Intelligence Squared
Intelligence Squared is the home of lively debate and deep-dive discussion. Follow Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy four regular episodes per week taking you to the heart of the issues that matter in the company of the world’s great minds. We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be. Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to podcasts@intelligencesquared.com or Tweet us @intelligence2.
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876
Framing: A Guide to Thinking in the 21st Century
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 respons...
54 min
877
Ed Miliband on How To Build a Better World
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. Thi...
56 min
878
Salman Rushdie on Truth, Language and the Power...
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 com...
52 min
879
Carlo Rovelli and Philip Pullman on the Science...
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 hi...
52 min
880
Music in the Age of COVID-19, with David Gray a...
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 202...
33 min
881
The New Space Race, with Nicholas Schmidle and ...
When Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004, the goal was simple: to offer civilian space travel by the end of the decade. Seventeen years, a dozen delays and one catastrophic rocket crash later, we are on the verge of space tourism becoming a...
55 min
882
Common Ground: How to Democratise Nature
Spending a mere two hours a week outside is scientifically proven to lower blood pressure, enhance the immune system and reduce anxiety. Yet, for many communities, nature and the countryside are inaccessible with many city-dwellers struggling to find g...
55 min
883
Choices for a Better Now, with Ece Temelkuran a...
Many of us felt it before but 2020 was the year it became undeniable: the status quo is not working. Political discontent is widespread – and for good reason. So what can we do now to change course? In this week's episode award-winning po...
49 min
884
The Hidden Language of Trees with Suzanne Simard
Trees have memories. They have wisdom. They cooperate in communities of immense complexity, communicating underground through a huge web of fungi, at the centre of which lie the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful entities that nurture their kin and...
52 min
885
Niall Ferguson on the Politics of Catastrophe
Why was the response of the UK and US to the coronavirus pandemic so bungled? How can we be better prepared when the next disaster strikes? These are the questions that historian Niall Ferguson discussed with Rana Mitter in this week's episode. Dr...
56 min
886
Joe Biden: Moderate or Radical? With Evan Osnos...
As we pass Joe Biden's first one hundred days in office as President of the United States, we're joined by The New Yorker's Evan Osnos author of the biography Joe Biden: American Dreamer to discuss who...
56 min
887
Mona Eltahawy on the Seven Necessary Sins for W...
Be angry, ambitious, profane, violent, attention-seeking, lustful, and powerful. These are the “seven necessary sins” that Egyptian writer and activist Mona Eltahawy says women and girls are not supposed to commit – but absolutely should. Eltahawy advo...
55 min
888
Getting into the Doughnut, with Kate Raworth an...
In this week's episode Kate Raworth, Oxford University economist discusses what she calls Doughnut Economics, an idea she came up with to help humanity deal with the challenges we face today: financial crises, extreme wealth ineq...
57 min
889
The Social Dilemma, with Tristan Harris and Hel...
In this week's episode Tristan Harris, star of Netflix hit documentary 'The Social Dilemma' speak to Helen Lewis about the the enormous power technology has in steering human attention and behaviour. They discuss how the business model o...
38 min
890
Difficult Women, with Helen Lewis and Rosamund ...
Helen Lewis argues that feminism's success is down to complicated, contradictory, imperfect women, who fought each other as well as fighting for equal rights. Too many of these pioneers have been whitewashed or forgotten in our modern search for f...
35 min
891
Debate: The West Must Engage not Confront China
This week's episode features a debate from Intelligence Squared Germany in partnership with the ECFR. Kerry Brown goes up against Anastasia Lin on the question of how the West should engage a more assertive and powerful China.
The deba...
37 min
892
Jews Don't Count, with David Baddiel and Armand...
In this week's episode comedian and writer David Baddiel discusses his new book, Jews Don’t Count. He argues that the progressive movement which often prides itself on principles of equality, justice and protecting minorities overlooks these thing...
60 min
893
Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race, ...
Walter Isaacson is the bestselling author of Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein and Steve Jobs. His new book is The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race, a gripping account of how Nobel Prize-winner Jennifer Do...
48 min
894
Amal Clooney, Geoffrey Robertson and Bill Browd...
Geoffrey Robertson QC is one of Britain’s leading human rights champions. Twenty years ago he helped fuel the global justice movement with his groundbreaking book Crimes Against Humanity. In April 2021, alongside fellow human rights lawyer Amal Clooney...
61 min
895
Bonus: The Economy and Markets After Covid-19
In this special bonus episode, brought to you in partnership with online trading platform IG, Joshua Mahoney, Senior Markets analyst at IG, speaks to Linda Yueh about how the pandemic has impacted trading and investing. From Netflix to Deliveroo, there...
30 min
896
From Bridgerton to Peaky Blinders: Historic Hou...
47 min
897
The Handshake: A Gripping History
37 min
898
Debate: Is The West Fundamentally Racist?
The West is rich because the rest is poor. Capitalism is racism. So argues Kehinde Andrews, academic and self-described Black radical, who came to Intelligence Squared on March 29 to set out the ideas in his latest book, The New Age of Empire: How Raci...
53 min
899
Was Jesus A Great Moral Teacher? With Julian Ba...
Even if we don't believe that Jesus was the son of God, we tend to think he was a great moral teacher. But was he? And how closely do idealised values such as our love of the family, helping the needy, and the importance of kindness, match Jesus...
41 min
900
Debate: The Time Is Right for Scottish Independ...
Should Scotland be independent? In this week's podcast Alex Massie and Lesley Riddoch go head to head on the question of whether the time has come to break up Britain and for Scotland to go it alone. The debate was chaired by Manveen Rana.
57 min