The overlapping truths of history and fiction
Fact and fiction may seem poles apart but writers Esi Edugyan and Tiya Miles find the two intertwine perfectly in their award-winning storyt...
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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.
Ideas from CBC Radio (Highlights) Podcast Guide
Listen to Ideas from CBC Radio (Highlights), a Society & Culture podcast by CBC. Stream 294 episodes in English, follow new audio stories, and play episodes online on Radio and Podcast.
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Episodes
20 of 294 episodesTurn to the power of 'freudenfreude' in times of despair
The world is feeling darker and darker these days. So this podcast might be a much-needed balm. It's about hope — a practice that scholar Sh...
David Bowie took his own death as a creative catalyst
Throughout his career, it wasn't unusual for David Bowie to sing about death. But the musician used his own mortality as a theme for a final...
How to brace for a world of unheard-of conditions
Alain Deneault has a philosophical cure for eco-angst. He proposes turning the angst into actions in the face of unprecedented, unpredictabl...
Bringing a farm — and its philosophy — back to life
Growing up with food insecurity, Julian Napoleon yearned to be a farmer. His great-grandparents once farmed on the Saulteau First Nations re...
How the Anthropocene is changing the elements — and us
Our relationship with earth and water is changing in the Anthropocene, says renowned author Robert Macfarlane. Humanity has become a transfo...
What emerges from the ashes after a wildfire? (Pt 3)
The summer of 2026 has been defined by the smoke — and the horror — of wildfires around the world. But what comes after one of these fires?...
How Indigenous ecology is reviving land destroyed by wildfires (Pt 2)
What happens to the land after a brutal wildfire? IDEAS visited St'át'imc territory near Lillooet, B.C., to follow land guardians and scient...
A book prescription for mental health?
On the surface, bibliotherapy might sound like another personal wellness trend, but it definitely isn’t. In fact, it’s an approved form of m...
Protecting childhood innocence is a disservice to kids, argues expert
We should move away from this idea that childhood should be filled with innocence, safe from the knowledge of difficult things argues Critic...
Eugenic thinking has never gone away
Eugenics is seen as a 19th-century idea put into horrific 20th-century practice. But the attraction to breeding “better” humans has a long a...
Wait, so addiction might not be a brain disease?
That’s what Hanna Pickard argues. After analyzing the scientific research, and working with those who’ve stopped self-destructive drug and a...
Are psychopaths real? A review of the science says, no
Thanks to Dexter and Hannibal Lecter you may think you know what a psychopath is. But a critical review of the science suggests that 'psycho...
Why we should 'fight like hell' against Big AI
"We need to separate AI from empire," says tech journalist Karen Hao who used to work in Silicon Valley as an engineer. Now she’s an outspok...
We believe in artificial intelligence the same way we believe in ghosts
Hidden in the 1950 academic paper that launched the famous 'Turing Test' of machine intelligence, is a strange mystery. Cryptographer Alan T...
With a decline in reading is our capacity to think eroding?
Thanks to AI, it's easier than ever to avoid reading books — but that convenience may come with a cost. IDEAS explores how our digital lands...
What if AI had empathy and 'maternal instincts'?
If AI continues to develop without appropriate guardrails, a worst-case scenario could lead to human extinction, warns the 'godfather of art...
Artificial Intimacy: Love, Grief, and AI Chatbots
Millions of people are using AI to “talk” to the dead. The phenomenon has left cyberpsychologist Elaine Kasket asking what happens when we r...
Can the fierce wars of today end in peace?
If intractable conflicts in the 90s could end in peace agreements, is there hope for the ongoing wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and beyond? Wh...
Was justice served by South Africa's peace accord?
The apartheid era in South Africa ended in 1991 with the National Peace Accords. The peace agreement also paved the way for a Truth and Reco...