Once little more than a pornography filter, China’s ‘Great Firewall’ has evolved into the most sophisticated system of online censorship in the world. As the Chinese internet grows and online businesses thrive, speech is controlled, dissent quashed, and attempts to organise outside the official Communist Party are quickly stamped out. But the effects of the Great Firewall are not confined to China itself. In this week's episode James Griffiths tells Carl Miller about his years of investigation into the Great Firewall and the politicians, tech leaders, dissidents and hackers whose lives revolve around it. To pre-order the new version of James's book book click here: https://amzn.to/3xVi6qK For FREE access to our live recording with Jude Law on Wednesday 18 click here and enter promo code 'PODCAST' at the checkout: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/jude-law-how-i-found-my-voice-registration-166901469789Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Capitalism is driving us to disaster. Our planet is heading for a terrifying environmental cataclysm – and our economic system is responsible. The defining characteristic of capitalism is perpetual economic growth. And while it has brought us wonderful benefits, including improved health, wealth and opportunities to travel and experience the world, ever-increasing production and consumption – inherent in capitalism – are an existential threat to life on our planet. The more we produce and consume, the more energy we need – and renewables can’t keep pace. Unless we abandon capitalism now, we will inevitably continue to drive up the demand for fossil fuels. According to some scientific predictions, human civilisation could completely collapse by 2050 if we don’t take drastic action to stop climate change now. We must end capitalism before it’s too late. That’s the view of the anti-capitalist eco-warriors. But while it’s undeniable that capitalism has contributed to our current climate crisis, it has also proven to be history’s most effective way of solving our problems. According to capitalism’s defenders, there is almost no challenge capitalism hasn’t met. It has helped defeat disease and has lifted billions out of poverty – and there’s no reason why the dynamism of the marketplace can’t be harnessed to bring our carbon emissions down to zero. For example, until recently solar panels were impossibly expensive; now they are cheap and helping us transition away from fossil fuels. Our system of competitive, open markets gives strong incentives for the world’s brightest minds to find creative solutions to climate change. So don’t listen to the doomsayers who want to rip up our economic system. Capitalism is not the problem; it’s the solution. This event was recorded in January 2020 at the Royal Geographical Hall in London.CHAIR: Ritula Shah - Journalist and presenter on Classic FMSPEAKERS FOR THE MOTION: George Monbiot - Guardian columnist, environmental campaigner and author of Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet and Farhana Yamin - International environmental lawyer and leading activist in the Extinction Rebellion protestsAGAINST THE MOTION: Adair Turner - Chair of the Energy Transitions Commission and Tony Juniper - Sustainability adviser—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

In conversation with writer and cultural historian Shahidha Bari, Slimani shared her insights into the impact of colonialism and the ways in which women in particular find themselves othered, politically, culturally and historically. To buy her new book 'The Country of Others' with the Intelligence Squared discount click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/the-country-of-others-leila-slimani-subscribers/Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let’s face it, argues Jonathan Franzen: the climate apocalypse is coming. We’ve already messed up the planet. The polar bears are running out of ice to stand on. Australia and California will burn again. Temperatures keep rising. Our chance to prevent the radical destabilisation of life on earth has already come and gone. According to Franzen, one of America’s most celebrated writers, there are two ways we can think about this. We can keep on hoping that catastrophe is preventable, and feel ever more frustrated or enraged by the world’s inaction. Or we can accept that disaster is coming, and begin to rethink what it means to have hope. In this episode of Intelligence Squared, Franzen explored what we can do once we accept the idea that it is too late to ‘save the planet’.—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

How important is parenting? The multibillion-pound parenting industry tells us we can all shape our children to be joyful, resilient and successful. But what if it’s all bunk? Intelligence Squared brought together a panel of leading experts to explore just how important parenting is.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How should we talk about sex? It is a thing we have and also a thing we do; a supposedly private act laden with public meaning; a personal preference shaped by outside forces; a place where pleasure and ethics can pull wildly apart. In this week's episode Amia Srinivasan speaks to Merve Emre about the politics of desire and how, from consent to capitalism, we need to rethink sex as a political phenomenon. To pre-order 'The Right to Sex' click here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/right-to-sex-9781526612533Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How did Dee Hock of Visa transform the way we pay for things? How did Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, create the biggest knowledge transfer engine the world has ever seen? And how did Barack Obama and his grassroots team revolutionise political campaigning? They did it by doing what most leaders dread – they gave away power. On July 19 Matthew Barzun, former US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, came to Intelligence Squared to share the leadership insights he has gained over the course of his successful and varied career. For the discount on the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/the-power-of-giving-away-power-how-the-best-leaders-learn-to-let-go-matthew-barzun-intel/Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How should we remember Napoleon, the man of obscure Corsican birth who rose to become emperor of the French and briefly master of Europe? In 2014, as the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo approached, Intelligence Squared brought together two of Britain’s finest historians to debate how we should assess Napoleon’s life and legacy. Was he a military genius and father of the French state, or a blundering nonentity who created his own enduring myth? Was his goal of uniting the European continent under a common political system the forerunner of the modern ‘European dream’? Or was he an incompetent despot, a warning from history of the dangers of overarching grand plans?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Testosterone – a hormone that has been mythologised, maligned and misunderstood. It is frequently cited as the basis of male aggression and sexual violence. Christine Lagarde, former chair of the IMF, once said ‘There should never be too much testosterone in one room’, as a way of pinning the blame for the economic crash of 2008 on the predominance of men in the financial sector. According to Harvard evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven, such representations of testosterone are simplistic and misguided. And in July 2021 she came to Intelligence Squared to debunk the cultural stereotypes surrounding it. Drawing on the themes of her new book Testosterone: The Story of the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us, she addressed questions about testosterone’s impact on gender and sexual behaviour, parenting roles, childhood play and other areas of our everyday lives. She also addressed the controversial issue of testosterone’s role in gender transition and its effect on athletic performance, a much discussed topic in the debate over whether transgender women competing in female sport have an unfair advantage. And she argued that while we need a better understanding of the science behind this potent force in society, such knowledge should not be used as a means of reinforcing gender norms or patriarchal values. Hooven was in conversation with Tom Whipple, science editor of The Times, who was named Science Journalist of the Year in the 2020 Press Awards. For the Intelligence Squared discount on the book click here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/testosterone-the-story-of-the-hormone-that-dominates-and-divides-us-carole-hooven/Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you start your day with a cup of tea or coffee you are ingesting a consciousness-altering drug, which you are quite likely to be addicted to. That drug of course is caffeine, the stimulant used by 90 per cent of people on earth, and it is one of three mind-altering molecules that bestselling author Michael Pollan has been investigating for his new book This Is Your Mind on Plants, alongside morphine, produced by the opium poppy, and mescaline, found in certain cacti. In conversation with the medical doctor and broadcaster Guddi Singh, Pollan explores humanity’s longstanding and powerful attraction to psychoactive plants. Why do we go to such lengths to seek these shifts in consciousness, and why do we then hedge this desire with laws, customs and fraught feelings? And why do we categorise these compounds so reductively – calling them either a licit or an illicit drug? For, as Pollan will argue, when we take these psychoactive plants into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways possible. Click here to get the Intelligence Squared discount on the book: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/this-is-your-mind-on-plants-michael-pollan/Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices