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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901
The Sunday Debate: Napoleon the Great? With And...
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 tw...
60 min
902
Testosterone: Debunking the Myths of the Misund...
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 testoster...
55 min
903
Michael Pollan: This Is Your Mind on Plants
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 t...
51 min
904
The Sunday Debate: Brave New World vs 1984
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 a...
87 min
905
Debate: Abolish Billionaires
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 bill...
53 min
906
Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination, with S...
"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 tha...
56 min
907
The Sunday Debate: Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism
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...
64 min
908
Is Mass Migration Making the World a Better Place?
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 bein...
56 min
909
The Truth about Fake News, with Marcus Gilroy-W...
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 episod...
42 min
910
The Ever-Changing Brain with David Eagleman and...
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 mi...
54 min
911
Race and Guns in a Divided America, with Carol ...
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...
34 min
912
The Sunday Debate: The Catholic Church is a For...
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,...
46 min
913
Albums that Changed My Life, with Tom Gatti, Da...
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...
49 min
914
Emma Dabiri and Alex Renton on Race, Reckoning ...
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...
58 min
915
The Devil You Know, with Dr Gwen Adshead and Li...
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 the...
35 min
916
Surviving Disaster, with Max Brooks and Carl Mi...
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 ...
31 min
917
While Justice Sleeps, with Stacey Abrams and Ta...
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 ...
47 min
918
Debate: We Must Stop Big Data's Pandemic Power ...
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 Intell...
51 min
919
Is Meritocracy a Myth? With Adrian Wooldridge a...
Join the debate and discuss this episode with fellow listeners on our Multytude conversation here: https://multytudelink.page.link/2u9nK2SP7SH7DCyU7
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Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather th...
39 min
920
Gillian Tett on a New Way To Understand Busines...
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...
58 min
921
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
922
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
923
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
924
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
925
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