The Conflict Around Controversial Research

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I think I feel genuine conflict around a lot of the stuff because I think that without a more critically thinking society, people really do tend to misinterpret things. And then that makes it more risky to put ideas out there if you're like, well, but I know bad people are going to use this idea to harm people. So many discoveries have been certain diptus, particularly medicine actually, and come from research into something completely different which has turned out to be very important in a completely different sphere. To take a sort of trivial example, Biagra, which was developed as a hard medicine, I think, which is now improving the quality of life of many, many, many couples,

When is a certain speech act an opinion versus a call to action? Does that distinction matter for censorship purposes? Why does it seem that human behavior tends towards censorship rather than towards freedom of expression? Is feeling emotionally or politically harmed a valid reason for censoring certain speech acts? Will it always be the case that, given enough time, truth will win out over ignorance, bullshit, misinformation, and lies? What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for creating a society in which truth wins at the end of the day? Why are citizens so often attracted to populist and/or fascist ideologies and political parties? What value does religion provide to a society?

Iona Italia is the editor-in-chief of Areo Magazine and the host of its Two for Tea podcast. Iona is the author of two books: Anxious Employment (a study of eighteenth-century essayists) and Our Tango World (sociological and philosophical musings on dance and life). She holds a PhD in English Literature from Cambridge University and publishes weekly creative non-fiction pieces on her Substack, The Second Swim. Her background includes a decade in academe and a 12-year career as a tango dancer and teacher. Iona lives in London with four old friends. She loves dancing, running, choral singing, chess, dogs, and sci-fi.

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