Ed Miliband, British MP and co-host of the podcast Reasons to Be Cheerful

“Guardian of the interests of future generations”

I was biking to campus one morning this week, listening to the podcast Reasons to Be Cheerful, and I got a little teary. The episode was about future generations being represented in governmental decisions, and the challenges of short-term planning due to electoral cycles versus the long-term planning that society really needs. Anyway, I learned that Wales has a Commissioner position for just this. There is actually a person charged with being the “guardian of the interests of future generations,” as she described it. Her job is to question decisions, including budget decisions, based on long-term costs and benefits. A recent highway build was canceled, due to her intervention. Just knowing that this position exists made me tear up. It’s so obvious (as many Indigenous people might remind me), and yet obvious does not always make it into reality.

The connection to podcasts: unplanned encounters

I also thought, as I got off the bike, about this magic of podcasts – that they can introduce us to things we would never even know to look for. I only listen to the podcast because a British acquaintance recommended it. I didn’t know anything about the hosts, one of whom is Ed Miliband. Turns out he is the former leader of the UK Labour Party. I love that even as an MP now, he makes times to do a weekly podcast, in which he and Geoff Lloyds “talk to smart thinkers from around the world”. So cool.

An author on democracy wrote that for society to support a real democracy, there need to be: 1) unplanned encounters and 2) common experiences. If I remember correctly, he meant both unplanned encounters between people, like “Hey, neighbour!” or “Hey, fellow human who is joining me in public space and willing to connect on something!”, and unplanned encounters between people and information, i.e. learning about things you didn’t go looking for. Otherwise we end up in the death spirals of echo chambers, basically.

In short, I like that podcasts introduce me to things I would never even know to go looking for, by kind of easing me in with a familiar format and host, and providing enough context and depth that I can actually integrate the new thing.

p.s. Ed Miliband seems like a really nice guy, so I don’t think he would mind me using that photo of him. I got it through searching on Google with the “advanced settings” set to filter shareable content only. Here are a bunch more awkward photos from the same source.