Groupthink is endemic in large social networks. The algorithm keeps sending us things that it expects us to like and agree with so the networked world encourages confirmation bias in a way that is really quite frightening. These networks and democracy they matter hugely for the democratic process i argued this evening. It decided the outcome of what happened in the united states last year and I think it also decisions the outcome of the Brexit referendum.
Niall Ferguson is the preeminent historian of the ideas that define our time. He has challenged how we think about money, power, civilisation and empires. Now he wants to reimagine history itself. Networks, he explains, are the key to history. The greatest innovators have been ‘superhubs’ of connections. The most powerful states, empires and companies have been those with the most densely networked structures. And the most transformative ideas – from the printing presses that launched the Reformation to the Freemasonry that inspired the American Revolution – have gone viral precisely because of the networks within which they spread. Our host for this conversation is historian, author and broadcaster, Rana Mitter. The audio of this live Intelligence Squared event was recorded in London in 2017.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices