In this episode of Better World with Design, we unpack Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow through the lens of two competing systems in your mind: System 1 (fast, automatic, story-driven) and System 2 (slow, effortful, easily depleted). We walk through the book’s most memorable demonstrations—base rates versus stereotypes, the availability heuristic, the “Invisible Gorilla,” and decision fatigue—and connect them to real-world choices in work, media, and everyday life. The takeaway isn’t “try harder.” It’s learning how attention, defaults, and conditions shape what we call moral judgment—and how to design better decisions when the stakes are high.

In this episode of Better World With Design, we dive into Olga Ravn’s The Wax Child—a haunting historical novel narrated by a beeswax figure created in 1615 Denmark amid witch-trial paranoia. We unpack the book’s structure, themes, and “rumor-as-machinery” storytelling, including how grief, misogyny, and institutional power turn gossip into evidence. You’ll also hear a clear breakdown of the key characters (Costanza/Christenza, Anna, Usa, Eiler) and the church-and-court system that drives the accusations, plus how the Wax Child’s long, centuries-spanning perspective connects early modern persecution to modern systems of control.

Perfect for readers who love literary fiction, feminist historical fiction, and books about witch trials, this conversation offers context, interpretation, and a guided way into the novel—whether you’re reading for the first time or returning for a deeper understanding.

In this episode of Better World With Design, I give a clear-eyed review of Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. I break down why the novel reads to me as a polished but shallow comfort-read: how the framing device makes the listener feel managed, how withholding gets mistaken for depth, and how nostalgia and unmarked whiteness are treated as the default “universal” setting. We also look at why Peter Duke’s celebrity pull becomes the book’s narrative gravity, even as the story claims to critique that hunger. If you’re searching for a Tom Lake summary, themes, and an honest critique of the praise, this is for you.