Podcast

Cambridge Festival Of Ideas 2018

محاضرات

University of Cambridge

Our society is more unequal than ever, as the top 1% control over 44% of the world’s wealth while 689 million people are living on less than $1.90 per day. In this episode, we asked our guests what the future of fairness, justice, and equality should look like, and how their research can help to bring about a fairer society. Alexa Hagerty and Natalie Jones shared how injustice can be thought of as an existential risk to humanity, while Esra Ozyurek introduced us to the importance of understanding that different people have different needs, making equality insufficient to bring about justice. We cover topics ranging from distributive justice, the virtues and vices of empathy, and the role AI will play in shaping equality in the years to come. 

This episode was produced by Nick Saffell, James Dolan and Naomi Clements-Brod. Annie Thwaite and Charlotte Zemmel provide crucial research and production support for Series 2.

Please take our survey. How did you find us? Do you want more Mind Over Chatter in your life? Less? We want to know. So we put together this survey https://forms.gle/r9CfHpJVUEWrxoyx9. If you could please take a few minutes to fill it out, it would be a big help.

What would a more just future look like?

Artificial Intelligence can be found in every aspect of our lives. From A-level grade predicting algorithms to Netflix recommendations, AI is set to change the choices we make and how our personal information will be used. 

Subscribe to the podcast here: mind-over-chatter.captivate.fm/listen

In this episode, we explore the future of AI - its potential benefits and harms - with our three guests. Beth Singler told us about the different cultural consequences of AI, and how the way we think about the future of AI reflects more about society today than the future itself. John Zerilli shared his views on the consequences of AI for democratic decision-making, and Richard Watson urged us to conceive of the future of AI in terms of ‘scenario planning’, rather than predicting the future directly. We cover topics ranging from how to make AI ‘ethical’, how the media representation of AI can colour the public’s perception of what the real issues are, and the importance of an international AI regulatory system. 

This episode was produced by Nick Saffell, James Dolan and Naomi Clements-Brod. Annie Thwaite and Charlotte Zemmel provide crucial research and production support for Series 2.

Please take our survey. How did you find us? Do you want more Mind Over Chatter in your life? Less? We want to know. So we put together this survey https://forms.gle/r9CfHpJVUEWrxoyx9. If you could please take a few minutes to fill it out, it would be a big help.

What is the future of artificial intelligence?

Our reproductive capabilities are changing in exciting ways, altering our fundamental understanding of fertility, reproduction, and even parenthood. 

Subscribe to the podcast here: mind-over-chatter.captivate.fm/listen

In this episode, we asked our guests what the consequences of novel reproductive technologies are likely to be, and how they will impact the future of human reproduction. Alice Reid told us about how reproduction has changed over the last 200 years and the likely demographic impact of assisted reproduction, while Lucy Van de Wiel introduced the important ways in which reproductive technologies must be considered in the context of wide social and political issues. Thorsten Boroviak shared his exciting and cutting-edge research on developing new reproductive technologies. We cover topics ranging from egg-freezing, so-called ‘three-parent-babies, and the importance of studying the embryonic development of primates.

This episode was produced by Nick Saffell, James Dolan and Naomi Clements-Brod. Annie Thwaite and Charlotte Zemmel provide crucial research and production support for Series 2.

Please take our survey. How did you find us? Do you want more Mind Over Chatter in your life? Less? We want to know. So we put together this survey https://forms.gle/r9CfHpJVUEWrxoyx9. If you could please take a few minutes to fill it out, it would be a big help.

What is the future of reproduction

Updates on Detroit's water shutoffs, corporations prioritize profit at people's expense (4 big examples), US Senators making money, economics of ebola, and hedge funds pay fines with pensioners' money. Interview: Dr. Obery Hendricks, Jr., on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s lifelong criticism of capitalism and preference for democratic socialism. Response to listeners on (1) economics of the disabled (productivity and wages) and (2) reduced 2014 deficit in US.

Capitalism, Inequality, and Martin Luther King

Every day your immune system is busy protecting you from the thousands of germs around you that can make you sick. It does its job so efficiently that you don’t even notice that it is at work. Micro-organisms are present in your gut and interact with your body during periods of health and disease. When the immune system hits the wrong target, however, it can unleash a torrent of disorders, including inflammatory diseases, cancer, and autoimmune disease. Come along and be enlightened by our experts in the field.

Panelists: Dr Eoin McKinney (Autoimmunity - Dept of Medicine), Dr Maike De La Roche (Immunity - CRUK), Dr Sam Forster (Microbiota - Sanger Institute). Chaired by Prof Clare Bryant (Innate Immunity - Dept of Vet Medicine).

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

The dangers of the dark web are explored in a discussion that looks at how anonymous users can purchase illegal firearms and drugs on this hidden part of the internet. The challenges this poses and what could be done to manage its impact are also examined.

• Giacomo Persi Paoli is a research leader at RAND Europe in the Defence, Security and Infrastructure Group, where he leads the National Security and Resilience research portfolio. Giacomo will give an introduction to RAND Europe’s research into cryptomarkets – the black markets on the dark web – and reveal the size and scope of the dark web and what is available for trade, with a focus on illegal firearms.

• Stijn Hoorens is the head of RAND Europe's Brussels Office and an associate director of RAND Europe. His research interests are broad, but most of his work has revolved around issues related to illicit markets, security, demographic issues, employment, and skills. Stijn will be looking at how the dark web has facilitated the trade in illicit drugs and how the findings converge and differ between firearms and drugs.

• Steve Welsh is a senior manager at the National Crime Agency in the UK and heads up the Dark Web Intelligence Collection and Exploitation department. He will be giving an insight into the evolving threat of dark web markets and sharing some of the UK’s success in combatting it with international partners.

• Judith Aldridge is Professor of Criminology in the School of Law at the University of Manchester in the UK, she is the author of over 80 publications in the drugs field; 19 of these on ‘darknet’ drug markets. As a counterpoint, Judith will explore some of the unexpected benefits of the dark web, such as how it may reduce some of the harms generally associated with global drug prohibition.

15 Oct - SHINING A LIGHT ON THE DARK WEB

Why do fundamentalist beliefs and practices function as they do? Why are they so attractive? How should we distinguish between fundamentalism, extremism, radicalism and orthodoxy?

Professor Kim Knott, Lancaster University, Ed Kessler MBE, Woolf Institute, Cambridge, and Tobias Müller, Woolf Institute and POLIS, University of Cambridge, present their reflections on fundamentalisms, particularly in Jewish, Muslim, Christian and non-religious contexts. They draw on case studies and fieldwork in religious communities in the UK and Europe. In addition, the panellists present some conceptual proposals on how best to study and conceptualise fundamentalism in order to make it an analytical and useful category that takes seriously the historical development of the term. The presentations focus on shared characteristics such as the role of patriarchy, the desire to return to a golden age, the significance of sacred texts and truth claims, anti-pluralist attributes, the importance of charismatic leadership and the influence of globalisation. At the same time, the presentations will point out characteristics that are particularly noticeable amongst some religious fundamentalisms but not others, for example sacred land is important to Jewish, Sikh and Hindu fundamentalists but less so for Christian and Buddhist. Finally, the panel will address how fundamentalism relates to mainstream interpretations of the same religion.

Chair: Dr Sara Silvestri, Senior lecturer, City, University of London and Bye Fellow, St Edmund's College, Cambridge

Read Tobias' feature article: https://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/what-fundamentalism-and-what-should-we-do-about-it

15 Oct - RETHINKING RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM

This panel reflects on mystical experiences in epilepsy and what they can teach us about empathy, personal reflection, and how different traditions of faith or non-faith can intersect in big questions about the nature of personal experience.

This panel includes experts on the psychology of religion and people who have had mystical seizures. By using a rare and unusual phenomena that has implications for both medical and faith communities, this talk aims to address how we engage with the hard to understand subjective experiences of others and how competing understandings of the nature of these extreme experiences can share the explanatory landscape. Rather than simply focusing on the science of mystical seizures, this panel aims to address what these experiences tell us about spiritual plurality, interfaith understanding, and how we grapple with first hand accounts of experiences inaccessible to most people.

With Prof. Rev. Alasdair Coles, Joseph Tennant, Ian Ball, Mordecai Zeller

18 Oct - THE MYSTERY OF MYSTICAL SEIZURES

With huge internal and external pressures facing the European Union, including the rise of nationalist and populist movements of all types across Europe - both inside the EU and outside, as well as the power struggle going on for control of Europe, can it survive?

With Ian Kearns, co-founder of the European Leadership Network and author of Collapse: Europe after the European Union, Dr Julie Smith, Director of the European Centre in the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, John Breuilly, professor of nationalism and ethnicity at the London School of Economics, and Timothy Less, associate researcher at the University of Cambridge and director of the Nova Europa consultancy, which provides political risk analysis of Eastern Europe.

Chaired by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire's Chris Mann.

18 Oct - EUROPE IN THE AGE OF EXTREMES

Best-selling author Tara Westover talks to Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman about her memoir, Educated, which tells of her experiences growing up in rural Idaho, raised by a radical, survivalist father who was intensely paranoid about government interference in the lives of his family. In the book she writes of how, through the pursuit of knowledge, she evolved into a 'new self'. She says: 'You could call this selfhood many things. Transformation. Metamorphosis. Falsity. Betrayal. I call it an education.'

Read Tara's feature article: https://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/educated-tara-westover-conversation-hadley-freeman

20 Oct - EDUCATED: TARA WESTOVER IN CONVERSATION WITH HADLEY FREEMAN

Will the future of work be one in which jobs become ever more precarious and robots take over or can we regulate to make the gig economy and artificial intelligence work in our favour? With Magdalena Soffia, former UN consultant and researcher in Sociology at the University of Cambridge, Dr Alex Wood, a sociologist of work and employment at the University of Oxford, Dr Hatice Gunes, associate professor in the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory, and Laetitia Vitaud, HR specialist and writer on the future of work.

20 Oct - THE FUTURE OF WORK

Many common sayings warn us against being judgmental: “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” is one familiar directive, underscoring the vulnerabilities of human judgments to distortion and bias and reminding us of our own exposure to others’ negative judgments. Nevertheless, we continue to make judgments, both positive and negative, because we have evolved to do so. In this talk psychologist Dr Terri Apter, former Senior Tutor at Newnham College, describes a 'judgment meter' at work in our brains, emerging in infancy and shaping our relationships with parents, children, spouses and colleagues throughout our lives. Rather than trying to suppress judgmental activity, we should respect its power as an inevitable feature of the human mind.

22 Oct - Praise And Blame

What does gender equality mean in practice? Is feminism a threat to men or a collective liberation from social stereotypes? A panel discussion will look at the links between equality at work and equality at home and how the move towards gender equality connects to wider issues of social equality. With Jude Browne, Jessica and Peter Frankopan Director of the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies, economist Victoria Bateman, sociologist Manali Desai, film, TV and theatre director Topher Campbell and Duncan Fisher from the Family Initiative. Chaired by psychologist Magdalena Zawisza.

24 Oct - BRIDGING THE GENDER DIVIDE

The University Library is delighted to have been given the archive of the satirical TV programme Spitting Image. The first latex puppet to arrive is Margaret Thatcher. In this podcast, by Made For Your Podcasts, Spitting Image creator explains why the archive is coming home, and Mrs Thatcher speaks form beyond the grave...

Spitting Image archive comes to Cambridge University Library

Has parliament taken back control and if so, are MPs about to shed their traditional party loyalties to prevent a no-deal Brexit? Listen to David Howarth, Professor of Law and Public Policy and former Cambridge MP, and Simon Deakin, Professor of Law, discuss what’s likely to happen in the Brexit negotiations in both the short and longer term.