Episode summary: How do you find the form to tell a life?

Episode summary: In much of the western world, alphabetical order is simply a default we take for granted. It’s often the one we try first — or the one we use as a last resort when all the other ordering methods fail. It’s boring, but it works, and it’s so ingrained that it’s hard to imagine not usi...

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Episode summary: Kevin Esvelt, a scientist at MIT, argues that research intended to prevent pandemics is actually putting us in a lot more danger. Also discussed: Kevin’s own research on engineering wild animal species. Are the risks worth the benefits?

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Episode summary: As the Nazi nightmare came to an end Thomas Mann thought long and hard about collective guilt. Can Mann’s idea help America in 2021, or do we need a new theory of collective shame. NYRB has put out a recent collection of Mann’s political writings.

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Episode summary: Josie Long presents audio adventures and short documentaries about what’s gone before. A daughter’s decades-long search for her father who went missing as a political prisoner in South Africa, a poem by the German-American poet Lisel Mueller listing the parts that make up our memori...

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Episode summary: Mary Gauthier is a folk singer/songwriter whose songs have quite literally saved her life. Writing music did not come easily to Gauthier. She began abusing drugs and alcohol as a young girl growing up in Louisiana. After years of struggling with addiction, Gauthier got clean at age...

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Episode summary: In a special episode recorded live at the Bristol Festival of Economics, David and Helen talk to Ed Conway, Economics Editor at Sky News, about the biggest challenges facing the global economy. How will the supply chain crisis be fixed? Is inflation the threat it appears? Can the wo...

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Episode summary: Jay Rayner is an award-winning writer, broadcaster, author and jazz pianist. However he is best known - and beloved - as the restaurant critic of the Observer. His new book, Chewing the Fat, is a hilariously rollicking collection of his funniest columns, in which he also attempts to...

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Episode summary: Vaccines are the best way to stop deaths and serious cases related to covid19, this is an irrefutable fact. However, recent ONS data seems to show that vaccinated people had a higher all cause death rate than unvaccinated people. Why is this data misleading? Here’s a clue: it’s to d...

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Episode summary: Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Plato’s most striking dialogues, in which he addresses the real nature of power and freedom, and the relationship between pleasure and true self-interest. As he tests these ideas, Plato creates powerful speeches, notably from Callicles who clai...

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