What good is philosophy?
"What is good?" is at the heart of philosophy. Asking the question helps us move toward answers about inclusivity, equality, and who gets a...
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Ideas from CBC Radio (Highlights)
Ideas is all about ideas \x96 programs that explore everything from culture and the arts to science and technology to social issues.
Episodes
20 of 329 episodesWhy hope needs rage and love
In a world swirling with crisis upon crisis, historian Kevin Gannon contends that, even in our darkest days, hope persists. It might be far...
How Houdini fought the misuses of magic
Magician Harry Houdini crusaded against for-profit psychics and séances in the years before his death. He deplored the tools of his own art...
Why 'body horror' helps us confront the fears within us
"We are the monsters" — that's the premise for the genre of film known as body horror — movies that fixate on monstrous and grotesque change...
How being curious and confused drives scientific progress
Math may be the language of the universe, and brilliant minds and technology may have unlocked many of the secrets of the universe. But the...
Why background music is everywhere
Erik Satie’s music is everywhere: in advertisements, coffee shops, and elevators. His iconic compositions like Gymnopédies have been streame...
What's for dinner in 2050?
For most of human history there was one problem with our food: there wasn’t enough of it. But the food system we built to solve that problem...
How the Humanities can pull down the screens between us
From the earliest days of cinema to our era of streaming, zooming, and scrolling, the screen has become a central part of our lives -- so ce...
AI as the new Delphic Oracle?
For more than a thousand years the Oracle of Delphi sat on a stool at the ‘navel of the universe.’ Under a mystical trance, she would offer...
The 2,000-year-old travel list to complete before you die
More than 2,000 years ago, someone sat down and wrote a travel bucket list for the ancient world — suggesting must-see places that we now ca...
How a natural catastrophe 8,000 years ago may have fueled Brexit
For the first two billion years, the Earth didn't have oxygen. That's just one of the many fascinating details Peter Frankopan reveals in hi...
How the Moon shaped humanity — and defined life on Earth
Without the Moon, the Earth would be unrecognizable. Across the eons, it has shaped our seasons, our calendars — and even the evolution of l...
Tech billionaires are betting on a coming Apocalypse
Authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor want to stop apocalyptic end-of-the-world thinking and its fantasies about colonizing other planets. “W...
Are Alberta’s separatists guilty of 'moral treason'?
If you ask security expert and author Patrick Lennox the answer is a resounding ‘yes.’ He argues Alberta separatism is less about Western al...
What draws a new immigrant to Quebec separatism?
With a newly elected government in Quebec promising to turn the province into its own country, and another separatist party warning against...
To become a Cascadian, just look south. Or north.
There’s a place where people make hoppy beer, fresh sushi, and damn fine coffee. It's called Cascadia. The lifestyle is laid-back, the scene...
Bureaumania: A 'Granular' Look at Corporate Red Tape
Bureaucracies were created to get the work done and get it done efficiently, according to 19th-century thinker Max Weber. So why are there m...
Can empathy be dangerous?
It depends on who you ask. Until recently empathy was generally considered a positive thing. But a growing number of mostly conservative voi...
How absurdist theatre is an act of resistance
Theatre of the Absurd was born in the wake of the Second World War as a recoil against the violent fetish that totalitarian regimes had for...
Grief and the cost of outsourcing feeling
Hanif Abdurraqib lives his life heart-forward. His writing is informed by the many losses he's endured, but also by his commitment to "love...