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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1226
We've Never Had It So Good
It's 2014 and what does Britain have to look forward to? Osborne’s welfare cuts. An umpteenth series of Celebrity Big Brother. Adult children still living at home and cadging off the Bank of Mum and Dad (repayment not guaranteed).
That’s the grip...
96 min
1227
An Evening With Slavoj Zizek
Radical philosopher, polymath, film star, cult icon, and author of over 30 books, Slavoj Žižek is one of the most controversial and leading contemporary public intellectuals, simultaneously acclaimed as the ‘Elvis of cultural theory’ and denounced as ‘...
90 min
1228
Let Them Come: We Have Nothing To Fear From Hig...
Does mass immigration boost our economy and cultural richness or undermine them? Hear Times columnist David Aaronovitch, former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and the economist Susie Symes go head to head with UKIP's Nigel Farage, Demos director ...
108 min
1229
Steven Pinker on The Better Angels of Our Nature
We launch our first podcast of the year today – our 2011 talk by the world renowned American cognitive scientist Steven Pinker. In it he argues that, contrary to popular belief, we are living in the least violent period of history. And that even the ho...
88 min
1230
Verdi vs Wagner: The 200th Anniversary Debate w...
Think opera and you think Verdi. Verdi created some of the most beloved operas of all time, from the romantic tragedy of La traviata and Rigoletto to the Shakespearian dramas of Macbeth, Otello and FalstaffVerdi’s music transcends the barriers betwee...
110 min
1231
Eric Schmidt On The New Digital Age
Eric Schmidt is one of the leading visionaries of our time. He has taken Google from a small start-up to one of the world’s most influential companies. In this conversation with Bryan Appleyard from May 2013, he sets out the themes of his new book ...
88 min
1232
An Anatomy Of Truth: Conversations on Truth-Tel...
Not everyone tells the truth. ‘Read my lips: no new taxes.’ ‘This isn’t going to hurt.’ ‘I see no ships, my lord.’ ‘Of course I love you.’ When can we know what to believe? Four out of five of us don’t think politicians tell the truth, according to a r...
96 min
1233
Putin Has Been Good For Russia
There’s not a lot to like about Vladimir Putin: he’s autocratic, vain and runs a corrupt government. And he doesn’t give a fig for human rights. The repression in Chechnya, the jailing of the (now pardoned) businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the Puss...
96 min
1234
Nate Silver On The Art And Science Of Prediction
Nate Silver is the 35-year-old data engineer and forecaster with superstar status. He shot to fame in 2008 for correctly predicting the outcome in 49 out of 50 states in the US presidential election. In 2012, when most media pundits and political analy...
84 min
1235
Angela Merkel is Destroying Europe
They're calling her the devil. Inflammatory words, but Europe has every reason to be livid with the German Chancellor. Angela Merkel’s austerity measures are strangling the economies of the southern nations of Europe, creating huge unemployment an...
47 min
1236
Jimmy Carter in Conversation with Jon Snow
President Jimmy Carter is a Nobel Prize winner, author, humanitarian, professor, farmer, naval officer and carpenter. In this special Intelligence Squared interview with Channel 4 News's Jon Snow, which took place in October 2011, President Cart...
71 min
1237
Send Them Back: The Parthenon Marbles Should be...
What’s all this nonsense about sending the Parthenon Marbles back to Greece? If Lord Elgin hadn’t rescued them from the Parthenon in Athens and presented them to the British Museum almost 200 years ago, these exquisite sculptures – the finest embodimen...
46 min
1238
The West Has Failed Syria
To say “The West has failed Syria” tempts us into the dangerous belief that had we only got stuck into this conflict from the off, things would now be better. It’s a belief, as recent history shows, we badly need to resist.So speaks the voice of caut...
88 min
1239
The Catholic Church is a Force For Good in The ...
Can anything good really be said of an institution that has such a warped attitude to sex that it tries to stop the world from wearing a condom, is bitterly opposed to gays leading a fulfilled life and regards women as unworthy of officiating in its ri...
46 min
1240
Daniel Dennett on Tools to Transform our Thinking
Daniel Dennett is one of the world’s most original and provocative thinkers. A philosopher and cognitive scientist, he is known as one of the ‘Four Horseman of New Atheism’ along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens.On M...
83 min
1241
Thomas Friedman: A Manifesto For Rescuing America
14. Thomas Friedman: A manifesto for rescuing AmericaThomas L. Friedman is an internationally renowned author, reporter, and columnist – the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes and the author of six bestselling books, and writes a twice-weekly column ...
60 min
1242
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
1243
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
1244
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
1245
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
1246
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
1247
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
1248
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
1249
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
1250
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