Academy of Ideas

#BattleFest2015: Anthropocene - are humans wrecking the planet?

#BattleFest2015: Planet of the Vapes - why is there a war on e-cigarettes?

In recent years, the
popularity of e-cigarettes has exploded. They have been celebrated by
many as being the greatest aid to smoking cessation ever invented, with
even the anti-smoking group ASH giving them grudging approval.
E-cigarettes do not contain the tar and toxins that make cigarettes
harmful, but as this is a relatively new technology, some argue we
cannot be sure of their long-term effects on people’s health. And even
if they do turn out to be harmless, detractors worry they will
‘renormalise’ smoking and act as a gateway to smoking for young people.
On these grounds organisations like the British Medical Association
say they should be subject to the same stringent regulation, advertising
bans and high taxes as tobacco. Internationally, a WHO report has
called for them to be banned in public globally and the sale of
e-cigarettes and the nicotine liquid they use is already banned in most
Scandinavian countries. Several US cities, including New York and
Chicago, have banned their use in public places.
As of 2016 in the UK, e-cigarette manufacturers will have to choose
between being regulated as a medicine by the Medicines and Healthcare
Products Regulatory Agency or adhere to strict new EU regulations that
would put them under similar regulation to tobacco products. The Welsh
Health Ministry has said it would like to ban their use in public places
and, across the UK, many pubs, workplaces, universities and public
transport companies have already banned their use despite the lack of
state coercion or public demand to do so.
There is resistance, however: the WHO report was met with an open
letter from a group of over 50 leading doctors and scientists from 15
countries urging them to reverse their call for a ban, stating that:
‘There is no evidence at present of material risk to health from vapour
emitted from e-cigarettes’ and that there is no ‘credible evidence’ that
e-cigarettes act as a gateway to smoking tobacco. 
Should the precautionary principle be applied in regard to
e-cigarette regulation? Should we be wary of the rise of e-cigarettes
when many say we should be striving towards a nicotine-free society? 
Or, is the movement to ban or hyper-regulate e-cigarettes less to do
with concern for people’s health and more about a broader culture war
over people’s lifestyle choices?







Speakers




Lorien Jollye
vaping advocate, New Nicotine Alliance UK




Dr Richard Smith
chair of trustees, ICDDR,B; former editor, British Medical Journal; chair, Patients Know Best




Christopher Snowdon
director, lifestyle economics, Institute of Economic Affairs; author, The Art of Suppression




Duncan Stephenson
director of external affairs, Royal Society for Public Health


Chair



Rossa Minogue
resources editor, Institute of Ideas

#BattleFest2015: The battle for geek culture

Debate at the Battle of Ideas 2015 (http://www.battleofideas.org.uk)With the rise of fantasy and sci-fi, geek culture is now mainstream. Yet trailing its success has come vicious infighting amongst fans. 'Gamergate' moved quickly from a dispute between game developers and journalists to a row over gamers' attitudes towards women. Dr Matt Taylor's choice of a bawdy shirt overshadowed his work in landing the Philae lander on a comet. The rise of social media has led to 'calling people out', harnessing the power of public shaming. 'Social Justice Warriors' have provoked sub-cultures such as 'Sad Puppies', who reject perceived politically correct orthodoxies. How are the frontlines of the culture wars changing?SPEAKERSAllum Bokhari (columnist, Breitbart)Serena Kutchinsky (digital editor, Prospect)Dr Maren Thom (researcher, film, Queen Mary University of London)Jason Walsh (journalist; foreign correspondent, CS Monitor)Milo Yiannopoulos (technology editor, Breitbart)

#PodcastOfIdeas: Battle of Ideas special

Trigger warning: 'If you're easily offended you really shouldn't come.' - Claire Fox
With just a few days to go before the Institute’s annual Battle
of Ideas at the Barbican in London, Rob Lyons, Claire Fox and David
Bowden get together to talk about what makes the festival unique and why
it’s an unapologetically unsafe space where ideas are fought over and
contested, as well as discussing some of the sessions they’re looking
forward to most.
To find out more about this weekend’s festival and buy tickets visit the Battle of Ideas website.

#BattleFest2016: Are greens the enemies of progress?

Listen to the introductory remarks from last week's Battle of Ideas satellite in Amsterdam
We are living longer, healthier and richer lifes than ever
before. These trends have already spread to billions of people in poorer
countries. But are the costs of all this progress beginning to outweigh
the benefits? Greens worry that the Earth cannot sustain our desire for
more, more, more. Do their worries halt progress?
Some believe that environmental concerns have gone too far, putting a
brake on growth, especially in poor countries. Are the world’s poor
only allowed to experience ‘sustainable’ development? Lately, a new
brand of greens is emerging. These so-called ‘eco-modernists’ believe
the planet can be ecologically vibrant even with many billions more
people living a good life - if only we would use our scientific
knowledge to steward the world’s resources. But can science also tell us
what kind of balance is desirable between allowing humanity to flourish
while preserving the natural world? Maybe in the end, most people
simply do not care that much about nature. And what is a good life
anyway?
Has the modern idea of progress outlived its usefulness? Do we need
new ways of understanding progress, or is it environmentalism that needs
an overhaul? And what role do greens play in this debate? Do they want
to halt progress, or simply to redefine it? Or might their redefinition
be another way of halting development? Is progress ultimately a myth?
SPEAKERS
Brendan O’Neill
editor, spiked; columnist, Big Issue; contributor, Spectator
Frank Mulder
researcher, writer and journalist; ; columnist, De Groene Amsterdammer; author, De geluksmachine (The Happiness Machine)
Ted Nordhaus
chairman, Breakthrough Institute
Joris Thijssen
campaigns director, Greenpeace Netherlands
To find out more about this year’s festival and buy tickets visit the Battle of Ideas website.

#BattleSatellite: Is Britain full?

Listen to the introductory remarks from this week's Battle of Ideas satellite at the House of St. Barnabas in London
The announcement that the UK population grew last year by half a
million – roughly the population of Edinburgh – has provoked much
discussion about whether the country will cope with an increasing demand
on resources. With half that rise coming from migration rather than
births, there have been inevitable calls to impose tougher limitations
on who can move to this country, heightening debate around free movement
in the context of Britain’s European Union membership and amid a
migrant crisis at Calais. For London, the situation is even more
pressing, with the population this year breaking its historical peak of
8.6million and expected to rise to 10 million by 2030. With UK national
house-building at record low levels – less than 150,000 new homes per
year and with soaring rents in the capital and beyond – many are
questioning whether the UK can afford an ever-expanding population.
Pro-immigration commentators counter that the UK’s growth is
testament to its economic health and that highly skilled migrants are
essential to maintaining that strength and support an increasingly
ageing population. Yet attempts to introduce Australian-style points
system of economic migration have proven to be politically fractious and
difficult to enforce. Others suggest that a radical overhaul of
Britain’s ailing infrastructure would ensure that a country which has
built on less than three per cent of its landscape has ample space.
Nonetheless, with a range of major projects ranging from fracking and
wind power through to HS2 to Heathrow’s third runway facing considerable
local and political opposition, there is plenty of pessimism
surrounding future UK capacity. Government plans to build a range of
garden cities to ease the burden on the housing sector generate
sceptical eye-rolling on all sides.
Should the UK’s continued population growth be a cause for
celebration, or seen as a worrying burden on stretched resources? Will
governmental plans to decentralise authority on planning and policy lead
to a range of national powerhouses to ease the strain on the capital,
or will it only encourage greater Nimbyism? Would tearing up Britain’s
notoriously restrictive planning regulations liberate the private sector
or lead to chaotic, unmanaged development? Does the UK face normal
pressures for a nation of its size and development, or are we suffering
from a lack of ambition?
SPEAKERS
Tom Chance
housing spokesperson, Green Party
Jonn Elledge
editor, CityMetric; writer, New Statesman
David Goodhart
director, Demos Integration Hub; author, The British Dream: successes and failures of post-war immigration
Phoebe Griffith
associate director, migration, integration and communities, IPPR
Alp Mehmet
retired diplomat; vice-chairman, Migrationwatch UK
Karl Sharro
architect; writer; Middle East commentator; co-author, Manifesto: Towards a New Humanism in Architecture
CHAIR
David Bowden
associate director, Institute of Ideas
To find out more about this year’s festival and buy tickets visit the Battle of Ideas website.

#BattleFest2016: France: liberté, égalité, fraternité today

Podcast: Rob Lyons speaks to Dr Shirley Lawes about the state of French politics and society
The world’s spotlight fell on France early this year with the
attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo. The subsequent wave of
solidarity, which rallied France around the slogan ‘Je suis Charlie’,
was heralded by many as a bold reassertion of the nation’s commitment to
the liberal values of the French Revolution. Indeed, Voltaire’s
‘Treatise on Tolerance’ climbed to the top of France’s bestseller list
in the wake of the attacks. These sentiments seemed to be confirmed by
President François Hollande’s address to the nation, where he defended
France’s ‘attachment to freedom of speech’ and said that ‘in France all
beliefs are respected’. Nevertheless, this apparent liberal zeal was
undermined by a government crackdown the same week, which resulted in
the arrest of dozens of people, including the controversial comedian
Dieudonné, for inflammatory remarks about the attacks on social media.
Does France really know what it stands for any more? A 2013 Ipsos
study found that half of French people believe their country is
suffering cultural and economic decline, and just a third believe their
democracy works well. France’s assimilationist policies have failed to
integrate large swathes of migrants, with the banlieues of major cities
becoming deprived immigrant ghettos existing very much outside
mainstream French society. And despite France having some of the
toughest hate-crime laws in Europe, it now records the highest number of
anti-Semitic attacks in the world, with a seven-fold increase in such
violence since the 1990s. Meanwhile, laïcité, or civic secularism,
originally intended to separate church and state, has come to be seen as
a veil for discrimination against Muslims, especially with bans on
certain kinds of dress.
A different kind of attempt to assert what are said to be French
values can be seen in the rise of the far-right Front National under
Marine Le Pen, which was the largest party in the 2014 European
Parliament elections and won over 2000 seats in this year’s local
government elections. Some commentators on the old left point to the
weakening of the state as the problem, others mourn what they see as the
end of working class solidarity and the rise of individualism.
President Hollande’s election slogan was ‘le changement, c’est
maintenant’ - change is now. So what really has changed in France, and
how will it face the future?
In this podcast Rob Lyons speaks to Dr Shirley Lawes about the state
of French politics and society ahead of the session she is chairing at
the Battle of Ideas: France: liberté, égalité, fraternité today.
To find out more about this year’s festival and buy tickets visit the Battle of Ideas website.

#BattleFest2016: Eugenics - myth and reality

Rob Lyons speaks to Sandy Starr about the history of eugenics and whether the term is useful today
Using techniques like mitochondrial donation - ‘three-person
IVF’ - we can alter genes to resolve congenital medical conditions.
Other techniques that change our heritable characteristics will follow.
But such developments often inspire resistance: the ability to
manipulate our germlines is sometimes described as ‘eugenics’, invoking
the horrors of Nazi racial policies, although the term was coined by
Francis Galton in 1883. Are we going too far in altering our genes or
should we embrace the ability to conquer illness? Should we worry about
attempts to ‘improve’ human beings?
In this week’s podcast Rob speaks to Sandy Starr from the Progress Educational Trust and convener of the Battle over Life and Death
strand at this year’s Battle of Ideas about the dark history of
eugenics and the use and abuse of the term today ahead of a session he’s
chairing called Eugenics: myth and reality.
To find out more about this year’s festival and buy tickets visit the Battle of Ideas website.