsletter. Subscribe at ⁠bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com⁠

Sponsored By:Notion — Learn more about how Notion can support your business, at ⁠⁠notion.com/daily⁠⁠Quince — Make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to ⁠⁠quince.com/nbid⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returnsKeeper — Right now, Keeper's offering podcast listeners! 60% off personal and family plans at Keepersecurity.com/DAILY.

Same product. Same store. A different price—just for you? Lindsay Owens, author of Gouged: The End of a Fair Price—and What That Means for Your Wallet, explores how companies use algorithms and personal data to figure out what we’ll tolerate paying. But a tilted marketplace isn’t one consumers have to accept. Marta Tellado, president and CEO of Consumer Reports and author of Buyer Aware: Harnessing Our Consumer Power for a Safe, Fair, and Transparent Marketplace, makes the case that privacy, safety, and fair treatment aren’t perks—they’re rights. Together, their ideas raise a timely question: What would it take to make the marketplace work for us again?⁠⁠⁠⁠

🎁 Save 20% on a Next Big Idea Club membership when you use code PODCAST at⁠ ⁠nextbigideaclub.com⁠⁠

✉️ Get big ideas in your inbox with our daily newsletter. Subscribe at⁠ ⁠bookoftheday.nextbigideaclub.com⁠⁠

Sponsored By:

Notion — Learn more about how Notion can support your business, at ⁠notion.com/daily⁠

Quince — Make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to ⁠quince.com/nbid⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns

Keeper — Right now, Keeper's offering podcast listeners! 60% off personal and family plans at Keepersecurity.com/DAILY.