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Intelligence Squared

Intelligence Squared is the home of lively debate and deep-dive discussion. Follow Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts and enjoy four regular episodes per week taking you to the heart of the issues that matter in the company of the world’s great minds. 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.

Are we living in a world designed to hijack our brains?

In this episode, Dr Emma Yhnell speaks to international best-selling author Nicklas Brendborg about how supernormal stimuli have become the norm in modern society. 

Whether it's food or our screens, Nicklas Brendborg argues that we’re living in an environment that is engineered to keep us hooked. Over centuries, through our agricultural practices we perfected food that appeals to our most basic taste receptors. But we are now in the age of ultra-processed food, which is optimised to be addictive. The same goes for our screens, where colourful social media content hooks us and the constant dopamine hits that are designed to be overwhelming make it hard to unplug from the digital world. It is these habits that are fueling modern society’s epidemics of addiction, loneliness and increasing mental health problems. But Nicklas Brendborg argues that by understanding our biology we can learn to manage our habits, resist the hijacking of our natural instincts, and learn to live with more intention, focus and presence. 

Nicklas Brendborg is a Danish scientist and author. His international bestseller Jellyfish Age Backwards has been translated to more than 30 languages and was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize. He is the youngest ever author to have been shortlisted for this award. Brendborg holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in molecular biomedicine and biotechnology from the University of Copenhagen and is now a PhD student in molecular biology. He has been recognised by, among others, the Novo Nordisk International Talent Programme and the Novo Nordisk Scholarship Programme. His latest book is Super Stimulated: How Our Biology Is Being Manipulated to Create Bad Habits – and What We Can Do About It.

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Why Are We So Addicted to Everything? With Nicklas Brendborg

On today’s episode, an episode from our friends at Sotheby's exploring the remarkable collection of Leonard A. Lauder, one of the greatest collectors and benefactors of the arts in America. At its centre is Gustav Klimt's celebrated Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, alongside works by Henri Matisse, Edvard Munch, Vincent Van Gogh and other luminaries of modern art. Ahead of Sotheby’s landmark sale of this extraordinary collection this October, Curatorial and Collections Director at the National Portrait Gallery Flavia Frigeri, Sotheby's Chairman Impressionist and Modern Art Worldwide Helena Newman, and award-winning author James Stourton will join Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum Will Gompertz for a special discussion.

Together they will explore Klimt's enduring allure – from his luminous portrait of Elisabeth Lederer to the lyricism of the Attersee landscapes – as well as Leonard Lauder's vision and insights into his once-in-a-generation collection.

This podcast was recorded at Sotheby’s London in October 2025. 

And, to step further into the world of Sotheby’s, you can visit any of our galleries around the world; they’re open to the public. For more information, visit Sothebys.com. 
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Sotheby’s Talks | The Leonard A. Lauder Collection: Klimt and the Art of Connoisseurship

The United States of America is younger than the British Museum and Guinness - in 2026 it celebrates its 250th birthday. How did this vast melting pot of people and ideas come to dominate global politics and culture?

Historian and journalist Simon Jenkins believes America’s success stems from its careful balancing of the freedoms and interests of the states and the federal government. For this episode he talks to Mythili Rao about the enduring tensions and balances that have enabled these fifty distinct states not only to survive civil war, but to prosper. He shows how there is a long strain of populism, antagonism towards Washington DC and isolationism in American politics that long pre-dates President Trump. And he makes the case that, despite its divisions, the USA is a unique achievement that will endure long after Trump has left the White House.

If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.

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Is This the Twilight of American Supremacy? Simon Jenkins on Why the World Needs the USA

Olivia Laing is an internationally acclaimed writer and critic. They are the author of eight books, including The Lonely City, Everybody and the Sunday Times bestseller The Garden Against Time. Laing’s first novel, Crudo, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and in 2018 they were awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction. 

In today’s episode, Laing sits down with host Mythili Rao to discuss their latest novel, The Silver Book. The Silver Book is at once a queer love story and a noirish thriller, set in the dream factory of cinema. 

Weaving a fictional account from the creation of Federico Fellini’s flamboyant biopic Casanova and Pasolini’s notoriously shocking, Salò, or 120 Days of Sodom, Laing explores the difficult relationship between artifice and truth, illusion and reality, love and power.

If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.

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Olivia Laing on Passion and Heartbreak in the Golden Age of New Italian Cinema

Salman Rushdie is one of the world’s most acclaimed, award-winning contemporary authors. 

Translated into over forty languages, his sixteen works of fiction include Midnight’s Children – for which he won the Booker Prize in 1981, the Booker of Bookers on the 25th anniversary of the prize and Best of the Booker on the 40th anniversary – Shame, The Satanic Verses, Quichotte and Victory City. His latest non-fiction book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature and was made a Companion of Honour in the Queen's last Birthday Honours list in 2022.

In this episode, Rushdie sits down with broadcaster and journalist Kavita Puri to discuss his reflections on legacy, mortality, and returning to fiction in his new short story collection The Eleventh Hour.

The stories in The Eleventh Hour span the three countries that Rushdie has called home – India, England and America – and explore what it means to approach the eleventh hour of life. 

If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.

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Salman Rushdie on Mortality, Memory and The Eleventh Hour

Scott Anderson is a veteran foreign reporter and war correspondent, and a contributing writer for The New York Times. Over his career he has reported from Bosnia, Libya, Palestine and across the Middle East. 

In this episode, he spoke to host Hannah Lucinda Smith about his new book, King of Kings, a gripping account of the fall of the Shah of Iran, the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the rise of the Islamic Republic. Together, they explore the flaws that led to the Shah’s downfall, and why Western powers fundamentally misunderstood what was happening in the country in the months before the revolution. They also examine how these events shaped Iran and the Middle East today, and the political future of a country whose power has been diminished in the region, but whose population is again rallying around the flag in response to external aggression.

King of Kings: The Fall of the Shah, the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Unmaking of the Modern Middle East is available to by now.
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What was the Iranian Revolution really about? With Scott Anderson

We’ve heard enough from the pessimists. Yes, these are hard times, but what investors, business owners and all of us need right now is not more despair about the economy, but a clear roadmap towards growth and prosperity. In October 2025, Jeremy Hunt came to the Intelligence Squared stage to share his vision of how we can achieve economic renewal.

Hunt’s optimism is grounded in the authority of experience. As a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary and Health Secretary, he held some of the most demanding government offices during an extraordinarily turbulent time in recent history. Drawing on the themes of his new book Can We Be Great Again?, he challenged the fatalism that dominates so much of today’s public debate. While candid about Britain’s weaknesses, he argued that on issues ranging from European security and global trade to climate, migration and the future of democracy, the UK still has the potential to lead — if it chooses to act like a country that matters.

Hunt was in conversation with BBC journalist Jonny Dymond for this instalment of the Intelligence Squared Economic Outlook series, in partnership with Guinness Global Investors. The event was a wide-ranging discussion with one of Britain’s most experienced leaders on how the country can get back on track, at home and on the world stage.

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This recording is part of The Intelligence Squared Economic Outlook series of events made in partnership with Guinness Global Investors, an independent British fund manager that helps both individuals and institutions harness the future drivers of growth to achieve their investment goals.

To find out more visit: https://www.guinnessgi.com/
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The Intelligence Squared Economic Outlook with Jeremy Hunt (Part Two)

The Intelligence Squared Economic Outlook with Jeremy Hunt (Part One)

We’re only at the very beginning of the AI transformation. The next big leap isn’t just smarter chatbots, it’s AI agents: tools that don’t just answer questions but loop, reason, and complete whole tasks within your workflows.

In this episode, journalist and author Kamal Ahmed sits down with Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder of Box, to explain how a strong content and AI strategy enables organisations to rethink how work gets done across their businesses using AI agents. Learn why most companies don’t actually have an AI problem but a data problem, how unstructured data is becoming an untapped goldmine, and why governance, trust, and security are just as important as innovation.

From experimentation and scaling, to ROI and common pitfalls, this conversation maps out how leaders can move from dabbling with AI to deploying agents that create real value.

This episode is brought to you in partnership with Box.

Get the latest AI news here - https://blog.box.com/ 
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What Are The Essentials for Reimagining Work with AI Agents?

The morning after Donald Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential election, The New York Times front page declared: ‘America Hires a Strongman’. But is Trump really a ‘strongman’ and is it fair to put him in the same category of leaders as Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping?

The Trump administration is already viewed by many commentators as more authoritarian than the first. But will Trump meaningfully crack down on civil liberties? Will he persecute his political opponents? Will he use the state to enrich himself and his inner circle? And will he abandon democratic allies and align America with other authoritarian so-called ‘strongman’ states?

Many critics say the answer to all of those questions is already, demonstrably ‘yes.’ So how far could he go?

We were joined by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Anne Applebaum and host Gideon Rachman for the final instalment of our Age of the Strongman event series.

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If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full ad free conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.

For £4.99 per month you'll also receive:

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- 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events 

... 

Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99:

- Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts

- Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series

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Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access.

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The Age of the Strongman: Understanding Trump, with Anne Applebaum (Part Two)

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Anders wakes up one day to find that his skin has turned dark. Soon it transpires that this is happening to people all over the land, leading first to panic which then turns into an upheaval in establishment, power, and compassion.
In this Kafka-esque tale, award-winning Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid explores how we as a society define the concepts and structures of race, and how much in turn we let them define us. To delve deeper into The Last White Man, Mohsin Hamid joins us on the podcast, in conversation with BBC broadcaster Razia Iqbal.
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The Last White Man, with Mohsin Hamid

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