Intelligence Squared

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Intelligence Squared is the world’s leading forum for debate and intelligent discussion. Live and online we take you to the heart of the issues that matter, in the company of some of the world’s sharpest minds and most exciting orators. Join the debate at www.intelligencesquared.com and download our weekly podcast every Friday.

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The Status Game, with Will ...

09.17.2021

Does owning a big house and supporting ‘correct’ social causes not just make you feel good about yourself but actually make you healthier and live longer? The answer is yes. This is just one of the fascinating findings that bestselling ...

Intelligence Squared episodes:

09.17.2021 The Status Game, with Will Storr Does owning a big house and supporting ‘correct’ social causes not just make you feel good about yourself but actually make you healthier and live longer? The answer is yes. This is just one of the fascinating findings that bestselling ...
09.14.2021 Salman Rushdie: Touchstones with Razia Iqbal Salman Rushdie, award-winning novelist and author of Midnight’s Children and Quichotte, discusses his cultural touchstones, from James Joyce to Bob Dylan. Rushdie was in conversation with BBC journalist and broadcaster Razia Iqbal. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared. See acast.com/privacy for privacy ...
09.13.2021 Business Weekly: Debate – Crypto Can Bank the Unbanked Debate On Monday September 7th El Salvador became the first country to accept Bitcoin as legal tender. Businesses in the country will be obliged where possible to accept the digital coins as payment and citizens will be expected to download the ...
09.10.2021 Debate: Michael Sandel vs Adrian Wooldridge on Meritocracy Meritocracy has long been an article of faith in the modern Western world. Get an education, work hard and the rewards of success will be yours, regardless of class, privilege or wealth. But recently meritocracy has come under attack, with ...
09.07.2021 Negotiating Survival: Civilian Relations with the Taliban While the Taliban have the power of violence on their side in Afghanistan, they nonetheless need civilians to comply with their authority. Both strategically and by necessity, civilians have leveraged this reliance on their obedience in order to influence Taliban ...
09.06.2021 Business Weekly: No Bullsh*t Leadership with Reckitt CEO Laxman Narasimhan In this episode Chris Hirst speaks to Laxman Narasimhan, CEO of Reckitt, about his approach to leadership and how to connect with staff in a global company. Reckitt is the global consumer goods giant behind household brands such as Dettol, ...
09.05.2021 The Sunday Debate: Dickens vs Tolstoy In 2019 we lined up the best advocates to make the case for Dickens or Tolstoy in the battle of the great 19th century novelists. They called on a cast of star actors, including Tom Hiddleston, to bring their arguments ...
09.03.2021 How to Lead a Sustainable Business and the Future of Fashion Today's episode comes from the How To Lead a Sustainable Business, brought to you by Selfridges Group and Intelligence Squared. In the podcast, Alannah Weston, Chairman of Selfridges Group, speaks to inspiring leaders at the forefront of sustainability and business ...
08.31.2021 Debate: Crypto vs The Environment Debate: Crypto vs The Environment It is estimated that the global Bitcoin network currently consumes about 133 terawatt-hours of electricity annually - roughly equal to what is consumed by the nation of Sweden. Crypto skeptics warn that the energy demands ...
08.29.2021 The Sunday Debate: The West Should Cut Ties with Saudi Arabia In this week's episode of the Sunday debate we go back to 2019. In the aftermath of journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul we brought together leading experts to debate how the West should respond to ...
08.27.2021 They: What Muslims and Non-Muslims Get Wrong About Each Other, Sarfraz Manzoor and Ros Urwin In this week's episode Sarfraz Manzoor speaks to Ros Urwin about his investigative journey across Britain in search of the roots of division - from the fear that Islam promotes violence, to the suspicion that Muslims wish to live segregated ...
08.24.2021 Debate: Bitcoin vs Gold with Anthony Scaramucci and Peter Schiff Since the world economy was plunged into crisis as a result of COVID-19 many economists have predicted a period of great instability. In normal times investors would seek to hedge against volatility by buying gold. But this time some are ...
08.22.2021 The Sunday Debate: The War on Terror was the right response to 9/11 Have the West’s efforts to eradicate Al-Qaeda around the world simply been fuelling the flames of hatred and violence? Or would we have suffered even more atrocities if we’d left the militants to plot in their hiding places? Is the ...
08.20.2021 Afghanistan: What Next? In this week's episode we examine the unfolding situation in Afghanistan and what it means for the Afghan people and the world. In Part 1 Shabnam Nasimi reflects on the last few days as an Afghan living abroad watching as ...
08.17.2021 China's Alternative Vision for the Internet, with James Griffiths and Carl Miller Once little more than a pornography filter, China’s ‘Great Firewall’ has evolved into the most sophisticated system of online censorship in the world. As the Chinese internet grows and online businesses thrive, speech is controlled, dissent quashed, and attempts to ...
08.15.2021 The Sunday Debate: To Stop Climate Collapse, We Must End Capitalism Capitalism is driving us to disaster. Our planet is heading for a terrifying environmental cataclysm – and our economic system is responsible. The defining characteristic of capitalism is perpetual economic growth. And while it has brought us wonderful benefits, including ...
08.13.2021 The Country of Others, with Leïla Slimani and Shahidha Bari In conversation with writer and cultural historian Shahidha Bari, Slimani shared her insights into the impact of colonialism and the ways in which women in particular find themselves othered, politically, culturally and historically. To buy her new book 'The Country ...
08.10.2021 Stop Pretending We Can Save the Planet, with Jonathan Franzen Let’s face it, argues Jonathan Franzen: the climate apocalypse is coming. We’ve already messed up the planet. The polar bears are running out of ice to stand on. Australia and California will burn again. Temperatures keep rising. Our chance to ...
08.08.2021 The Sunday Debate: Parenting Doesn’t Matter How important is parenting? The multibillion-pound parenting industry tells us we can all shape our children to be joyful, resilient and successful. But what if it’s all bunk? Intelligence Squared brought together a panel of leading experts to explore just ...
08.06.2021 The Right to Sex, with Amia Srinivasan and Merve Emre How should we talk about sex? It is a thing we have and also a thing we do; a supposedly private act laden with public meaning; a personal preference shaped by outside forces; a place where pleasure and ethics can ...
08.03.2021 The Power of Giving Away Power with Matthew Barzun and Kamal Ahmed How did Dee Hock of Visa transform the way we pay for things? How did Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, create the biggest knowledge transfer engine the world has ever seen? And how did Barack Obama and his grassroots team ...
08.01.2021 The Sunday Debate: Napoleon the Great? With Andrew Roberts, Adam Zamoyski and Jeremy Paxman How should we remember Napoleon, the man of obscure Corsican birth who rose to become emperor of the French and briefly master of Europe? In 2014, as the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo approached, Intelligence Squared brought together ...
07.30.2021 Testosterone: Debunking the Myths of the Misunderstood Hormone with Carole Hooven Testosterone – a hormone that has been mythologised, maligned and misunderstood. It is frequently cited as the basis of male aggression and sexual violence. Christine Lagarde, former chair of the IMF, once said ‘There should never be too much testosterone ...
07.27.2021 Michael Pollan: This Is Your Mind on Plants When you start your day with a cup of tea or coffee you are ingesting a consciousness-altering drug, which you are quite likely to be addicted to. That drug of course is caffeine, the stimulant used by 90 per cent ...
07.25.2021 The Sunday Debate: Brave New World vs 1984 Both these novels imagined extraordinary futures, but which better captures our present and offers the keener warning about where we may be heading? In this the Intelligence Squared debate, we had Will Self arguing for Brave New World and Adam ...
07.23.2021 Debate: Abolish Billionaires As billionaires jet off to space should we abolish them here on earth? In this week's debate professor Linsey McGoey of Essex University and Ryan Bourne of the Cato Institute go head to head on whether society should tolerate the ...
07.20.2021 Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination, with Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang "My goal was never to just create a company. I wanted to build something that actually makes a really big change in the world.” – Mark Zuckerberg How did it all go wrong for Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO ...
07.18.2021 The Sunday Debate: Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism For this week's episode of The Sunday Debate, we revisit our debate "Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism" from 2019. Is there a country in the world that attracts so much criticism as Israel? Studies consistently show Israel to be one of the ...
07.16.2021 Is Mass Migration Making the World a Better Place? To some, the very word ‘migration’ generates fear, suspicion and even hatred. But according to Felix Marquardt, author of the acclaimed The New Nomads, we need to look afresh at our notions of the mass movement of people around the ...
07.13.2021 The Truth about Fake News, with Marcus Gilroy-Ware and Richard Seymour 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 ...
07.11.2021 The Sunday Debate: Revere or Remove? The Battle over Statues, Heritage and History Statues and memorials to famous figures of the past adorn our towns and cities. But what should be done when some of these figures have come to be seen by many people as controversial symbols of oppression and discrimination? In ...
07.09.2021 The Ever-Changing Brain with David Eagleman and Brian Eno 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 ...
07.06.2021 Race and Guns in a Divided America, with Carol Anderson and Mark Mardell 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 ...
07.04.2021 The Sunday Debate: The Catholic Church is a Force For Good in the World 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, ...
07.02.2021 Albums that Changed My Life, with Tom Gatti, David Mitchell and Preti Taneja 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, ...
06.29.2021 Emma Dabiri and Alex Renton on Race, Reckoning and What We Can Do Next 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 ...
06.25.2021 The Devil You Know, with Dr Gwen Adshead and Linda Yueh 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 ...
06.22.2021 Surviving Disaster, with Max Brooks and Carl Miller 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 ...
06.18.2021 While Justice Sleeps, with Stacey Abrams and Tayari Jones 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 ...
06.17.2021 Debate: We Must Stop Big Data's Pandemic Power Grab 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 ...
06.15.2021 Is Meritocracy a Myth? With Adrian Wooldridge and Mark Mardell 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 ...
06.11.2021 Gillian Tett on a New Way To Understand Business and Life 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 ...
06.08.2021 Framing: A Guide to Thinking in the 21st Century 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 ...
06.04.2021 Ed Miliband on How To Build a Better World 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 ...
06.01.2021 Salman Rushdie on Truth, Language and the Power of Stories 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 ...
05.28.2021 Carlo Rovelli and Philip Pullman on the Science and Stories That Transform Our World 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 ...
05.25.2021 Music in the Age of COVID-19, with David Gray and Rosamund Urwin 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 ...
05.21.2021 The New Space Race, with Nicholas Schmidle and Helen Czerski 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 ...
05.20.2021 Common Ground: How to Democratise Nature 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 ...
05.18.2021 Choices for a Better Now, with Ece Temelkuran and Matthew Taylor 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 ...

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