Intelligence Squared

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 organise outside the official Communist Party are quickly stamped out. But the effects of the Great Firewall are not confined to China...

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 improved health, wealth and opportunities to travel and experience the world, ever-increasing production and consumption – inhe...

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 of Others' with the Intelligence Squared discount click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/the-country-of-others-leila-s...

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 prevent the radical destabilisation of life on earth has already come and gone. According to Franzen, one of America’s most celebrated writers, there are tw...

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 how important parenting is. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out inf...

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 pull wildly apart. In this week's episode Amia Srinivasan speaks to Merve Emre about the politics of desire and how, from consent to capitalism, we need to rethink sex as a political phe...

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,...

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, o...

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 Harv...

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 m...

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. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  Se...

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:  Lin...

"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 Shee...

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 act...

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, migrat...

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 disinformatio...

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 with his skin? Why did many people in the 1980s mistakenly perceive book pages to be slightly red in colour? Will we one day be able to control a robot with our thoughts, just as we do our fingers a...

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 don't), their life - as surely as the lives of Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor - may be snatched away in a single, fateful second. In this week...

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, it is being criticised as being a malign influence in debates about some of the most pressing issues of the modern world – overpopulation, Aids, gl...

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, shaping our outlook and identity, forging our friendships and charting our love affairs. They become part of our story. In this special podcast for Intelligence Squared, journalist...

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 discuss how we can move forward on these seemingly intractable issues. The episode was hosted by Farah Ja...

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 articulate their life experience. In the face of overcrowded prisons and cuts to mental health care, Adshead speaks to Linda Yueh about why we need to ch...

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 what happens to humanity when it is forced into social isolation, how our modern societies are built for comfort and convenie...

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 to be nominated by a major party for State Governor. Her fight against voter suppression helped win Georgia for the Democrats and helped Joe Biden secu...

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 Intelligence Squared Germany in partnership with the European Council on Foreign Relations. The host was Ulrike Franke.   To find out more about ECFR click here: https:...