Hear This Idea

George Rosenfeld is the founder of May Week Alternative, an initiative encouraging students to donate a significant amount of money to an effective charity. In our longest episode yet, we discuss: George’s inspiration for starting MWA; What he has learned about growing and sustaining a student-based charity; The psychology of what gets people to join the movement and donate their own money; The myths and misperceptions surrounding what it means to have a positive impact, and the most credible ways to do so. And a lot more besides! If you’re interested in starting a charitable movement, or in how to use your career or time to do more good, then I hope you’ll find this especially useful. You can read more on this episode's accompanying write-up: hearthisidea.com/episodes/george. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future guests, please get in touch through our website. Please also consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this; we're just starting out and it would really help listeners find us! If you want to support the show more directly, you can also buy us a beer at tips.pinecast.com/jar/hear-this-idea. Thanks for listening!

Professor Diane Coyle, CBE, is an economist and co-directs the Bennett Institute for Public Policy. Her current focus is on the digital economy and competition policy. She is the author of more than 15 economics books, and creator of the popular 'Enlightened Economics' blog. In this episode, we talk about the effects of digital monopoloes. How different are they from other kinds of monopoly? Is there anything new or concerning about their use of big data and algorithm-tailored adverting? And should we try to break them up? You can read more on this episode's accompanying write-up: hearthisidea.com/episodes/diane. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future guests, please get in touch through our website. Please also consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this; we're just starting out and it would really help listeners find us! If you want to support the show more directly, you can also buy us a beer at tips.pinecast.com/jar/hear-this-idea. Thanks for listening!

Dan Williams is a research fellow in philosophy at the University of Cambridge. His research addresses how various forms of irrationality and bias can be socially adaptive. How might false political beliefs and conspiracy theories have a useful 'signalling' purpose? And do we always know the reasons why we form our own beliefs? You can read more on this episode's accompanying write-up: hearthisidea.com/episodes/dan. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future guests, please get in touch through our website. Please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this; we're just starting out and it (really) helps listeners find us! If you want to support the show more directly, you can also buy us a beer at tips.pinecast.com/jar/hear-this-idea.

Kent Berridge is a distinguished professor of psychology and neuroscience at the university of Michigan and the joint recipient of the 2019 Grawemeyer Award for psychology. Through experiments on rodents, his research addresses questions about how pleasure is generated in the brain, the relation of fear to desire, and what causes addiction. You can read more on this episode's accompanying write-up. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future guests, please get in touch through our website. Please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this; we're just starting out and it (really) helps listeners find us! If you want to support the show more directly, you can also buy us a beer at tips.pinecast.com/jar/hear-this-idea.

Show Notes Tads is an undergraduate economist at St John’s College, Cambridge and current Director of the Cambridge Development Initiative. His dissertation looks at how behavioural economics can help explain patterns in gym membership. You can read more on this episode's accompanying write-up. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future guests, please get in touch through our website. Please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this; we're just starting out and it (really) helps listeners find us! If you want to support the show more directly, you can also buy us a drink here.

Show Notes Dr Vasileios Kotsidis is a teaching and research fellow in economics at St Catherine’s College, Cambridge. His research applies methods from game theory and other formal models in economics to social interactions with strategic motives. You can read more on this episode's accompanying write-up. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future guests, please get in touch through our website. Please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this; we're just starting out and it (really) helps listeners find us! If you want to support the show more directly, you can also buy us a drink here.

Show Notes Tobias Cremer is a PhD student in Politics and International Studies. His thesis examines the relationship between right-wing populism and religion in Western Europe and North America. You can read more on this episode's accompanying write-up. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future guests, please get in touch through our website. Please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this; we're just starting out and it really helps listeners find us! If you want to support the show more directly, you can also buy us a drink here.

Show Notes Dr Bateman is a fellow in economics at Gonville & Caius college Cambridge. Her research encompasses economic history, macroeconomics, and feminism. You can read more on this episode's accompanying write-up. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future guests, please get in touch through our website. Please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this; we're just starting out and it (really) helps listeners find us! If you want to support the show more directly, you can also buy us a drink here.

What is Hear This Idea? Hear This Idea is a podcast showcasing new thinking from the University of Cambridge and beyond. It is hosted by two undergrad students, Fin and Luca. This university, like so many others, is filled with academics who have fascinating things to say. We thought their work and research deserve hearing outside the lecture hall. We want this podcast to be a starting point for more people to find out about these ideas, whether you are a student looking to learn beyond your course or just curious to learn something completely new. We also just wanted an excuse to talk to some interesting people for an hour. So even if you’re not a philosopher, you might be interested in the ethics of future people, of how we measure happiness, or the philosophy of addiction and self-deception. And even if you’re not an economist, you may want to learn more about the Industrial Revolution and how women contributed to the birth of modern economic growth. Each episode is an in-depth interview where we ask academics to explain their field and their research. If topics are technical or in the weeds, we ask them to walk us through it first. Every episode also has an accompanying write-up that we publish on our website. So if you find a topic that piqued your interest, you have an article filled with links, readings, and book recommendations. Our guests have mainly come from the social sciences and philosophy, because that is what we study, but we are happy to invite any guest on who has something interesting to say. You can listen to the episodes by following the links here, and you can read the write-ups here. Do please get in touch (through our social media accounts) if you have any comments or suggestions for future guests. Thanks for finding us, and we hope you enjoy the podcast!