Interintellect founder Anna Gát continues her series A History of War with a look at the famous sieges of history, from Masada to Leningrad, from Málaga to Sarajevo, to explore the stages of how civilian life breaks down, but also human resilience, resourcefulness, and perseverance when under attack. We will touch upon deterrence and preemptive…
In this salon, Interintellect founder Anna Gát leads a discussion on military intelligence - strategic, operational, tactical. We will look at the history of espionage and strategic planning, as well…
George Packer, author of the National Book Award-winning The Unwinding, Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century and, most recently, Last Best Hope, joins Morten Høi Jensen…
Interintellect Tom Beakbane discusses the divisions in society and how they might be reconciled. Here are four suppositions about our collective predicament: Society is undergoing extremely rapid change resulting from technological developments. The institutions that have historically provided social cohesion and sensemaking are proving inadequate. Levels of social anxiety are increasing and society is fractionating…
In the penultimate episode of A History of War series hosted by Interintellect founder Anna Gát, we will explore reparations, reconstruction and redistribution - regeneration - and how countries both victorious or defeated deal with what comes after the fighting. “What has come to light is neither nihilism nor cynicism, as one might have expected,…
In the last episode of our A History of War series, Interintellect founder Anna Gát leads a discussion on the future of war: we'll look at not just drones and biological weapons, space colonisation and mind control, but also the changing political geography we inhabit, and what new trends in governance might mean for the…
Part Four of the Understanding Addiction series hosted by psychologist and neuroscientist Marc Lewis, and drug, policy, and intervention researcher and activist Shaun Shelly. In the final salon in the series, Shaun and Marc will discuss how current policies and treatment approaches oppress individuals and groups and increase the risk of harm, disease, and even death…
Come join David White for the next installment of a salon series dedicated to exploring the themes, ideas, and world-building of science fiction. We will start analyzing the world of Ender's Game and discuss the costs of war, the importance of empathy, and the logic of survival. Ender’s Game serves as an important meditation on the nature…
Join Alaka Halder and Wes Chow for a special Interintellect book club discussion to celebrate the Stripe Press reprint of Pieces of the Action by Vannevar Bush. Instrumental to the development of radar, the proximity fuze, modern computer analysis, the mass production of penicillin, and sparking the Manhattan Project—Vannevar Bush (1890 - 1974) truly had…
Hello! My name is Andy, you probably know me as the host of the History of Africa Podcast. The Aksumite Empire was a fascinating empire that dominated East Africa for a millennium. Its hegemony came crashing down around the year 960, when a mysterious woman named Gudit destroyed the struggling empire once and for all,…
National Book Award winning author Phil Klay joins fellow veteran writer and technologist Sean Patrick Hughes to discuss the positive role of comedy in writing about the darkest topics. While humor is a part of art, it rings most true because it is a part of life. Moments of levity are intractably woven through us…
