Intelligence Squared

By Intelligence SquaredSociety & Culture News Arts News Commentary

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Intelligence Squared episodes

August 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 revolutionise political campaigning? They did it by doing what most leaders dread – they gave away power. On July 19 Matthew Barzun, former US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, came to Intelligence Squared to share the leadership insights he has gained over the course of his successful and varied career. For the discount on the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/the-power-of-giving-away-power-how-the-best-leaders-learn-to-let-go-matthew-barzun-intel/

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1 hr 2 min
August 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 two of Britain’s finest historians to debate how we should assess Napoleon’s life and legacy. Was he a military genius and father of the French state, or a blundering nonentity who created his own enduring myth? Was his goal of uniting the European continent under a common political system the forerunner of the modern ‘European dream’? Or was he an incompetent despot, a warning from history of the dangers of overarching grand plans?

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1 hr 4 min
July 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 in one room’, as a way of pinning the blame for the economic crash of 2008 on the predominance of men in the financial sector. According to Harvard evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven, such representations of testosterone are simplistic and misguided. And in July 2021 she came to Intelligence Squared to debunk the cultural stereotypes surrounding it. Drawing on the themes of her new book Testosterone: The Story of the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us, she addressed questions about testosterone’s impact on gender and sexual behaviour, parenting roles, childhood play and other areas of our everyday lives. She also addressed the controversial issue of testosterone’s role in gender transition and its effect on athletic performance, a much discussed topic in the debate over whether transgender women competing in female sport have an unfair advantage. And she argued that while we need a better understanding of the science behind this potent force in society, such knowledge should not be used as a means of reinforcing gender norms or patriarchal values. Hooven was in conversation with Tom Whipple, science editor of The Times, who was named Science Journalist of the Year in the 2020 Press Awards. For the Intelligence Squared discount on the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/testosterone-the-story-of-the-hormone-that-dominates-and-divides-us-carole-hooven/

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59 min
July 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 of people on earth, and it is one of three mind-altering molecules that bestselling author Michael Pollan has been investigating for his new book This Is Your Mind on Plants, alongside morphine, produced by the opium poppy, and mescaline, found in certain cacti. In conversation with the medical doctor and broadcaster Guddi Singh, Pollan explores humanity’s longstanding and powerful attraction to psychoactive plants. Why do we go to such lengths to seek these shifts in consciousness, and why do we then hedge this desire with laws, customs and fraught feelings? And why do we categorise these compounds so reductively – calling them either a licit or an illicit drug? For, as Pollan will argue, when we take these psychoactive plants into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways possible. Click here to get the Intelligence Squared discount on the book: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/this-is-your-mind-on-plants-michael-pollan/

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55 min
July 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 Gopnik arguing for Nineteen Eighty-Four. The debate was chaired by Jonathan Freedland.

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1 hr 31 min
July 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 existence of billionaires. The debate was chaired by Economics editor at BBC Newsnight Ben Chu.
For the Intelligence Squared discount on books click the link below:
Linsey McGoey - The Unknowers: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/the-unknowers-how-strategic-ignorance-rules-the-world-linsey-mcgoey/
Ryan Bourne - Economics in Once Virus: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/economics-in-one-virus-ryan-a-bourne/

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57 min
July 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 of Facebook? How did a company that said it wanted to bring people together become one of the most potent tools for polarisation in the world? According to The New York Times reporters Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, the missteps we’ve seen in the last five years are not an anomaly but an inevitability: this is how the platform was built to perform. In a period of great upheaval, growth has remained the single focus of Zuckerberg and his COO Sheryl Sandberg.
In this week's episode, Frenkel and Kang speak to Josh Glancy of The Sunday Times to share the revelations of their new book An Ugly Truth. Drawing on unrivalled sources, Frenkel and Kang give us an unprecedented view inside the politics, alliances and rivalries within one of the most powerful companies in the world.
To get the Intelligence Squared discount on the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/an-ugly-truth-inside-facebooks-battle-for-domination-sheera-frenkel-cecilia-kang/

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1 hr
July 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 most disliked nations in the world (along with Iran and North Korea). But how much of this is to do with genuine concern about Israel’s actions, and how much is actually a cover for the age-old hatred of the Jews? Is what we are seeing here anti-Zionism – broadly understood as opposition to the existence of a Jewish state in the territory of Israel – or is it anti-Semitism?
Arguing in favour of the motion were Melanie Phillips and Einat Wilf. Arguing against were Mehdi Hasan and Ilan Pappé.
The debate was chaired by Carrie Gracie.

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1 hr 8 min
July 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 world. Far from being abnormal, he claims, the act of going in search of a better life is at the core of human experience. Since the age of the hunter-gatherers, migration has been the most effective means of education, emancipation and empowerment known to humanity. And today, as the world falls increasingly prey to nativist and political polarisation, migration is the surest way to break down barriers and find personal and political emancipation.
That’s the argument that Marquardt made in this special Intelligence Squared event. But according to author David Goodhart, it epitomises the wrongheaded worldview of the global elites who know nothing about the harm mass migration causes to communities on the ground. Rich countries ransack the best and brightest talent of poorer ones leading to brain drain and inequality. And national solidarity is eroded as towns and cities are changed unnervingly fast by inflows of migrants with different cultures and values.
Does the world need more or less mass migration? Listen in for this week's episode.
To buy our speakers books click the links below:
The New Nomads by Felix Marquardt: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/The-New-Nomads/Felix-Marquardt/9781471177378
Head, Hand, Heart by David Goodhart: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/313/313407/head-hand-heart/9780141990415.html
Sex Robots and Vegan Meat by Jenny Kleeman:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sex-Robots-Vegan-Meat-Adventures/dp/1509894888

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59 min
July 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 things?
In this week's episode Marcus Gilroy-Ware speaks to Richard Seymour about his new book 'After the Fact?' what he thinks really created the conditions for mis- and disinformation, from fake news and conspiracy theories, to bad journalism and the resurgence of extreme politics.
To buy the book click here: https://amzn.to/3ATHxMg

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46 min