Intelligence Squared

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://ecfr.eu/ Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

17 Jun 202154min

Join the debate and discuss this episode with fellow listeners on our Multytude conversation here: https://multytudelink.page.link/2u9nK2SP7SH7DCyU7 -- Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their status at birth. For much of history this was a revolutionary thought, but by the end of the twentieth century it had become the world's ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left? In this week's episode Adrian Wooldridge speaks to Mark Mardell about his new book 'The Aristocracy of Talent' and why we should reform but not abandon the meritocratic idea. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

15 Jun 202142min

To explain the power of anthropology to help us better understand the modern world, Financial Times journalist and bestselling author Gillian Tett joined us in this week's episode. Tett has a PhD in anthropology from Cambridge University and outlining the ideas in her acclaimed new book Anthro-Vision, she showed how we can identify what she calls the ‘webs of meaning’ that underlie consumers’ behaviour in very different cultures across the world. The episode was hosted by former editorial director of the BBC Kamal Ahmed. To get the Intelligence Squared discount on the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/anthro-vision-how-anthropology-can-explain-business-and-life-gillian-tett/ Subscribe to Intelligence Squared Business here: https://apple.co/3pHTKhT Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

11 Jun 20211h 1min

An industrialist looks at a rain forest and sees trees to cut down and sell, while an environmentalist sees the ‘lungs of the planet’. To one person, complying with a mandate to wear a face mask in public during a pandemic is an act of communal responsibility. To another, it’s a denial of personal freedom. Same data, but opposite conclusions. The reason for this, believe internationally acclaimed authors Kenneth Cukier and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, is that we all look at the world through different ‘frames’. By recognising the frames that we are using, they say, we can all learn to rethink them and make better decisions. We can see the world in entirely new ways. In May 2021 Cukier and Mayer-Schönberger came to Intelligence Squared to share their insights. In conversation with science writer Timandra Harkness they explained how our ability to adjust our vantage point on the world is the essential skill humanity needs for the 21st century and will help us address the looming challenges we face, from pandemics to populism, AI to cyberattacks, wealth inequality to climate change. As examples, they pointed to the way Spotify beat Apple by framing music as experience, how the #MeToo Twitter hashtag reframed the perception of sexual assault, and how, as they argued, the UK’s decision to frame Covid-19 as seasonal flu led to disaster, while New Zealand’s framing it as SARS led to only 26 deaths. The event was hosted by Timandra Harkness.  To buy the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/framers-kenneth-cukier-viktor-mayer-schoenberger-francis-de-vericourt-bookomi/ ---------- This week’s episode is sponsored by Transport for London. Visit madeby.tfl.gov.uk/i-stand-with to find out more about how TfL are standing up against hate crime on the public transport network. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

8 Jun 202157min

Is the pandemic a wake-up call to build a better world? Ed Miliband, politician and host of the award-winning Reasons to Be Cheerful podcast, thinks so. And in June 2021 he came to Intelligence Squared to discuss the ideas in his new book Go Big. Think of any problem, he will argue, and there is already a brilliant solution to it. We don’t need massive innovation. We just need to know where to look – and then have the courage to think big and scale up. People all over the world are already successfully putting into action bold ways to tackle everything from inequality and the climate crisis to the challenges of housing, technology and democratic renewal. Whether it’s implementing the Green New Deal, lowering the voting age to 16, or replacing GDP with well-being measurements, we already have the tools we need to transform the way we live and work. To buy the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/go-big-how-to-fix-our-world-ed-miliband/ Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

4 Jun 202159min

Salman Rushdie, internationally bestselling author and ‘Best of the Booker’ winner, is a storyteller of the highest order, illuminating truths about our society and culture through his dazzling prose. Best known as a novelist, he is also a compelling essayist and last month he came to Intelligence Squared to talk about the ideas in his latest collection of nonfiction, Languages of Truth. In conversation with cultural critic Shahidha Bari, Rushdie shared with us his personal encounters, on the page and in person, with storytellers from Shakespeare and Cervantes to Philip Roth and Toni Morrison. We heard his thoughts on Christopher Hitchens and the American Right, Osama Bin Laden and Pakistan, and on the role of artists, intellectuals and ordinary citizens in fighting for freedom of speech and thought. To buy the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/languages-of-truth-essays-2003-2020-salman-rushdie/ Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

1 Jun 202155min

Carlo Rovelli is the internationally bestselling theoretical physicist whose many fans include Benedict Cumberbatch, Antony Gormley, Neil Gaiman and Lily Cole. In May 2021 he came to Intelligence Squared to talk about the themes of his new book Helgoland, in which he takes us back to the birth of a revolutionary idea that has reshaped the whole of science and our very conception of the world. Rovelli told the story of the brilliant young Werner Heisenberg who, suffering from hay fever, retreated to the treeless island of Helgoland in the North Sea where he began to glimpse a world in which nothing exists until it interacts with something else, upending our all-too-solid conception of reality. This is the world of quantum theory. Now a century on from Heisenberg’s extraordinary insight, Rovelli has done what he dared not do before – to connect quantum theory with a panoply of philosophical ideas, including Buddhist thought, the problem of consciousness and even the discussions between Lenin and Bogdanov at the time of the Russian revolution. He explained that the way we interpret this insight has profound implications for our culture and philosophy. As he says, ‘Our ‘I’ is made of relations, as is our society, our cultural, spiritual and political life… It is time to take this theory fully on board, for its nature to be discussed beyond the restricted circles of theoretical physicists and philosophers, to deposit its distilled honey, so sweet and a little intoxicating, into the whole of contemporary culture.’ Rovelli was in conversation with Philip Pullman, author of the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, and named by The Times as one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. These two master storytellers discussed how it is only through our imaginations that we can truly understand the world we live in. To buy the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/helgoland-carlo-rovelli/ Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

28 Mai 202155min

In this week's episode acclaimed singer/songwriter David Gray speaks to Rosamund Urwin about how music and the arts have fared throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. David had originally planned to spend 2020 embarking on a huge string of 'White Ladder' anniversary shows to mark 20 years since the release of his breakthrough multi-million selling album. When these arena dates - like so many other live shows - were rescheduled due to the pandemic, David chose instead to finish a record he had recorded prior to lockdown at Edwyn Collins’ Helmsdale studio on the Sutherland coast. Entitled ’Skellig’, The title comes from the story of Skellig - a formation of precipitous rocky islands off the coast of Co. Kerry, the most westerly point in Ireland. Ravaged by the Atlantic, the seemingly un-inhabitable location of Skellig Michael became an unlikely site of pilgrimage in 600AD for a group of monks, who believed that leading such a merciful existence, they would leave the distraction of the human realm to be ultimately closer to God. You can stream 'Skellig' in full from here: http://bit.ly/DavidGraySkellig Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

25 Mai 202136min