Why are measures of stress and anxiety on the rise, when economists and politicians tell us we have never had it so good? While statistics tell us that the vast majority of people are getting steadily richer the world most of us experience day-in and day-out feels increasingly uncertain, unfair, and ever more expensive. In this video podcast Professor Mark Blyth and Eric Lonergan speak … Continue reading Angrynomics: Why The World is So Angry
Since the lockdown, many of us have been spending more time than ever on our screens devouring the news. How is this changing the way we think and feel? And how exactly is the business model of social media influencing events in the real world? More than half of people in Britain and America now get their news from social media. And the reaction to … Continue reading Understanding Human Behaviour in the Time of Corona
Mindfulness has gone mainstream. From education to healthcare, the corporate world to criminal justice, parliament to the military, this ancient Buddhist tradition has been reignited in the Western conscience as the old cure for modern ills. The practice encourages, mostly through meditation, the observation of present thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations in a non-judgemental way. By being more mindful, advocates argue we can develop life-changing … Continue reading Mindfulness Myth Will Make You Miserable
Video and audio are the most visceral mediums of human communication. From the movies that reduce us to tears to the music that lift our spirits, what we see and hear has huge power to shape our beliefs and guide our behaviour. We all know when we watch Star Trek or immerse ourselves in EDM that we are suspending reality in order to feel a … Continue reading Fakebook: Why Deep Fakes Mean Deep Trouble
Don’t get me wrong, I like chickens. As a child I loved visiting the farm and feeding the little chicks in their pen. I just don’t think when deliberating what’s at stake for the U.K in signing a post Brexit trade deal with the United States that poultry should be the focal point of debate. From Jeremy Corbyn to the BBC it seems everyone has … Continue reading It’s Not About Chicken
“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change” Continue reading The Corporate Capture of Social Change
(Image: Patrick Record) From the Trans Rights Movement to the rise of the ‘White Right’, identity has become a powerful force in modern politics. The shift away from broad based party politics to a more tribal system divided along lines of race, gender and sexual orientation is generally described as the rise of Identity Politics. Peter Franklin has also labeled the phenomenon as “Cultural Marxism” – a … Continue reading Identity Politics: Commonality or Common Enemy?
“The truth is that there are no races” Kwame Anthony Appiah controversially wrote in 1985 launching him into fame and notoriety among his professional peers. In this fascinating conversation between two of the most esteemed and provocative thinkers on racial identity, Appiah sits down with Professor Priya Gopal to unpack the philosophy of race, it’s historical development and why it’s not a ‘biological category.’ For … Continue reading “The truth is there are no races”
The discussion around Artificial Intelligence (AI) can sound a lot like Brexit. It’s coming but we don’t know when. It could destroy jobs but it could create more. There’s even questions about sovereignty, democracy and taking back control. Yet even the prospect of a post Brexit Britain led by Boris “fuck business” Johnson doesn’t conjure the same level of collective anxiety as humanity’s precarious future … Continue reading Do the benefits of artificial intelligence outweigh the risks?
(Image: Steve Cutts) The way in which we consume information determines how we interpret it. In his seminal work “Thinking, Fast and Slow” Daniel Kahneman, Nobel prize winning behavioural psychologist describes how two basic systems govern the way we think. We have a primal ‘system one’ way of thinking which is fast, impulsive and emotional. We also have a ‘system two’ form of thinking which is slow, deliberative … Continue reading Why News And The Internet Don’t Mix
