Intelligence Squared

We are supposed to have more information at our disposal now than at any time in history. So why, in a world of rising sea levels, populist leaders and a global pandemic, do so many people believe bizarre and untrue things? In this week's episode Marcus Gilroy-Ware speaks to Richard Seymour about his new book 'After the Fact?' what he thinks really created the conditions for mis- and disinformation, from fake news and conspiracy theories, to bad journalism and the resurgence of extreme politics.  To buy the book click here: https://amzn.to/3ATHxMg Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does drug withdrawal have in common with a broken heart? Why is the enemy of memory not time, but other memories? How can a blind person learn to see with her tongue or a deaf person learn to hear with his skin? Why did many people in the 1980s mistakenly perceive book pages to be slightly red in colour? Will we one day be able to control a robot with our thoughts, just as we do our fingers and toes? Why do we dream at night, and what does that have to do with the rotation of the planet? These are just some of the questions David Eagleman answered when he came to Intelligence Squared for this exclusive online event. Eagleman is a leading neuroscientist, as well as one of the world’s most dynamic and engaging science communicators. He specialises in brain plasticity – the idea that our brains are constantly changing and reconfiguring the world around us. The more experiences we have, the more the brain absorbs and the more it adjusts. In conversation with musician and producer Brian Eno, Eagleman discusse

Throughout history, the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States has protected the right to bear arms. For Black Americans, this has come with the understanding that the moment they exercise this right (or the moment that they don't), their life - as surely as the lives of Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor - may be snatched away in a single, fateful second. In this week's podcast historian Carol Anderson speaks to Mark Mardell about her new book The Second, illuminating the history and impact of the Second Amendment: from the seventeenth century, when it was encoded into law that the enslaved could not own, carry or use a firearm, to today, where measures to expand and curtail gun ownership continue to limit the freedoms and power of Black Americans. To buy the book click here:  https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-second/carol-anderson/9781526633682 Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. L

The Roman Catholic Church is the oldest institution in the western world and has had a pivotal influence on western civilisation, ranging from matters of state to cultural life and from personal morals to social values and ethics. Increasingly, though, it is being criticised as being a malign influence in debates about some of the most pressing issues of the modern world – overpopulation, Aids, global warming, human rights and so on. Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens battle it out with Archbishop John Onaiyekan and Ann Widdecombe over the motion “The Catholic Church is a Force for Good in the World” in our debate from 2009. — We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be.  Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2.  And if you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusi

Our favourite albums are our most faithful companions. We listen to them over and over, we know them far better than any novel or film. These records don’t just soundtrack our lives – they work their way deep inside us, shaping our outlook and identity, forging our friendships and charting our love affairs. They become part of our story. In this special podcast for Intelligence Squared, journalist and music obsessive Tom Gatti – editor of Long Players, a new anthology of writing on albums – was in conversation with two of his contributors, acclaimed novelist David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet) and writer and activist Preti Taneja, author of the prize-winning novel We That Are Young. They discussed the power of certain records to act on us like Proustian madeleines, transporting us back to a particular time and place – Gatti, by his own admission, has listened to Radiohead’s The Bends more times than is strictly necessary; Mitchell’s great formative influence is Joni Mitchell’

Emma Dabiri, Irish-Nigerian academic and broadcaster, and Alex Renton, British-Canadian investigative journalist, have established themselves as important voices in the current debates taking place around race, class and identity. And in this week's episode they come to Intelligence Squared to discuss how we can move forward on these seemingly intractable issues. The episode was hosted by Farah Jassat Head of Podcasts at Intelligence Squared.  To buy Dabiri's book click here: https://amzn.to/3hgSuyn For Alex Renton's book click here: https://bit.ly/3qyhSUq Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr Gwen Adshead is one of Britain's leading forensic psychiatrists, and has spent thirty years providing therapy inside secure hospitals and prisons. Whatever her patient's crime she aims to help them to better know their minds by helping them to articulate their life experience. In the face of overcrowded prisons and cuts to mental health care, Adshead speaks to Linda Yueh about why we need to challenge what we think we know about evil. To order the book click here: https://bit.ly/3d9SVsX Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this week's podcast we're joined by Max Brooks, global bestselling novelist of cult classic 'World War Z' and Hollywood screenwriter. He speaks to Carl Miller about his most recent book 'Devolution' which is a hyper-realistic disaster/monster/survival story that explores what happens to humanity when it is forced into social isolation, how our modern societies are built for comfort and convenience over resilience, and our distinct inability to survive when infrastructure breaks down.  To find out more about the book click here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Devolution-Max-Brooks/dp/1529124093 Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stacey Abrams is widely considered one of the most prominent political power broker in the United States. She was the first African-American woman to become the House Minority leader in her home state of Georgia and the first African-American woman to be nominated by a major party for State Governor. Her fight against voter suppression helped win Georgia for the Democrats and helped Joe Biden secure the presidency. As Biden himself has said, ‘Nobody, nobody in America has done more for the right to vote than Stacey’. And as if that weren’t enough for this remarkable 47-year-old woman, she has also written two political books and eight romantic novels. In June 2021 she came to Intelligence Squared to mark the publication of her new thriller 'While Justice Sleeps', a page-turner set in the corridors of political and judicial power, which has already been a No 1 New York Times bestseller. Abrams will be in conversation with the internationally bestselling novelist Tayari Jones, whose book, 'An American Marriag

In this week's podcast Nani Jansen Reventlow goes up against Rowena Luk to debate whether bringing big tech closer into our lives during the pandemic has been a welcome innovation or a dangerous power grab. The debate was staged by Intelligence Squared Germany in partnership with the European Council on Foreign Relations. The host was Ulrike Franke.   To find out more about ECFR click here: https://ecfr.eu/ Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join the debate and discuss this episode with fellow listeners on our Multytude conversation here: https://multytudelink.page.link/2u9nK2SP7SH7DCyU7 -- Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their status at birth. For much of history this was a revolutionary thought, but by the end of the twentieth century it had become the world's ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left? In this week's episode Adrian Wooldridge speaks to Mark Mardell about his new book 'The Aristocracy of Talent' and why we should reform but not abandon the meritocratic idea. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To explain the power of anthropology to help us better understand the modern world, Financial Times journalist and bestselling author Gillian Tett joined us in this week's episode. Tett has a PhD in anthropology from Cambridge University and outlining the ideas in her acclaimed new book Anthro-Vision, she showed how we can identify what she calls the ‘webs of meaning’ that underlie consumers’ behaviour in very different cultures across the world. The episode was hosted by former editorial director of the BBC Kamal Ahmed. To get the Intelligence Squared discount on the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/anthro-vision-how-anthropology-can-explain-business-and-life-gillian-tett/ Subscribe to Intelligence Squared Business here: https://apple.co/3pHTKhT Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An industrialist looks at a rain forest and sees trees to cut down and sell, while an environmentalist sees the ‘lungs of the planet’. To one person, complying with a mandate to wear a face mask in public during a pandemic is an act of communal responsibility. To another, it’s a denial of personal freedom. Same data, but opposite conclusions. The reason for this, believe internationally acclaimed authors Kenneth Cukier and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, is that we all look at the world through different ‘frames’. By recognising the frames that we are using, they say, we can all learn to rethink them and make better decisions. We can see the world in entirely new ways. In May 2021 Cukier and Mayer-Schönberger came to Intelligence Squared to share their insights. In conversation with science writer Timandra Harkness they explained how our ability to adjust our vantage point on the world is the essential skill humanity needs for the 21st century and will help us address the looming challenges we face, from pandem

Is the pandemic a wake-up call to build a better world? Ed Miliband, politician and host of the award-winning Reasons to Be Cheerful podcast, thinks so. And in June 2021 he came to Intelligence Squared to discuss the ideas in his new book Go Big. Think of any problem, he will argue, and there is already a brilliant solution to it. We don’t need massive innovation. We just need to know where to look – and then have the courage to think big and scale up. People all over the world are already successfully putting into action bold ways to tackle everything from inequality and the climate crisis to the challenges of housing, technology and democratic renewal. Whether it’s implementing the Green New Deal, lowering the voting age to 16, or replacing GDP with well-being measurements, we already have the tools we need to transform the way we live and work. To buy the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/go-big-how-to-fix-our-world-ed-miliband/ Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/inte

Salman Rushdie, internationally bestselling author and ‘Best of the Booker’ winner, is a storyteller of the highest order, illuminating truths about our society and culture through his dazzling prose. Best known as a novelist, he is also a compelling essayist and last month he came to Intelligence Squared to talk about the ideas in his latest collection of nonfiction, Languages of Truth. In conversation with cultural critic Shahidha Bari, Rushdie shared with us his personal encounters, on the page and in person, with storytellers from Shakespeare and Cervantes to Philip Roth and Toni Morrison. We heard his thoughts on Christopher Hitchens and the American Right, Osama Bin Laden and Pakistan, and on the role of artists, intellectuals and ordinary citizens in fighting for freedom of speech and thought. To buy the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/languages-of-truth-essays-2003-2020-salman-rushdie/ Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/priva

Carlo Rovelli is the internationally bestselling theoretical physicist whose many fans include Benedict Cumberbatch, Antony Gormley, Neil Gaiman and Lily Cole. In May 2021 he came to Intelligence Squared to talk about the themes of his new book Helgoland, in which he takes us back to the birth of a revolutionary idea that has reshaped the whole of science and our very conception of the world. Rovelli told the story of the brilliant young Werner Heisenberg who, suffering from hay fever, retreated to the treeless island of Helgoland in the North Sea where he began to glimpse a world in which nothing exists until it interacts with something else, upending our all-too-solid conception of reality. This is the world of quantum theory. Now a century on from Heisenberg’s extraordinary insight, Rovelli has done what he dared not do before – to connect quantum theory with a panoply of philosophical ideas, including Buddhist thought, the problem of consciousness and even the discussions between Lenin and Bogdanov at

In this week's episode acclaimed singer/songwriter David Gray speaks to Rosamund Urwin about how music and the arts have fared throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. David had originally planned to spend 2020 embarking on a huge string of 'White Ladder' anniversary shows to mark 20 years since the release of his breakthrough multi-million selling album. When these arena dates - like so many other live shows - were rescheduled due to the pandemic, David chose instead to finish a record he had recorded prior to lockdown at Edwyn Collins’ Helmsdale studio on the Sutherland coast. Entitled ’Skellig’, The title comes from the story of Skellig - a formation of precipitous rocky islands off the coast of Co. Kerry, the most westerly point in Ireland. Ravaged by the Atlantic, the seemingly un-inhabitable location of Skellig Michael became an unlikely site of pilgrimage in 600AD for a group of monks, who believed that leading such a merciful existence, they would leave the distraction of the human realm to be ultimately clo

When Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004, the goal was simple: to offer civilian space travel by the end of the decade. Seventeen years, a dozen delays and one catastrophic rocket crash later, we are on the verge of space tourism becoming a reality. New Yorker writer Nicholas Schmidle has witnessed the fall and rise of Virgin Galactic first-hand. Over the last five years, he has spent thousands of hours at Virgin’s ‘spaceport’ in the Mojave desert, befriending the pilots who are risking their lives to make space tourism a reality. The episode was hosted by Helen Czerski. To buy the book with the Intelligence Squared discount click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/test-gods-tragedy-and-triumph-in-the-new-space-race-nicholas-schmidle/ — We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be.  Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence

Spending a mere two hours a week outside is scientifically proven to lower blood pressure, enhance the immune system and reduce anxiety. Yet, for many communities, nature and the countryside are inaccessible with many city-dwellers struggling to find greenery in their local areas. This week's episode is taken from an event we staged in partnership with Selfridges for their Project Earth series. — We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be.  Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2.  And if you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today. Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Many of us felt it before but 2020 was the year it became undeniable: the status quo is not working. Political discontent is widespread – and for good reason. So what can we do now to change course? In this week's episode award-winning political commentator Ece Temelkuran spoke to Matthew Taylor about her new political manifesto for the post-pandemic world.  Drawing from her new book Together: 10 Choices for a Better Now, she explained why we must choose fear over comfort and political activism over social media outrage. And she will encourage us to embrace the radical idea that humanity can come together to solve its collective problems.  To find out more about the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/together-10-choices-for-a-better-now-ece-temelkuran/ Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices