Steven Pinker is one of the greatest and sanest minds of our time – a true polymath who uses scientific data to guide us. He is a Johnstone Professor at Harvard University and the author of many books. He shares his thoughts with us on topics like the origin of language, identity politics, free will, climate change denial and social media.
IntellectInterviews Posts
The Factual Feminist, Christina Hoff Sommers, shares her view of what real feminism is and point out everything she finds wrong with contemporary, third wave feminism. She argues that the idea of the opressive patriarchy is a conspiracy theory and that women are not sensitive sparrows who need trigger warnings and safe spaces. Has the word feminism been hijacked? Is the wage gap a myth? Can we be optimistic about the future?
Dr. Tytti Erästö from SIPRI gives us a full update on the current global situation regarding nuclear weapons and disarmament. What is happening in world politics on this topic? What has changed since the Cold War? Why are Russia and the US pulling out from disarmament treaties? Is it even theoretically possible to reach a nuclear weapons free world? Are nuclear weapons contributing to a more safe world with less war or is it the greatest risk to human existence today?
Would you genetically engineer your future children if you could? Where should we draw the line for what is allowed? We have entered the genetic revolution and new advancements in the genetic field are changing the world as we know it. Our healthcare systems and how we make babies are examples of areas that are already transforming. Futurist Jamie Metzl explains how and what we should do about it and his message is clear: we all have to come together and decide how to use these technologies, before it’s too late!
Languages are more complex than we might think, and to get artificial intelligence to understand them on our level is a tough task. Dr. Abhijit Mahabal has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Cognitive Science, and he has spent a decade at Google working with algorithms for natural languages. He explains what the difficulties are but also the big values of language.
Most people know of the Apollo program, which succeeded in landing the first humans on the Moon in 1969. But how much do you know of Project Mercury?
On May 20th, the publishing house Fri Tanke arranged a symposium with world famous evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins and a long list of other scientists and intellectuals. There were fascinating exchanges of knowledge and arguments on exciting topics such as evolution, AI, language and human enhancement. Here is a summary!
Professor in Astronomy, Göran Östlin, explains what scientists know about dark matter and dark energy today, what the most likely theories are, how forces from dark matter and energy counteract each other and whether or not he thinks we will solve these riddles within the next decades or not.
Interview with Mattias Lundberg, Associate Professor in psychology, about conspiracy theories, the psychology behind the phenomenon, characteristics of the conspiracy theorists and what role social media has come to play in the subject.
Interview with Ashk Dahlén, Associate Professor in Iranian Languages, about the great Persian Empire which lasted for more than 200 years and was ruled by legendary kings like Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes. Dahlén explains what was unique with the kingdom, how to deal with one-sided bias sources, the purpose of Persepolis, what we can learn from this part of history and how it relates to modern politics, both in Iran and globally.