As we're sobering up from the end-of-year celebrations, it's time to ask: what should we reflect on, and hope for, in 2018? Can we do anything about it? Philosophers Julian Baggini and Barry Smith, gender theorist Jack Halberstam, psychiatrist David Nutt, astrophysicist Liv Boeree, Times columnist Philip Collins and literary critic Stanley Fish speak about the biggest challenges we face in 2018 and how we could overcome them.

Jack Halberstam, Author of GaGa Feminism and Professor of English and Gender Studies at University of Columbia

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"I hope that we can change everything. And if we cannot, I hope everything can change us."

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The short answer to the question “What should you worry about?” is: everything. The long answer is also everything. That’s the bad news. The good news? 

Well, the good news is that under the intense pressure of a cascading series of crises - political, environmental, social and economic - we are being forced to think beyond the usual liberal language of improvement and progress. We are now far from being societies for whom cliches like “it gets better” have much meaning. Just seven years ago, these words, offered by journalist Dan Savage as succor to bullied gay teens in the US, launched an empowerment campaign steeped in the worst and most hackneyed languages of neoliberal repair. Youth were asked to believe that however bad their present day experiences might be, don’t worry, it can only get better.