Academy of Ideas

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe FOREVER FRIENDS? NEGOTIATING ONLINE RELATIONSHIPS http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8939 Social media is now an indispensable, inescapable part of growing up. But for all the benefits of instant connection and discussion with friends,...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe FROM YID ARMY TO GREEN BRIGADE: FREE SPEECH FOR FOOTBALL FANS? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8920 Over the past few years, football fans have been treated increasingly as naughty children and issued with a list of rules governing e...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe SHOPPING AND FRETTING: THE ETHICS OF BUYING THE RIGHT THING http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/9018 The public outrage that followed the discovery of several ‘forced labour’ labels sewn into clothes stocked by budget clothing shop Prima...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe IS DEMOGRAPHY DESTINY? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8922 With the world’s population expected to reach nine billion by 2050, understanding the coming demographic changes is increasingly viewed as essential for planning how to dist...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe ROMANTIC LOVE: JUST AN ILLUSION? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8943 The past 50 years have seen an acceleration of openness and tolerance about sex. It is now possible to discuss - and even do - almost anything; taboos have been ai...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe THE ROBOTS ARE COMING: FRIEND OR FOE? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8918 There has been renewed excitement recently in the potential of robots, from automated machines including driverless cars to the potential of miniature robots...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe PIGS CAN'T FLY? SURVIVING AUSTERITY http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2014/session_detail/8948 In April this year, the Greek government was able to sell its bonds to the financial markets for the first time in four years. The auction of bonds was heavily...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe ASYMMETRIC WARFARE AND THE NEW TERRORISM http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10071 The world has looked on horrified in recent years at the rise of groups like Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and Islamic State (IS). Such organisations often seem...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe THE BLOG OF WAR: CONFLICT REPORTING IN A DIGITAL AGE http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10061 In recent years we have grown accustomed to the idea that media coverage of conflict is far less restricted and controlled than in the bad old...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe IS GAMING CORRUPTING YOUTH? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/9988 Worries about the effects of video games are not new, from the 1976 arcade release of Death Race, which sparked outrage in the US, to the implication of the game Manhun...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe MINDFULNESS: EMPTY MINDS FOR AN EMPTY SOCIETY http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10006 Mindfulness, a form of meditation that encourages people to focus on the present moment, has become increasingly visible in everyday society. Not jus...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe UP ALL NIGHT: CAN WE HANDLE A 24-HOUR CITY? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10101 The announcement by Transport for London that they would be running a Night Tube service provoked much excitement about the prospect that London can fi...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe THE 1916 EASTER RISING: IRELAND'S HISTORY WARS http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10051 On Easter Monday 1916 armed Irish republicans took control of Dublin’s General Post Office and various other locations, including a biscuit factory...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe MACHIAVELLI, THE PRINCE http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10013 Unarguably the most infamous of all the great works of political philosophy, Niccolo Machiavelli’s Il Principe has inspired revulsion and adoration in almost equal measure...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe HOT OFF THE PRESS - THE GREAT MIGRATION CRISIS: A PAN-EUROPEAN DEBATE http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10637 Over the past few months, it has been impossible to avoid the harrowing images of desperate migrants risking and sometimes lo...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe NEW WARS, NEW TECHNOLOGY http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10041 The rise of drones as a new kind of weapon has led many commentators to ask whether warfare has fundamentally changed. French academic and author Gregoire Chamayou argues...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe A TRIVIAL PURSUIT: IS HAPPINESS GOOD FOR YOU? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10018 Happiness is increasingly considered a proper measure of social progress and a goal of public policy. Myriad organisations, from the UN to internatio...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe JS MILL, ON LIBERTY http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10019 Few texts have sustained such extensive reference and quotation in Anglo-American politics as JS Mill’s classic. Mill’s famous ‘Harm Principle’ – that government power may onl...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe SHOULD WE TEAR DOWN FORTRESS EUROPE? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10419 The recurrent Lampedusa crisis has focused attention once more on Europe’s attitude to migration. As the Schengen Agreement, providing free movement for Europ...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe IS THE POPE CATHOLIC? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10080 From the start of his tenure as God’s authority on Earth (at least for Roman Catholics), the media has praised Pope Francis for his apparently progressive views. His backgro...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe PLUMBING THE DEPTHS: THE BATTLE FOR THE OCEANS http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10083 With the world’s population expected to reach nine billion in 2040, and perhaps as many as 11 billion by 2050, demand for resources will increase si...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe MAN VS MACHINE: WHO CONTROLS THE ROBOTS? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10073 From Metropolis through to recent hit film Ex Machina, concerns about intelligent robots enslaving humanity are a sci-fi staple. Yet recent headlines sugg...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe THE BIRTH OF A NATION: MORE THAN RACISM ON FILM? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10023 ‘Every soul in that audience was in the saddle with the Klansmen and pounding hell for leather on an errand of stern justice, lighted on their way...

Stand-up comedy is booming in the twenty-first century. But increasing numbers of stand-ups admit they refuse to play some gigs for fear of being accused of hate speech. Is political correctness killing comedy or have the standards of acceptability simply changed? Is comedy still the vanguard of free speech? Speakers Daniel O'Reilly comedian, aka Dapper Laughs Tom Slater deputy editor, spiked; coo...

Subscribe to the Academy of Ideas Substack for more information on the next Battle and future events: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe ARTISTIC EXPRESSION: WHERE SHOULD WE DRAW THE LINE? http://archive.battleofideas.org.uk/2015/session_detail/10481 The tragic murder of journalists from French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo earlier this year provoked international outrage and a renewed co...