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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Wake Up Call: Why The Pande...

10.27.2020

Fear is on the march. All over the world citizens have surrendered basic freedoms to the state in order to be protected from Covid-19. Good government has become not just important but a matter of life and death. But the ...

Intelligence Squared episodes:

10.27.2020 Wake Up Call: Why The Pandemic Exposes The Weakness of the West Fear is on the march. All over the world citizens have surrendered basic freedoms to the state in order to be protected from Covid-19. Good government has become not just important but a matter of life and death. But the ...
10.23.2020 The Life and Legacy of Malcolm X. with Tamara Payne and Yassmin Abdel-Magied Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to interview anyone he could find who had actually known Malcolm X - including siblings, classmates, friends, cellmates, FBI moles and cops, and political ...
10.20.2020 The Seduction of Autocracy, with Anne Applebaum and Jonathan Freedland In the years just before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, people from across the political spectrum in Europe and America celebrated a great achievement, felt a common purpose and, very often, forged personal friendships. Yet over the ...
10.16.2020 Debate: The European Green Deal is Not Fit For Purpose This week's podcast is from our friends at Intelligence Squared Germany who hosted a live debate in Berlin last week on whether the EU's 'Green Deal', a plan to deliver both economic growth and carbon neutrality, is really achievable. The ...
10.13.2020 The Ideological Roots of 'Wokeness'. with Helen Pluckrose and Helen Joyce In this week's episode Helen Pluckrose documents the evolution of the ideas that inform today's radical social justice activism, from its coarse origins in French postmodernism to its refinement within activist academic fields. Pluckrose argues this dogma is recognizable as ...
10.09.2020 Thomas Friedman and Robert Peston on the Final Days of the Presidential Race Thomas Friedman has been called ‘the most influential columnist in America’. The Financial Times has described him as a ‘global star’ and he has won the Pulitzer Prize three times. On October 6, Friedman will be joining us online less ...
10.06.2020 Kim Jong Un and The Bomb: is North Korea Really a Threat? North Korea shocked the world in September 2017 by exploding the most powerful nuclear device tested anywhere in 25 years. Months earlier, it had conducted the first test flight of a missile capable of ranging much of the United States. ...
10.05.2020 BONUS: Clive Woodward on No Bullsht Leadership in partnership with Havas In this bonus episode we preview a new podcast created by Intelligence Squared called No Bullsht Leadership hosted by Chris Hirst, CEO of advertising group Havas Creative. Today's guest is the sporting legend and rugby coach Clive Woodward who speaks ...
10.02.2020 Incels and the Men Radicalised to Hate Women, with Laura Bates and Sonia Sodha According to Laura Bates a vast network of incels and other men who hate women are able to operate, virtually undetected online. These extremists commit deliberate terrorist acts and violence against women. Vulnerable teenage boys are groomed and radicalised. In ...
09.30.2020 How to Lead a Sustainable Business with Clover Hogan and Alannah Weston How can we mobilise mindsets to turn anxiety about the climate crisis into action? This week Intelligence Squared Recommends an episode from the How To Lead a Sustainable Business podcast, hosted by Alannah Weston, chairman of Selfridges Group. Alannah speaks ...
09.29.2020 How Covid-19 Will Shape the Next Decade, with Philip Rowley and Carl Miller This week we were joined by Philip Rowley Media Futurist & Futures Director at Omnicom to explore how Covid-19 will shape the next decade of culture, politics and entertainment. From remote working to video gaming Phil provides a roadmap for ...
09.25.2020 Debate: Cancel Culture is Threatening Our Freedoms JK Rowling, Scarlett Johansson, Kanye West. All have been ‘cancelled’ – denounced on social media for doing or saying something considered wrong or offensive, often on matters to do with race or gender. In this week's episode Ayaan Hirsi Ali ...
09.22.2020 China's Good War, with Rana Mitter and Gideon Rachman For most of its history, the People’s Republic of China limited public discussion of the war against Japan. It was an experience of victimization—and one that saw Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek fighting for the same goals. But now, as ...
09.18.2020 A Secret History of Stars, with Jo Marchant and Helen Czerski Jo Marchant and Helen Czerski take us on a journey through humanity’s relationship with the heavens. The stars have shaped who we are - our religious beliefs, power structures, scientific advances and even our biology. But over the last few ...
09.15.2020 The Spies Fighting Communism During the Cold War, with Scott Anderson and Hugo Lindgren At the end of World War II, the United States dominated the world militarily, economically, and in moral standing – seen as the victor over tyranny and a champion of freedom. But it was clear – to some – that ...
09.11.2020 Journeys to Freedom After the Holocaust, with Rosie Whitehouse and Edward Lucas Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared ------ One summer’s night in 1946, over 1,000 European Jews waited silently on an Italian beach to board a secret ship. They had survived Auschwitz, hidden and fought in forests and endured death marches—now they were ...
09.08.2020 Clive, Capitalism and The East India Company, with William Dalrymple and Kavita Puri Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared ------ We still talk about the British conquering India, but that phrase disguises a more sinister reality. For it was not the British government that began seizing chunks of India in the mid-18th century, as historian ...
09.04.2020 Taming Covid and Preventing the Next Pandemic, with Mark Honigsbaum and Sir David King Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared ------ In this week's episode we brought together two of Britain’s most esteemed experts on global pandemics to discuss what we got wrong about the virus and how we can learn from those mistakes going forward. ...
09.01.2020 Power, Control and Domestic Abuse, with Jess Hill and Ros Urwin Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared ------ Every week in England and Wales, two women are killed by a current or former partner. And still we ask the question: 'Why didn't she leave?' According to author award winning Jess Hill, we should ...
08.29.2020 BONUS EPISODE: Shinzo Abe's Life and Legacy Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared ------ As Japan's longest serving premier, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, steps down due to health concerns, we examine his life and legacy in a special bonus episode. We were joined by Tobias Harris, author of the ...
08.28.2020 Rutger Bregman on Human Kindness in a Frightened World with Helen Lewis Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared ------ Human beings, we’re taught, are by nature selfish and governed by self-interest. From Hobbes’ theory about the state of nature to Richard Dawkins’ ‘selfish gene’, the roots of this belief are deeply ingrained in Western ...
08.25.2020 Dark Money and Dirty Politics, with Peter Geoghegan and Nick Cohen Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared ------ Democracy is in crisis, and unaccountable and untraceable flows of money are helping to destroy it. According to Peter Geoghegan, politicians lie gleefully, making wild claims that can be shared instantly with millions of people ...
08.21.2020 The Hidden Power of Caste, with Isabel Wilkerson and Yassmin Abdel-Magied Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared. -------- Race, class, gender. These are the categories that are commonly thought to define our lives. But Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson argues that ultimately the determining factor in societies is a more powerful, unspoken system ...
08.18.2020 Ghost Ships and Geopolitics, with Ian Urbina and Ros Urwin Ian Urbina, investigative reporter of The New York Times for 17 years returns to the podcast to discuss a new investigation, which he believes to uncover the largest known case of illegal fishing perpetrated by a single industrial fleet operating ...
08.14.2020 Partition Voices, with Kavita Puri and Rajini Vaidyanathan The division of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 into India and Pakistan saw millions uprooted and resulted in unspeakable violence. It happened far away, but it would shape modern Britain. In this week's episode Kavita Puri speaks to Rajini Vaidyanathan ...
08.11.2020 Can business deliver social good after Covid-19? With Warren Valdmanis and Michelle Meagher As Covid-19 continues to suspend normal life across much of the globe, many commentators have argued the present moment offers a unique opening to re-imagine our societies and economic system. On this week's episode we delved into this topic with ...
08.07.2020 Deepfakes and the Infocalypse with Nina Schick and Carl Miller In this week's podcast Nina Schick speaks to Carl Miller about the rise of Deepfakes and what she believes is an impending 'Infocalypse'. Advances in AI mean that by scanning images of a person (for example using Facebook), a powerful ...
08.04.2020 Niall Ferguson On What History Can Teach Us About Covid-19 There are few big thinkers better placed to explain the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic than historian Niall Ferguson. In addition to his profound understanding of past crises, since early March he has been meticulously collating and analysing data about ...
07.31.2020 An Artificial Revolution, with Ivana Bartoletti and Yassmin Abdel-Magied In this week's episode world-leading privacy expert Ivana Bartoletti speaks about the reality behind the AI revolution, from the low-paid workers who train algorithms to recognise cancerous polyps, to the rise of data violence and the symbiotic relationship between AI ...
07.28.2020 Slavoj Žižek and Shahidha Bari on Hegel in a Wired Brain In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of G.W.F. Hegel, Slavoj Žižek speaks to Shahidha Bari about the philosophical giant that changed our way of thinking about posthumanism. Together they investigate what he might have had to say ...
07.24.2020 Tony Blair and Andrew Adonis on Ernest Bevin, Britain’s Forgotten Political Giant In this rare public appearance together, chaired by the BBC’s Rajini Vaidyanathan, the former Labour prime minister Tony Blair and cabinet minister Andrew Adonis discussed how the man known as ‘the working-class John Bull’ grew to become one of this ...
07.21.2020 Science Fictions, with Stuart Ritchie and Tom Whipple Medicine, education, health, parenting – wherever it really matters, we look to science for guidance and answers. In this episode Stuart Ritchie discusses his new book 'Science Fictions' and reveals the disturbing flaws that undermine our understanding of all of ...
07.17.2020 Sex Robots & Vegan Meat, with Jenny Kleeman and Carl Miller Award-winning journalist and documentary-maker Jenny Kleeman takes us on a journey into the world of the people who are changing what it means to be human. Focusing on the central pillars of the human experience–birth, food, sex, and death. to ...
07.14.2020 Angrynomics: Why The World is So Angry, with Mark Byth, Eric Lonergan and Linda Yueh Why are measures of stress and anxiety on the rise, when economists and politicians tell us we have never had it so good? While statistics tell us that the vast majority of people are getting steadily richer the world most ...
07.10.2020 Outraged: Why Everyone is Shouting and No One is Talking, with Ashley 'Dotty' Charles and Ash Sarkar In this week's episode BBC presenter and DJ Ashley 'Dotty' Charles joins us to discuss her new book 'Outrage' and the insatiable appetite for anger in today's world. In conversation with Ash Sarkar, she explores how outrage culture has limited ...
07.07.2020 Putin's People with Catherine Belton and Edward Lucas Former Moscow correspondent and investigative journalist Catherine Belton reveals the untold story of how Vladimir Putin and his entourage of KGB men seized power in Russia and built a new league of oligarchs. Through exclusive interviews with key inside players, ...
07.03.2020 Debate: Iran Is Not Our Enemy Is Iran an enemy to be confronted or a potential ally to engage with? In this week's podcast we debate 'Iran is not our enemy' with Mehdi Hasan, Azadeh Moaveni, Daniel Hannan and Salman Al-Ansari. The debate was chaired by ...
06.30.2020 City on Fire: The Fight for Hong Kong, With Antony Dapiran and Shirley Yu In this week's episode writer and lawyer Antony Dapiran joins us from Hong Kong to discuss the protests and turmoil that have engulfed the city since the summer of 2019. He spoke to political economist Shirley Yu. Together they discussed ...
06.26.2020 The Reckoning: Kwame Kwei-Armah and Idris Elba on the Arts and Black Lives Matter A great reckoning is taking place in the wake of the brutal killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed his death. Companies and organisations are looking afresh at how they can do a better job of combatting institutional ...
06.23.2020 We Need To Talk: Me and White Supremacy, with Layla Saad and Emma Dabiri Amidst the current global conversation around police brutality in the United States and the experience of black people the world over, this week we speak to Layla Saad to investigate the role each of us has to play in dismantling ...
06.19.2020 Unravelling Unconscious Bias, with Dr Pragya Agarwal and Kavita Puri In the wake of sweeping protests about racism and police brutality, this week we speak to Dr Pragya Agarwal to unravel the way our implicit or 'unintentional' biases affect the way we communicate and perceive the world. Dr Agarwal spoke ...
06.16.2020 Why do Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump? With Sarah Posner and Brian Klaas Why does Donald Trump have such a good relationship with white evangelical christians despite his questionable conservative credentials? In this week's episode Sarah Posner, author of 'Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump' speaks to Washington ...
06.12.2020 Statues, Slavery and the Struggle for Equality with David Olusoga, Dawn Butler and Susan Neiman Following the death of George Floyd, global Black Lives Matter protests, and debates raging over statues from Colston to Churchill, Intelligence Squared hosted an online discussion with historian David Olusoga, Labour MP Dawn Butler, and philosopher Susan Neiman who is ...
06.09.2020 The New Long Life: Flourishing in a Changing World, with Lynda Gratton and Andrew J Scott If we live to 100, will we ever really stop working? And how will an aging society change the way we love, manage and learn from others? In this week's episode Andrew J Scott and Lynda Gratton speak to Tom ...
06.05.2020 Anand Giridharadas on Capitalism in the Time of Corona In his 2019 book Winners Take All, Anand Giridharadas launched a searing attack on the global elites. Now he turns his thoughts to the post-pandemic world. Is the crisis an opportunity to create a more egalitarian society? How can the ...
06.02.2020 The Passion Economy with Adam Davidson and Hugo Lindgren Are the middle classes really dying off? Will robots really take our jobs? Contrary to common belief Adam Davidson argues the twenty-first-century economic paradigm offers new ways of making money, fresh paths toward professional fulfillment, and unprecedented opportunities for curious, ...
05.29.2020 Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection, with Dr Vivek Murthy and Ros Urwin In this week's episode former Surgeon General of the United States, Dr Vivek Murthy speaks to Ros Urwin about how he discovered first hand how loneliness lies behind some of our greatest personal and societal challenges, from anxiety and depression ...
05.26.2020 Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over the World, with Will Davies and Carl Miller Why do so many of us no longer trust experts, facts and statistics? Why has politics become so fractious and warlike? And how can the history of ideas help us understand our present? In this episode Professor Will Davies, author ...
05.22.2020 Putting Peer Pressure to Work with Robert H Frank and Linda Yueh In this week's episode Robert H. Frank, author of 'Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work' speaks to Linda Yueh about how our social environments influence our behaviour more than we think. They discuss why behaviours from smoking to ...
05.19.2020 No Visible Bruises: Why What we don't know about domestic violence can kill, with Rachel Louise Snyder In this week's episode award-winning journalist Rachel Louise Snyder speaks to Helen Lewis about some common misconceptions about domestic violence: that it happens to an unlucky few; that it's a matter of poor choices; that if things are dire enough, ...

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