Ep: 1748 Kristian Rönn - The Darwinian Trap

When people talk about today's biggest challenges—pollution, misinformation, inept CEOs, and politicians—they tend to frame the conversation around "bad people" doing "bad things." But is there more to the story? Humans are intrinsically wired to seek short-term success at the expense of long-term prosperity. Kristian Rönn, an entrepreneur formerly affiliated with the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, calls these deeply rooted impulses "Darwinian demons." These forces, a by-product of natural selection, can lead us to act in shortsighted ways that harm others—and even imperil our survival as a species. If this evolutionary glitch is left unchecked, the consequences will grow in magnitude as the power of technology accelerates. Rönn co-founded and became CEO of Normative, one of Sweden's fastest growing technology companies pioneering SaaS for carbon accounting.