Intelligence Squared

In this episode we were joined by the conservative thinker Douglas Murray, whose new book The Madness of Crowds examines this century's most divisive issues: sexuality, gender, technology and race. He was interviewed on his ideas by Anne McElvoy, Senior Editor at The Economist and head of Economist Radio. 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

Women of colour have to navigate a world of work where they are often discriminated against because of their race as well as their gender. Prejudice in recruitment, opportunities for promotion, pay gaps, microaggressions – the list goes on. Moments that seemed like major turning points can fizzle out: Diane Abbott made history when she became the first black woman elected to Parliament in 1987 but it wasn’t until 2010 that Britain elected its first female Asian MPs. Halle Berry became the first black woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress in 2001 but since then we’ve seen 18 white actresses in a row pick up the award. Gender diversity in FTSE 100 companies is improving but today, out of the six female CEOs, not one is a woman of colour. Still, it’s not all bad news. Despite the challenges, women of colour are increasingly making their way to the top and carving out a new ‘normal’ for younger generations. To celebrate their success and share how they got there, Intelligence Squared and gal-dem are partnering t

In this episode of the Intelligence Squared podcast we were joined by the renowned investigative journalist Ian Urbina, who has a new book titled The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier. In a conversation with the BBC's Razia Iqbal, he explored a vast, lawless and rampantly criminal world that few have ever encountered - on international waters. 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

At the 2019 Cliveden Literary Festival, Intelligence Squared brought together historian Simon Sebag Montefiore and novelist Kate Mosse to discuss some of the speeches and letters in Sebag’s latest books Voices of History and Written in History. Bringing it all to life on our stage were the actors Jade Anouka, Alex Macqueen and Natascha McElhone. 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 episode we were joined by Richard Seymour, the Marxist intellectual and author of The Twittering Machine, a book which uses psychoanalytic reflection and insights from users, developers, and security experts to examine the dystopian consequences of our relationship with social media. He was interviewed by the journalist and tech expert Jamie Bartlett. 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

They are the crimes for which no one has ever made amends. The transatlantic slave trade enslaved between 10 and 12 million Africans. Historians estimate that 15 to 25% of the men and women packed into the slave ships died before they reached the Americas. The only people ever to be compensated? Slave owners and traders, to make up for their lost earnings when slavery ended. Today, generations later, the white majorities in the US and former colonial powers including the UK continue to benefit from the wealth generated by slavery. The descendants of enslaved Africans continue to suffer poverty and prejudice. Millions still face discrimination and limited access to education and jobs. Some say that only a broad programme of reparations – not just financial compensation, but acknowledgement of the crimes committed and the lasting damage caused – can begin to make up for the atrocity of slavery and bring an end to the systemic injustice millions of people still face. That would be a disaster, critics of reparati

In this week’s episode of the Intelligence Squared podcast we were joined by the acclaimed novelist Ian McEwan. He was interviewed by the BBC’s Razia Iqbal to discuss his new satirical novella The Cockroach, in which a man wakes up one morning having been transformed into a giant creature who happens to be the most powerful man in Britain.  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

With tensions running high this week in the U.K. Houses of Parliament over Brexit and allegations about PM Boris Johnson's use of inflammatory language, Intelligence Squared staged an event with Labour MP Rachel Reeves, Conservative member of the House of Lords Sandip Verma, celebrated classicist Mary Beard and journalist Helen Lewis. They discussed the divisions in Parliament and around the country, and how women can negotiate political power in what remains in many ways a man’s world.  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

This is an episode from a new podcast strand launched by Intelligence Squared called How I Found My Voice. Presented by the prominent BBC journalist Samira Ahmed, the podcast explores how some of the world's greatest artists and thinkers became such compelling – and unique – communicators. In this episode Samira Ahmed speaks to poet and activist Benjamin Zephaniah. From racist attacks and police brutality to receiving a letter from Bob Marley telling him that Britain needs him, Zephaniah talks about the moments that shaped and inspired his voice. To hear more episodes of How I Found My Voice go to https://play.acast.com/s/howifoundmyvoice.  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

Mindfulness – the psychological practice of bringing one's attention to the present moment through meditation – has gone mainstream. It has been enthusiastically co-opted by Silicon Valley and other large corporations as well as schools, governments and even the U.S. military. But what if, instead of changing the world, mindfulness has become a banal form of capitalist spirituality that mindlessly avoids social and political transformation, reinforcing the status quo? That's the view of Ronald Purser, Professor of Management at San Francisco State University, Buddhist practitioner and author of McMindfulness. In this episode of the Intelligence Squared podcast, he was interviewed by Helen Lewis of The Atlantic on his radical critique of the mindfulness industry.  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

This is an episode from a new podcast strand launched by Intelligence Squared called How I Found My Voice. Presented by the prominent BBC journalist Samira Ahmed, the podcast explores how some of the world's greatest artists and thinkers became such compelling – and unique – communicators. Samira Ahmed speaks to bestselling Turkish novelist Elif Shafak. From keeping a childhood diary and learning different languages to being taken to court on charges of 'insulting Turkishness' through the words of her fictional characters, Shafak talks about the moments that shaped and inspired her voice. To hear more episodes of How I Found My Voice go to https://play.acast.com/s/howifoundmyvoice.  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

Salman Rushdie is one of the world’s greatest storytellers. He came to the Intelligence Squared stage to discuss his career, his life and his new novel Quichotte with the BBC’s Razia Iqbal. The book is a wild ride through modern America — a society on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse — and examines racism, father–son relationships, the opioid crisis, cyber-spies and the end of the world. 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

This is an episode from a new podcast strand launched by Intelligence Squared called How I Found My Voice. Presented by the prominent BBC journalist Samira Ahmed, the podcast explores how some of the world's greatest artists and thinkers became such compelling – and unique – communicators. In this episode Samira speaks to the BBC's Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet. Renowned as a foreign correspondent in some of the toughest war zones in the past thirty years, Doucet speaks about the moments that shaped her voice from growing up in a small Canadian town to reporting from the front lines in Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen. To hear more episodes of How I Found My Voice go to https://play.acast.com/s/howifoundmyvoice.  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

Are video games harmful to society? Recently the World Health Organisation classified 'gaming disorder' as a clinical mental health disorder and a danger to public health. But how real is the threat of video game addiction, and what about the potential benefits that gaming can bring to all of us? In this episode of the Intelligence Squared podcast we were joined by Pete Etchells, researcher into the psychological effects of video games and author of Lost In A Good Game: Why We Play Video Games and What They Can Do For Us. He was interviewed by Ros Urwin of The Sunday Times. 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

This is an episode from a new podcast strand launched by Intelligence Squared called How I Found My Voice. Presented by the prominent BBC journalist Samira Ahmed, the podcast explores how some of the world's greatest artists and thinkers became such compelling – and unique – communicators. In this episode, Samira speaks to the best-selling author Sir Philip Pullman, most famous for the acclaimed His Dark Materials fantasy trilogy. From reading Rudyard Kipling as a child to discovering the power of poetry and how to be a storyteller as a teacher, they discuss the moments that shaped and inspired his voice. To hear more episodes of How I Found My Voice go to https://play.acast.com/s/howifoundmyvoice.  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

We live in an age of "surveillance capitalism" - where technologies that were meant to liberate us have deepened inequality and stoked divisions. Big tech companies gather our information online and sell it to the highest bidder, and entire industries now depend not only on predicting our behaviour but modifying it too. That's the view of Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard professor and author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. In this week's episode of the Intelligence Squared podcast she was interviewed by Rosamund Urwin on the risks to our freedoms in this new era of human civilisation. 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

This is an episode from a new podcast strand launched by Intelligence Squared called How I Found My Voice. Presented by the prominent BBC journalist Samira Ahmed, the podcast explores how some of the world's greatest artists and thinkers became such compelling – and unique – communicators. This episode's guest is the best-selling comic-writer Mark Millar, most famous for creating and inspiring the Hollywood blockbusters Captain America: Civil War, Kingsman and Kick-Ass. From growing up in a small Scottish town to discovering Superman as a child and pursuing a career at Marvel and Netflix, Millar talks about the moments that shaped and inspired his voice. To hear more episodes of How I Found My Voice go to https://play.acast.com/s/howifoundmyvoice.  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's the difference between being merely non-racist and being an antiracist? And what will it take to completely uproot racism from our societies, institutions and our own selves? In this episode were were joined by Ibram X. Kendi, the founding director of the Antiracism Research and Policy Center at American University and author of How To Be an Antiracist. He was interviewed by BBC presenter Razia Iqbal.  — 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/adc

In this episode of the Intelligence Squared podcast we were joined by the acclaimed food writer Michael Pollan, whose most recent book How To Change Your Mind is a deep dive into the world of psychedelic drugs and what they can teach us about consciousness, dying, addiction, depression and transcendence. He was interviewed by the doctor and science broadcaster Xand Van Tulleken.  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 episode of the Intelligence Squared podcast we were joined by Nessa Carey, the molecular biologist and author of Hacking The Code Of Life. She was interviewed by the doctor and TV presenter Xand Van Tulleken in a wide-ranging discussion on the ethical and social implications for the revolutionary new tools scientists have developed to edit our genes.  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