Pod Academy

"Current economic orthodoxy", says Christian Felber, "confuses means and ends.  It says we should strive for the accumulation and maximisation of money and capital, but they are the means, not the ends......The end is the common good."

He proposes a new approach to economics, putting the system on a new course. Key to this new economy is moving from evaluating the 'means' to assessing the 'goals', and grounding them in shared values.  It means redefining economic success.  Indeed, one of the main objectives of his work is to demonstrate that there are alternatives to the current economic order.

Listing the values of the common good as human dignity, solidarity, social justice, ecological sustainability, democracy and freedom, he points out that many democratic consitutitions already contain a commitment to these values, but  goals are not based on them.

These ideas are set down in his book, Change Everything: Creating an Economy for the Common Good (2015, Zed Books). Felber is magister philosopiae, Vienna and Madrid Universities, but this is not just an academic treatise, it has spawned a movement  in Europe and Latin America, with local chapters taking action on a community level.

And as part of this movement there are already hundreds of companies, local governments and educational institutions striving to live by the new common good indicators, asking themselves  if  their products/services satisfy human needs? do they have humane working conditions? are their sales activities ethical?

Creating an economy for the common good will require a greater engagement from citizens than is expected in a representative democracy - there will be lengthy consultations and a demand to get involved in public interest companies, but Christian Felber insists there will be plenty of time to get on with your life.

So is this a utopian dream?  Listen and make up your mind.

 

"We are developing the discipline of feminist legal history, which scarcely even exists in this country...Feminist history asks a different set of questions."  (Rosemary Auchmuty)

In this podcast about the Women's Legal Landmarks project, author and barrister Elizabeth Woodcraft talks to Professor Rosemary Auchmuty of Reading University's School of Law and Professor Erika Rackley of Birmingham Law School.at the very start of the project.  Their conversation ranges over the aims and methodology of the work, some of the landmarks they will be exploring and, importantly, their aspirations for the project.

2019 marks the centenary of women’s formal admission into the legal profession.This was a key legal landmark for women but, of course, it was not first. Feminists have a long history of engaging with law and law reform with the result that women’s legal history is full of landmarks – key events, cases and statutes – shaping and responding to women’s lives and (diverse) experiences.

To commemorate the centenary of women’s admission into the profession, this project aims to bring together interested feminist scholars to engage in the process of identifying and writing about key legal landmarks for women. It will not be accounts of the 'usual suspects' - not, for example, the Equal Pay Act - but rather the Ford Dagenham women workers' strike that was so important in the development of the legislation.

This discussion ranges across time and place - Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England.  Importantly, it points to the campaigning that underpins all of these landmarks  - from the campaigns for animal cruelty legislation in which women campaigners played a central part (because of the fashion for ostrich plumes in hats), and anti-slavery campaigns to recent campaigns for women on banknotes, and from the totally different style of campaigning by the women of Greenham Common to recent successful campaigns against rape pornography.

This is early days for the Women's Legal Landmarks project it is estimated to be a two-year project (2015-2017) - there has just been a call for papers, and the first workshops have been held.  So over the next few years, Pod Academy will keep you posted on progress.  In the meantime, do get in touch with the project , they are keen to hear from women and men who want to celebrate women's legal history. and to encourage the development of a network of feminist scholars and activists.

The collected landmarks (each essay between 1000-6,000 words) will be published in an edited collection, accompanied by an extract of the relevant primary material, photograph or other source. In addition, there will be a website in the form of an online exhibition with further links to primary sources.

Photo: Craftivist Collective

 

 

 

 

 

If you have enjoyed this podcast, you may also be interested in two of our other podcasts about women and the law.

Being a Feminist Barrister

Feminism and the Law

Podcast produced and presented by Craig Barfoot

Cloning extinct species - such as woolly mammoths - presents massive ethical as well as practical challenges.  And at the moment there is no legal oversight of the issues.

Beth Shapiro, author of How to Clone a Mammoth explores the complexities - both ethical and scientific - in this interview with Craig Barfoot.

We may get excited by the idea of cloning dinosaurs (not possible as dinosaur DNA has long since turned to stone) or woolly mammoths (so far only 9 of the hundreds of genes needed have been identified), but why would we do it?  The ethics of creating a creature, only to put it on display in a zoo, are surely questionable.

And genes are only half the story. Environment is also a key part of species development - and we cannot re-create the environment (herd, terraine etc) of a mammoth.

This is a fascinating and eye-opening podcast.  Listen and share it.

There's a little red-faced man,

Which is Bobs,

Rides the tallest 'orse 'e can-

Our Bobs.

If it bucks or kicks or rears,

'E can sit for twenty years

With a smile round both 'is ears-

Can't yer, Bobs?

That is the ditty British troops would recite about Field Marshall Lord Roberts (1832-1914) veteran of the Boer War and the 19th century wars in Afghanistan.  In this podcast, produced by Love Archaeology for Pod Academy, Tom Horne and Terence Christian explore the life of Lord Roberts whose statue in Kelvingrove, Glasgow has been restored recently.  They talk to his biographer, Dr. Rodney Atwood (The Life of Field Marshall Lord Roberts) and then take a walk in the rain to Kelvingrove to see the statue.

Popularly known as ‘Bobs,’ Roberts was born in 1832 and died on the Western Front in 1914. Roberts won the Victoria Cross, as his son would go on to do, in the Boer War in South Africa. He’d also be involved in the strategic defence of India. As a course of this, he campaigned successfully in Afghanistan. Later on he also saved the British army from disaster in South Africa before going on to introduce army reform and campaigning for national service. He was one of the few who recognised that Imperial Germany was going to be a threat to European and world peace.

Before and after his death, Field Marshal Lord Roberts was honoured with memorials in Glasgow, Kolkata, and London and also, during his life, he was immortalised in poetry by none other than Rudyard Kipling. Also, being very much aware of the power of the press and the necessity to craft one’s own image, he published an autobiography entitled Forty-One Years in India. When he died visiting the troops in France in 1914, he lay in state in Westminster Hall – joining Winston Churchill as the only other non-Royal to have this honour bestowed upon them in the 20th century. Thereafter, he was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral in a ceremony that can only be likened to that of Lord Nelson a hundred years before.

So who is this Lord Roberts, the person behind poems, and memorials throughout the length of the former British Empire? And why is a figure who was buried by his King alongside the bodies of Wellington and Nelson been neglected in recent years? This is a darkness and light story of empire, fame, notoriety, and charity. From hanging 'traitors' in Afghanistan and using scorched earth tactics and even concentration camps during the Boer War in South Africa to his family providing charity and opportunity for wounded veterans, Roberts—once paralleled with the Duke of Wellington himself—remains a compelling, if problematic, figure who won incredible victories including a famous march from Kandahar, foresaw the Great War with Imperial Germany, carefully crafted his own legend in pursuit of recognition at home, and even interacted with figures as well known as Rudyard Kipling and Lord Kitchener with whom he served in the Boer War.

Lord Roberts became our subject of long-term interest due to the proximity of his Glasgow statue. For many years, Lord Roberts’ state stood, nestled in a grove of trees, outside my house. I would walk by him each day on my way to and from the Glasgow University Archaeology Department. His prominence and anonymity—he seems to have every honour available and fought in every 19th century colonial war but without any sort of modern name recognition—made us wonder: “Who was this man of past importance?” The conservation of his statue by Nicholas Boyes Stone Conservation and Glasgow City Council in 2014/2015 made us even more curious.

 

 In researching Field Marshall Lord Roberts’ incredible and varied life—which reads as though it is a “Boys’ Own” adventure—we met his biographer, Dr. Rodney Atwood. Dr. Atwood kindly spoke to us about Lord Roberts.

 

 

 

There is growing concern about the widening gap between rich and poor. The 99% and the 1% are much written and talked about, not just by campaigners, but even by the Managing Director  of the IMF. However, people rarely talk about solutions – it is as if there are at work natural forces that are beyond human control.

Not so, says Sir Tony Atkinson  Fellow of Nuffield College and Centenial Prof at LSE, and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School,

'The world faces great problems but collectively we are not at the mercy of forces outside our control, the future is very much in our hands’.

The economy is about political and economic choices and the means to reduce inequality are within our grasp..  In this interview with Fran Bennett,  Senior Research and Teaching Fellow in the Dept of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford, he challenges academics and politicians to rethink the economy

Tony Atkinson, who has been dubbed the ‘Godfather of inequality economics’ by Brian Nolan and Fran Bennett met up at the Oxford Martin School to talk about his recently published book, Inequality: What Can Be Done? .

 

 

 

 

Inequality matters, he says because it spills over into all parts of our lives – huge wealth can control politics and the media, inequality can affect the stability of the world economy, and at home even equality of opportunity cannot be guaranteed when you have such large disparities of income and wealth.

Fran Bennett and Tony Atkinson explore his radical solutions including higher taxation (in the UK we have been under-taxing ourselves for 20-30 years, he says, and unless we cut back on public services very radically indeed we will need to raise taxes to ensure fiscal sustainability),  higher child benefit, to be seen as the right of the child,   and a citizen’s participation income.  He revives the discussion around contributory benefits, suggesting insurance based benefits could be a way to square the circle of public concern about social security benefits.

Importantly he also raises the spector of the way technology is in danger of increasing disparities of wealth, by reducing the number of jobs and concentrating power and wealth in the hands of those with the capital to introduce the technology – his example of meals on wheels delivered by drones is only partly humorous- illustrating as it does the implications of technological choices for jobs and human contact.  As he says,

'The way technology evolves reflects decisions, and economic forces and these forces are not derived from outer space but by companies and governments.”

Prof Atkinson goes on to note, with some concern, the fact that there was very little discussion about inequality in the recent UK general election (he monitored media reports), and points out that equality appears to be a greater issue for the European Union than the UK government.

With special thanks to the team at Oxford Martin School for this recording.

Pic by Mseattle

Drones are widely used in the 'war on terror'.  Unmanned airplanes with hellfire missiles on board, controlled from another country,  they kill from the sky.

 

 

Drones and drone warfare are highly controversial - on ethical, legal and utilitarian grounds -  as Andrew Cockburn explains in this conversation with Craig Barfoot about his latest book Kill Chain.  Cockburn is an assiduous investigator and delivers a trenchant critique of the people he call the 'High Tech Assassins'.

Picture:  Peace Quilt

There is well documented evidence that if you change how a stammerer hears they way they are speaking, they will stammer less.  Using this finding, 10 years ago saw the introduction of new devices (especially in-ear devices) that purported to help people stop stammering.  But these fluency aids have not lived up to early promise- indeed many  people who were thought to be 'cured' have found their stammer is back, as marked as before.

Now Oliver Cheadle has been conducting new research at UCL, this time using vibration, through the skin, rather than sound.  He discusses his findings with Lee Millam in this podcast.

Oli used a vibrotactile device.   On average, the device reduced stuttering by 22%, but the average figure masks massive variation.

Vibrotactile speech feedback significantly reduced stuttering, albeit much less so than in previous studies (an average 22% reduction in stuttering as compared to an average 71-80% reduction in earlier studies).

The different types of vibrotactile speech feedback used  (i.e. different placements on the body, different amplitudes, different delays) did not significantly affect how much it reduced stuttering.

There was a lot of variation between participants - one participant experienced a 60% reduction in stuttering under vibrotactile speech feedback while another experienced a 39% increase.

There was no carry-over - when the vibration was switched off, the person stuttered as usual.

Drawn to this area of research from his own personal circumstances, Oli's conclusion is that some people will find the device useful for specific situations (perhaps when having to give a presentation), and it can be worn discreetly, at low vibration levels.

However, he counsels against miracle cures and suggests instead that the best course of action for people who stammer is to do therapy that focuses on accepting stammering; accepting that you are a person who stammers - but it is not the most important thing about you.

Picture: Art made by sound vibrations by Jennicatpink

Music from www.freemusicarchive.org

Project 5am - The Dream

Lucky Dragons - Open Melody 

 

Some background information on Stammering

Stammering – or stuttering – is a relatively common speech problem in childhood but can also persist into adulthood.

Stammering is characterised by:

the repetition of sounds or syllables – such as saying ‘mu-mu-mu-mummy’

prolonging sounds – for example 'mmmmmmummy'

pausing or 'blocking' – when a word gets stuck or doesn't come out at all

It usually occurs at the beginning of speech, and people will often avoid certain words or speaking situations to try to hide it.

Stammering varies in severity from person to person. A person might find that they have periods of stammering followed by times when they speak relatively fluently.

Read more about the signs of stammering.

Types of stammering

There are two main types of stammer:

Developmental stammering is the most common type of stammering that many people are familiar with. It develops during childhood as a child is first learning how to speak.

Acquired or late-onset stammering can occur in older children and adults as the result of a severe head injury, stroke or a progressive neurological disease (disease affecting the nervous system). It can also be caused by certain drugs or medication, or psychological or emotional trauma.

What causes stammering?

The exact cause of developmental stammering is still unclear, although it is largely thought to be the result of the parts of the brain involved in speech being 'wired' differently.

Studies have shown differences in the structure and functioning of the brain of...

With the increasing frequency, complexity and sophistication of cyber attacks - such as Stuxnet, the Sony Hack - how is attribution done?

This podcast is an interview with Ben Buchanan about a paper he recently published with Thomas Rid, Professor of Security Studies at Kings College, London on Attributing Cyber Attacks The paper can be found in the Journal of Strategic Studies. Additional information about the various reports mentioned in the podcast are linked throughout the transcript.

This podcast was produced and is hosted by Adriene Lilly.

 

Adriene Lilly: With the increasing frequency of cyber attacks in the media I think it's worth taking a few minutes to try and understand how attribution is done - how do we find out who is doing it, why, how, and where from.  What exactly is attribution in the cyber context, why do we try to attribute attacks? How is it different than it's offline equivalent in criminal investigations? Where does data and forensic evidence come from? And who – be it the government or private companies – is actually involved in the process of attribution?

Today I'm talking to Ben Buchanan....

Ben Buchanan: good to be with you Adriene. So I'm Ben Buchanan, I'm a PHD Candidate at Kings College London.

AL: He's recently published a paper with Thomas Rid in the Journal of Strategic Studies called “Attributing Cyber Attacks” their paper attempts to get to the essence of attribution in cyber crime and sets up a model that they hope can help streamline the process.

Before we begin though, there are a number of major cyber attacks that have popped up in the media over the past couple of years. So just in case you're like me and may need a refresher, let's start with a few of those stories.

Let's begin back in 2010 with the discovery of Stuxnet. Stuxnet was a piece of malware – or malicious software – that is generally cited as being one of the most if not they most sophisticated computer viruses to date. And while no one has officially taken credit for it, best guesses it's a product of the US and Israeli governments. The software was specifically designed to target a uranium enrichment facility in Iran by subtly changing how some of the mechanical structures in the facility operated. Specifically the spinning speed of a number of centrifuges. Stuxnet was designed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program. It's significant for a number of reasons, but the one that I want to emphasize here is the complexity and sophistication of the operation.. here's Ben..

AL: Ok, now your brought up the centrifuges in Iran so I'm assuming you're talking about Stuxnet..

BB: Sure, so Stuxnet was a long cyber operation against Iranian centrifuges that by some reports involved building a replica of the Iranian nuclear facility and testing the code against this model before it was deployed against Iran. That's an operation that probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars when you consider all the physical expenses. It's believed to have been conduced by the US, likely working in partnership with Israel, and it had the effect of manipulating the centrifuges in a number of ways over a number of years in an attempt to slow down the Iranian nuclear program.

AL: Who discovered it and who did it?

BB: So the tech side of the operation was discovered by researches who were alerted when a computer in Iran kept restarting for unknown reasons. They looked in the code and they discovered that it was what looked like a cyber weapon against the Iranian nuclear facility. People immediately assumed, or guessed, that it was the US or Israel but there was no concrete proof for quite awhile. And in that case, what is today the most credible attribution of the Stuxnet attack came from a reporter, came from David Sanger at the New York Times who working inside the beltway of sour...

The late Stuart Hall said cultural studies, within a Marxist tradition,  enables us "to understand culture - cultural discourse - the place and relationship of the ideological."

In this podcast, which is part of our Marxism in the 21st Century series, Steve Edwards, Professor of History of Art at the Open University talks to Kieron Yates about Marxism and Culture.  They explore how Marxism can be seen as a profoundly aesthetic philosophy, with many of its central categories coming from thinking about art and aesthetics, the organisation of sensibility......

 

VOICE: STUART HALL:  It's not that Marxism is not around but that the kind of conversation which Cultural Studies conducted with …   against some aspects of … around the questions… expanding a Marxist tradition of critical thinking... that is absent and that is a real weakness. I think important gains were made which enable us to understand culture... cultural discourse… the place and relationship of the ideological. So I think a lot of ground was covered... kind of  conceptual ground was covered which could go to enrich the position provided the basic conversation is re-engaged but if it's not re-engaged then that interim period... you know ... Cultural Studies lost its way and will find it again.

 

Kieron Yates: Hello and welcome to Pod Academy. You just heard the late Stuart Hall with an assessment of the status of Marxism in Cultural Studies he gave to the academic Sut Jhally in 2012.

In this edition of Pod Academy I speak to Steve Edwards - Professor of History of Art at the Open University - about the development of culture studies in Britain out of particular Marxist traditions and ask if more recently Marxism has been able to reassert the relevance. I began by asking what Marx and Engels themselves had to say about cultural phenomena.

Steve Edwards: Its  patchy to start with.  I think there are two things to say about that…   they were very educated men of there time, with very extensive literary tastes in the  high culture of particularly Europe… very well read. I don't think that there is any point where they... there is no extensive development in the ideas of Marx and Engels. Marx did originally plan to write an aesthetic he never did so ... he wrote poetry as a young man... Engels wrote some kind of ... there are occasional pieces... largely on literature but I think beyond that what's important about what they did is to recognise that in some senses Marxism is a profoundly aesthetic philosophy... that so many of its central categories come from thinking about art and aesthetics… the organisation of sensibility.  So the whole debate for instance on alienation on the alienation of labour ... the debate about fetishism...the whole sense about a kind of future society which will overcome the divisions between mental and manual ... that will heal the rifts of class; these are fundamentally aesthetic categories. So I think, more than just thinking about what they explicitly wrote about art or literature, what's important is to think about how the discussions and thinking, particularly in German idealist philosophy, about art entered fundamentally into shaping their view of the world.

 

KY: Marx and Engels can be seen as part of a tradition of social criticism that was taking place in the Nineteeth century that encompassed thinkers and writers on aestheticism such as Ruskin, Carlyle, Arnold and Dickens. At times intensely conservative, romantic in sensibility and anti-modern, this aesthetic critique of capitalism also found a more progressive voice in William Morris.

 

SE:   There's a separate trajectory there,  which is  there's a kind of tradition of British social criticism that's very centred on art in the 19th century. One might think about Ruskin, about Carlyle, about Dickens and Arnold.

These days many of us check out TripAdvisor if we are booking a hotel.  We want to see what people like us think of the service, the staff, the food, the pool.......

It's a great idea for bed and breakfast, but is the TripAdvisor approach, where consumers are encouraged to give their unvarnished views, the right approach for Fertility Clinics, where life changing decisions are being made?

The UK's Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has decided to give more prominence to patient views and an event, A Trip Advisor for Fertility Clinics - Would You Recommend It? was held at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in London's Regent's Park last month (April 2015) organised by Progress Educational Trust and sponsored by the British Fertility Society, to look at how best to do so.

The HFEA's plans are consistent with an emphasis on patient choice and patient empowerment in recent health policy. Since 2007, for example, the NHS Choices website has published patient feedback on NHS hospitals and services, in the form of both star ratings and free text. Last year the National Information Board, of which the HFEA is a member, issued proposals which take this approach further.

But such an approach is contentious. TripAdvisor has attracted controversy, with critics questioning its ability to vouch for the honesty and reliability of customer reviews. And since more than half of all fertility treatment in the UK is carried out in the private sector, people writing and reading feedback may be customers as well as patients.

So clinicians, patients, companies and representatives of patients' organisations gathered at the event to explore the issues. All agreed. that the patient view is very important, and must be reflected, along with metrics such as success rates and inspection reports. Patients want to see what other patients are saying.

But there was also concern expressed that a small numbers of responses could give a misleading impression, that clinics with active public relations staff could ensure good feedback, and that untried and unproven treatments, such as homeopathy, might get the thumbs up from patients despite having no rigorous evidence base.

Speakers were:

Juliet Tizzard, Director of Strategy and Corporate Affairs at the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority

Dr Yacoub Khalaf, Member of the the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, and Director and Person Responsible of Guy's Hospital's Assisted Conception Unit

Susan Seenan, Chief Executive of Infertility Network UK, and Co-Chair of Fertility Fairness

Antonia Foster, Senior Associate at solicitors, Carter-Ruck

The event was chaired by Professor Adam Balen, Chair of the British Fertility Society, and Consultant in Reproductive Medicine and Surgery at the Leeds Centre for Reproductive Medicine

This is a recording of the event.

Photo by Mehmet Pinarci