Join us for an eye-opening journey into the world of gossip with hosts Shahid Nowshad and Yael Friedman. Discover how gossip, often dismissed as trivial chatter, has shaped societies and influenced history in profound ways. This captivating discussion will explore the origins of gossip in censorship and its powerful role in shaping narratives, suppressing dissent,…
"Civility is not about silencing our differences, but about speaking truth with grace." - Alexandra Hudson, The Soul of Civility Join us for a conversation with author Alexandra Hudson on the urgent issue of civility in our modern world. The call for a return to civility has been ever present through human history. From the…
Writer Henry Oliver continues the Western Canon Book Club series with a salon about the birth of Romanticism. Shakespeare's biggest influence was on the Romantics, the two generations of European…
Whether you know the economist and poet Zoë Hitzig from her landmark paper co-authored with Vitalik Buterin and our friend Glen Weyl or her powerful pieces of literature, it is clear she's one of the rare individuals who understand what's going on with people right here, right now, on both the analytical and lyrical levels.…
The first of a series of conversations with Robin Hanson, this salon will discuss what "the sacred" is and how best to identify and explain its roles in human life.…
Legitimacy, cooption, retaliation: the three pillars of power are never more up for debate than in a year when a country elects its new leaders, when it exerts its democratic force to make the one who represents the majority best its chief executive. Mass media, educational institutions, and communities of worship all play important roles…
In 2023, Kiubon Kokko was awarded a $100,000 fellowship grant by O'Shaughnessy Ventures to create a feature documentary about his father's 10-12 hour swim from communist China to Hong Kong in 1973. In this salon, Kiubon will talk about what led to him undertake this project: the challenges he and his family faced in the…
Hollywood screenwriter Michael Sonnenschein, The Common Reader essayist, literary critic, and Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life writer Henry Oliver, and former screenwriter-playwright and now Interintellect founder-CEO Anna Gát lead a discussion on whether humans have lost their storytelling ability thanks to bitesize phone videos and binge-watching streaming services, or instead we're…
In this introductory salon, we’ll define key terms like “psychedelic” and “set and setting” in order to show how Jewish wisdom, practices, and narrative can serve as both the container…
A grandson of the Baal Shem Tov (the founder of Hasidic Judaism), Rebbe Nachman (1772-1810) originally from Bratslav, Ukraine, is growing in popularity to this day as thousands of pilgrims…
Drawing on evolutionary psychology, history, brain science, game theory, and more, cooperation theorist (and, coincidentally, zombie expert) Athena Aktipis reassuringly explains how we, as a species, are hardwired to survive…
