Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven are without doubt two of the most sublime musical geniuses who ever lived. But which of the two was the greater? To battle it out In part one of this live event, Intelligence Squared brought to the stage two celebrated figures from the world of music: world-renowned cellist Steven Isserlis for Bach and acclaimed music critic Norman Lebrecht for Beethoven. The event was hosted by the BBC’s Reeta Chakrabarti, with Mishka Rushdie Momen on the piano.Part two and three of this event are available ad free, for subscribers now. And for our listeners who don’t subscribe part 2 will be available in our next episode. This conversation took place in April 2023. It was produced by Executive Producer Hannah Kaye, with editing by Lead Producer Catharine Hughes—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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With roots in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, ballroom culture evolved into a vibrant movement that has since been a haven of self-expression, creativity, and community for the LGBTQ individuals, particularly those from the black and latino community. It's a world of flamboyant fashion, fierce competition, and above all, a celebration of identity. In this episode, we're not just exploring the sequins and voguing, we're delving deeper. We discuss the significant impact of ballroom culture on popular culture and its commodification in the mainstream, and we address its crucial role as a form of protest and its influence on the fight for LGBTQ rights and acceptance.And the Category Is…Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community, By Ricky Tucker—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 get ad-free access to all Intelligence Squared podcasts, including exclusive bonus content, early access to new episodes and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today for just £4.99, or the equivalent in your local currency . Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When writer and musician Eliza Hull was pregnant with her first child, like most parents-to-be she felt a mix of nerves and excitement. But as a disabled person she faced added complexities. Would the pregnancy be too hard? Would people judge her? Would she cope with the demands of parenting?On May 24th, 2023, Hull came to Intelligence Squared with host, writer, and campaigner Lucy Webster, where they discussed the themes of Hull's new book, 'We've Got This: Essays By Disabled Parents.' The anthology explores the highs and lows of their parenting journeys, showing that often the greatest obstacles lie in other people's attitudes.This event was produced by Executive Producer Hannah Kaye with editing by Executive Producer Rowan Slaney.—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 for just £4.99, or the equivalent in your local currency .Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode we bring you our event ‘The Battle for Your Brain’, recorded on the 2nd of May 2023.Imagine a world where people who suffer from epilepsy receive alerts moments before a seizure, where the average person can peer into their own mind to eliminate painful memories and we can easily cure addictions. This is also a world where your brain could be interrogated to learn your political beliefs, your thoughts can be used as evidence of a crime, and your own feelings can be held against you. One of the world’s foremost experts on the ethics of neuroscience, Professor Nita Farahany claims that neuroscience has already made all of this possible today, and neurotechnology will soon become the ‘universal controller’ for all of our interactions with technology. According to Farahany, the growth of commercial neurotechnology could be of immense benefit to humanity, but without safeguards, it could seriously threaten our fundamental human rights to privacy, freedom of thought and self-determination. With our host Research Director for the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at the think tank Demos, Carl Miller, Farahany offers a path forward to navigate the complex legal and ethical dilemmas that will fundamentally impact our freedom to understand and define ourselves.To hear the full length episode of this event and to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, head to intelligence Squared.com/members.This event was produced by Executive Producer Conor Boyle with editing by Executive Producer Rowan Slaney.—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 get ad-free access to all Intelligence Squared podcasts, including exclusive bonus content, early access to new episodes and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today for just £4.99, or the equivalent in your local currency . Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether it's skiing in Afghanistan, eating lobster in Cuba, or a package tour in North Korea - here are some things to consider for when you plan your next holiday. In this episode of the podcast we explore the ethical boundaries of travel and tourism to countries under a repressive regime. Is it justifiable to travel to such places, potentially aiding oppressive governments with tourism dollars? Or, could these visits serve as a crucial bridge, creating an avenue for dialogue and cultural exchange, and an opportunity for the outside world to witness the realities on the ground?Our host for this episode is Philippa Thomas, and our guests are James Willcox, Suki Kim, and Evan Dyer.—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 get ad-free access to all Intelligence Squared podcasts, including exclusive bonus content, early access to new episodes and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today for just £4.99, or the equivalent in your local currency . Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode we bringing you the recording of our event ‘Tory Nation: How One Party Took Over’, recorded on the 10th of May 2023.The Conservative Party has been in power in the United Kingdom since 2010, stumbling its way through corruption scandals, the turmoil of Brexit, a pandemic, and five prime ministers. And yet it has won the last four elections in a row. How?With host Commissioning Editor and Writer at the New Statesman, Will Lloyd, Samuel Earle came to Intelligence Squared to shed light on the Conservatives’ remarkable grip on power throughout history. Drawing from his new book ‘Tory Nation’, Earle explored the Conservatives’ ruling class origins in the eighteenth century, their influence on the British press and their historic appeal to working class voters to piece together the reasons for their political success. To hear the full length episode of this event and to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, head to intelligence Squared.com/members to become a member today.This podcast was produced by Senior Producer Conor Boyle with editing by Executive Producer Rowan Slaney—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 get ad-free access to all Intelligence Squared podcasts, including exclusive bonus content, early access to new episodes and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today for just £4.99, or the equivalent in your local currency . Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To mark the passing of one of Britain's most celebrated writers, we’re replaying an event recorded with us in November 2020.Martin Amis was often called the Mick Jagger of the British book world. As famous for his love affairs, his friendships and his complicated family history as for his dazzling prose, he dominated the literary scene for decades. In this exclusive Intelligence Squared event, made in partnership with Penguin Live, he speaks about his much anticipated autobiographical novel Inside Story. It is perhaps Amis’s most intimate book, a meditation on love, loss, ageing and death. We encounter the vivid characters who have helped define Amis – his father Kingsley, his literary hero Saul Bellow, the poet Philip Larkin and his novelist stepmother Elizabeth Jane Howard. And of course there is his lifelong friend and conversation partner, Christopher Hitchens, whose death from cancer he chronicles in some of the tenderest prose he has ever written. In conversation with novelist Alex Preston, Amis reflects on his life and work and explore the hardest questions we all face: how to live, how to grieve, and how to die.This podcast was produced by Executive Producer Hannah Kaye with editing by Executive Producer Rowan SlaneyTo hear the full length episode in which Amis goes into the urgency of youth, the legacy we leave, and dealing with the death of Hitchens, become an Intelligence Squared Supporter today, just visit IntelligenceSquared.com/members—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.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is part two of our live event on the end of the war in Ukraine. In March 2023, the BBC’s Clive Myrie, was joined by four leading historians, Orlando Figes, Max Hastings, Anne Applebaum, and Olesya Khromeychuk, to discuss when - and how - this almost decade-long conflict could end.Part two and three of this event are available ad free, for subscribers now. And for our listeners who don’t subscribe part 2 will be available in our next episode. This conversation is part of Intelligence Squared’s live debate partnership with the Southbank Centre.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 get ad-free access to all Intelligence Squared podcasts, including exclusive bonus content, early access to new episodes and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today for just £4.99, or the equivalent in your local currency . Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the Russian army struggling to make gains in Eastern Ukraine and the devastating impact of the war taking its toll, many are wondering if Vladimir Putin’s war may be nearing an end point, and what a realistic end to this conflict may look like.In part one of this live event the BBC’s Clive Myrie, was joined by four leading historians, Orlando Figes, Max Hastings, Anne Applebaum, and Olesya Khromeychuk, to discuss when - and how - this almost decade-long conflict could end.Part two and three of this event are available ad free, for subscribers now. And for our listeners who don’t subscribe part 2 will be available in our next episode. This conversation took place in March 2023 and is part of Intelligence Squared’s live debate partnership with the Southbank Centre.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 get ad-free access to all Intelligence Squared podcasts, including exclusive bonus content, early access to new episodes and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today for just £4.99, or the equivalent in your local currency. Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Human beings have been telling stories for thousands of years, but what actually makes for a good story? Authors have been trying to settle on the great principles of compelling writing for as long as people have been writing. Yet, as Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro argue, something has gone amiss in these manuals on the art of storytelling: they have tended to privilege a Western perspective.Anappara and Soomro came to Intelligence Squared to talk about their new anthology, Letters to a Writer of Colour, in which they ask us to critically examine the assumptions that shape the way we think fiction should be written. What might fiction look like if we considered alternative ways of constructing narratives that were grounded in the experiences of a person of colour?Together with with two of the contributors to the collection, Sharlene Teo and Leila Aboulela, they explored one of the things we all have a primal need for – stories, and lots of different kinds of them.This podcast was recored on the 4th of April 2023 and was produced by Executive Producer Hannah Kaye. Editing was by Executive Producer Rowan Slaney—Thanks for listening to this episode of Intelligence Squared! 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 get  ad-free access to all Intelligence Squared podcasts, including exclusive bonus content, early access to new episodes and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today for just £4.99, or the equivalent in your local currency . Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices