Big Ideas

Tiger parents: do their methods raise happy and successful human beings, or burnt out, damaged therapy cases? In this hyper competitive age we live in, could their approach bring up a new generation of winners this country needs to get ahead? Six Asian Australian comedians, writers and performers thrash it out in debate form to decide: Does Australia need more tiger parents? The audience’s applause will decide the winner.

From the moment we’re born, we all age. So why limit the possibilities? The latest Intergenerational Report describes Australia's ageing population as an economical and fiscal challenge ... a burden. Ageism is rife, but to age is to live. So what about thriving too? Find out how there's magic to found when relationships across the generations are fostered and why we all benefit — whether we're young, middling, or older

Craig Foster has a vision for the future: An Australia without racism, with equal access to food and representation and compassion for refugees. But it's 75 years since the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Craig Foster has a warning for us: Things need to change, and hopefully it doesn't take another 75 years. His passionate insights will leave you with a lot to think about …. heavy and uncomfortable thoughts.

In her fifth Massey lecture, Escaping the Burrow, self-described "feral intellectual" Astra Taylor explores how insecurity can also offer us a path to wisdom — individually and collectively. A vision of hope and possibility. For the CBC Massey lectures, the renowned filmmaker, writer, political activist, and sometime rock musician Astra explores how our society now runs on 'manufactured' insecurity — and asks, is there another way?

An appeal for solidarity with species other than our own, in this fourth Massey lecture by renowned Canadian-American filmmaker, writer, political organiser, rock musician and self-described 'feral intellectual' Astra Taylor. We, Them, Us, our stories and actions are all intimately intertwined across space, place, and time. In her thought-provoking CBC Massey lectures, Astra explores how our society now runs on heightened sense of manufactured insecurity. Can that be unmade?

In her third provocative CBC Massey lecture, Canadian-American filmmaker, writer, political organiser, rock musician  and self-described "feral intellectual" Astra Taylor argues our innate existential insecurity is vital to our curiosity,  creativity, compassion, and capacity to care. Drawing on her own childhood, she asks, how can educators better foster these? We're in the middle of an attack on our essential nature, Astra argues, with confronting consequences for our society and state of mind. In this 5 part CBC Massey lecture series, Astra explores how our society now runs on a sense of manufactured insecurity — and what needs to change.

We take certain fundamental rights for granted, but who got to define them and are they enough? You'll find solidarity in these stories of baroners and commoners from filmmaker, writer, political organiser, sometime rock musician  and self-described 'feral intellectual' Astra Taylor. In this year's thought-provoking CBC Massey lectures, Astra explores how our society runs on 'manufactured insecurity' — and how we can challenge that.

Who was Cura and what's she got to do with how capitalism shapes our lives and psyches? In this year's thought-provoking CBC Massey lectures, renowned Canadian-American filmmaker, writer, political organiser, rock musician  and self-described 'feral intellectual' Astra Taylor explores how our society is now driven by a 'manufactured insecurity'. Fundamental to the human condition is a sense of existential insecurity — the sense that we are all vulnerable and dependent on each other. But manufactured security came later, and Astra Taylor argues it needs an urgent rethink, for the sake of us all.

Three successful authors Akuch Anyieth, Shannon Burns and Catherine Deveny talk about memoir, and why they're interested in the form. Moderator of the discussion Yves Rees asks the panel to reflect on whether the personal storytelling genre is popular because of voyeurism, a desire for intimacy between writer and reader or just a hunger for trauma porn? 

Two teams of heavy-hitters debate the fate of human creativity in a world of artificial intelligence. In a Big Ideas first, two A.I debaters are taking to the stage, and with strong opinions! Are the bots coming for Boticelli and the Bronte Sisters? Will humans be thrown in the dustbin of civilisation as our artistic expression is usurped by silicon? Or, will the bots help you unleash your creative potential like never before?