Ideas

We think we know what money is. We use it every day and our lives are unimaginable without it. But look more closely and you find that coins and dollar bills aren't "real". They're promises, symbols, ideas. And exactly what money is has evolved enormously over the ages. IDEAS contributor Anik See explores how we're rethinking one of the most basic features of human society.

Gabrielle Scrimshaw delivers the third annual Vancouver Island University Indigenous Lecture on the challenges Indigenous youth face, what reconciliation looks like, and how people can engage on that journey.

Why does the colour of someone's skin seems to trigger prejudice? Why do black people get carded by the police more often than white? Why does Black history seem marginalized in the story of our country? The Black Lives Matter movement demands serious answers from our society to all of these questions about race, culture and prejudice.This episode features Janaya Khan, d'bi Young and Sandra Hudson in a panel discussion from the Stratford Festival Forum.

Digital platforms have been well received by customers, but for workers, they often have a dark side. And they present a major challenge for governments who are grappling with how to regulate them. Part 2 of a 3-part series.

Some physicists now claim that we may have reached the end of what physics can discover about the origins and structure of the universe. Neil Turok is definitely not one of them. The director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics believes that the universe "invites" us to figure it out, by giving us clues about its composition. And when we follow its clues, we discover that it's ultimately quite simple.

AI and robots seem to be everywhere, handling more and more work, freeing humans up -- to do what? Contributor Jill Eisen takes a wide-angle lens to the digital revolution happening in our working lives. What will happen when robots and algorithms surpass what our brains can do? Part 1 of a 3-part series.

Acclaimed writer Heather O'Neill's father was a janitor, but listed his occupation as professor of philosophy, and he offered a series of unusual rules for life as she grew up in Montreal. In her Henry Kreisel Lecture at the Canadian Literature Centre in Edmonton, and in conversation, she talks about unexpected muses and mentors, being a 'problem' reader, and how some idiosyncratic lessons prepared her to cross the class divide.

In a UBC Wall Exchange talk from Vancouver, former South African politician and current U.K. corruption researcher Andrew Feinstein argues that the arms trade does not make us more secure. In fact, he contends that it fuels conflict, undermines economic progress and democracy, and — with its unintended consequences — endangers citizens everywhere.

Approximately 250 years ago, the windswept and unwelcoming capital of a Edinburgh became a beacon of intelligence for the entire world. Paul Kennedy walks up and down 'The Royal Mile', and through the planned streets and elegant squares of Edinburgh's 'New Town', in search of places once occupied or visited by the likes of Adam Smith, David Hume, James Boswell and Robert Burns.

There's a lot of buzz around the 2017 Sobey Art Award winner Ursula Johnson — a brilliant, dynamic, articulate and delightful Mi'kmaq artist from Eskasoni First Nation, in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Her art is stunning and thought-provoking. She is a multidisciplinary artist. Her work includes sculpture, printmaking, performance and non-traditional basket weaving.