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. 


And if you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today. Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. 





Society & Culture
Arts
News Commentary
1126
David Eagleman on the Science of De- (and Re-) ...
Which side were you on? The Jets or the Sharks? The Capulets or the Montagues? The Greeks or the Trojans? Antony or Caesar? William or Harold? And so the list goes on ... Indeed, maybe the whole of human history is the story of group-making and group-b...
77 min
1127
Naomi Wolf on 'Vagina: A New Biography'
American author Naomi Wolf made her name with The Beauty Myth, a book that exposed the tyranny of the ideal of female beauty. Now she’s back with a no less dramatic or controversial new work. In Vagina: A New Biography Wolf makes the case that the vagi...
94 min
1128
Chris Anderson on the Democratisation of Manufa...
In an age of custom-fabricated, do-it-yourself product design and creation, the collective potential of a million garage tinkerers and enthusiasts is about to be unleashed...Check out today's Advent podcast where Wired Magazine editor Chris Ande...
82 min
1129
Jeffrey Sachs on JFK and His Quest For Peace
How can leadership lessons from the past be applied to intractable international problems today?In this talk from July 2013, shortly before the 50th anniversary of President John F Kennedy's assignation, the world renowned economist Jeffrey Sach...
80 min
1130
Terry Eagleton in conversation with Roger Scruton
What really divides the left and the right? To answer this question, Intelligence Squared brought together two giants of British intellectual culture for an ideological reckoning: Terry Eagleton, literary critic and long-time hero of the radical left, ...
87 min
1131
Dan Pink on the Science of Buoyancy
It happens to all of us every day. You get rejected. Your customer doesn’t buy. Your boss doesn’t agree. Your crush doesn’t say yes. In this provocative and entertaining talk, Daniel Pink, author of the New York Times best seller Drive, harvests a ri...
79 min
1132
Michael Sandel on the Moral Limits of Markets
Should we pay children to get good grades? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, or selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay?Michael Sandel is one of th...
66 min
1133
Robert Macfarlane on Landscape and the Human Heart
How do the landscapes we love shape the people we are? Why do we walk? For several years and more than a thousand miles, celebrated travel writer Robert Macfarlane has been following the vast network of old paths and routes that criss-cross Britain and...
31 min
1134
Western Liberal Democracy Would be Wrong for China
People everywhere are better off living in liberal democracy: that has been the reigning assumption of the western world. But could it be we’ve got it wrong? If you were one of the world’s billions of poor peasants might you not be better off under a s...
99 min
1135
Pornography is Good For Us: Without it We Would...
Hooray for porn! What would we be without it? Bored, repressed, frustrated. Porn allows the timid to indulge fantasies they’d never live out in real life and the adventurous to experiment with new forms of pleasure. Now that it has stepped down from th...
86 min
1136
Both Britain and the EU Would Be Happier if The...
Some people just can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that a relationship is over. Finished. Unsalvageable. David Cameron, for instance. His long awaited speech on Europe has been one big exercise in denial. Yes, we should stay married to Europe, he s...
46 min