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Tagged with “society” (116) activity chart

  1. RSA - How Cooking Can Change Your Life

    How Cooking Can Change Your Life 30th May 2013;

    Cooking involves us in a dense web of social and ecological relationships: with plants and animals, the soil, farmers, our history and culture, and, of course, the people our cooking nourishes and delights. Cooking, above all, connects us.

    And yet many people now spend a lot more time watching other people cook on TV than doing it themselves. And the outsourcing of this work to corporations has had disastrous effects on our health, our family life, and even on our agriculture.

    Renowned journalist, activist and author Michael Pollan presents a compelling case that cooking is one of the simplest and most important steps people can take to improve their family’s health and well-being, build communities, help fix our broken food system, and break our growing dependence on corporations. Approached in the proper spirit, Pollan suggests, cooking becomes a political act.

    Speaker: Michael Pollan is a food activist, and the author of Second Nature, A Place of My Own, The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defence of Food and Food Rules.

    Chair: Tim Lang, professor of Food Policy at City University London.

    http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2013/how-cooking-can-change-your-life

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  2. This Is Interesting Podcast: Will Google and Facebook Destroy the Middle Class?

    Jaron Lanier is one of the most interesting minds you’re ever likely to come across – flat out.

    He’s off the charts smart. He’s articulate. He’s a polymath, a computer science guru, and he’s a man with seriously unconventional hair, as this New Yorker profile from 2011 shows.

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_kahn

    And he’s worried the Internet, as it works today, could gut the middle class.

    Who is he to make such predictions? Well, Jaron helped create virtual reality in the 1980s and 1990s and he’s still active in any number of high-tech ventures, including a part-time role as a research scientist at Microsoft. He’s advised governments and helped launch successful start-ups.

    And, yet, Jaron has become the most authoritative critic of the today’s technologist culture and Internet business models. He fears the current architecture of digital networks will leave the middle class poorer, despite promises to the contrary.

    I first met Jaron after his first book, “You Are Not A Gadget,” came out. In it, he offered his early thinking on the Internet and what’s wrong with where it was headed. I had him on when I guest hosted on MSNBC and he also appeared once on “Left Right & Center” to talk tech news. His new book, “Who Owns The Future,” is a brilliant critique of today’s emerging internet economy, and offers Jaron’s vision of a “humanistic information economy” that could capture the benefits of this wondrous digital world while at the same time preserving an economy in which human dignity – and middle class incomes – flourish.

    You won’t get more outside the box than Jaron Lanier – but that’s exactly where we must go to find out how to cope with what’s coming. He’ll be the first to admit that his vision isn’t fully formed, but he’s trying to spark a national and global conversation. I hope you’ll find him as fascinating, provocative, and important as I find him.

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  3. Public Intimacies: The Royal Commission on Human Relationships - Hindsight - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

    Women’s liberation, gay liberation, and the so-called permissive society, €”this story charts the groundbreaking and controversial government inquiry into the social changes of the 1970s.

    The 1970s was a time of social and cultural transformation in Australia. The rise of women’s liberation, gay liberation, and the so-called permissive society meant that the line between private behaviour and public life was beginning to break down.

    There was a new willingness to speak up about experiences of discrimination, and new urgency to push for change, especially to laws around homosexuality and abortion.

    The Whitlam government was full of reforming zeal when it was elected in late 1972. But while it couldn’t change the laws around abortion, it did create something much more complex: a Royal Commission on Human Relationships.

    This inquiry into family and intimate life would go on to provoke fierce outrage and resistance. But it opened up conversations about private life that we’re still having today.

    Special thanks to the National Archives of Australia, who supported this project through the 2012 Frederick Watson Fellowship.

    Guests:
    Bobbie Burke, Former staff member of the Royal Commission on Human Relationships
    Anne Deveson, Writer and broadcaster
    Robert Eillicott, Former Minister for Home Affairs in the Fraser government
    Elizabeth Evatt, Former Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia
    Gabrielle Hyslop, Daughter of the Royal Commission’s official secretary, Robert Hyslop
    Elizabeth Reid, Former advisor on women’s affairs to Prime Minister Gough Whitlam
    Faye Roberts, Former staff member of the Royal Commission on Human Relationships
    Peter de Waal, Former activist and member of CAMP NSW (the Campaign against Moral Persecution)
    Sue Wills, Former activist, researcher for the Royal Commission on Human Relationships, and historian

    Publications:
    Title: Royal Commission on Human Relationships Final Report, Volumes 1-5
    Author: Elizabeth Evatt et al
    Publisher: Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra 1977

    Title: Royal Commission on Human Relationships Interim Report
    Author: Elizabeth Evatt et al
    Publisher: Government Printer, Canberra 1976

    Title: Australians at Risk
    Author: Anne Deveson
    Publisher: Cassell Australia 1978

    Title: Public Intimacies: Revisiting the Royal Commission on Human Relationships 1974-77
    Author: Michelle Arrow
    Publisher: in ‘Acts of Love and Lust: Sexuality in Australia from 1945-2010’ edited by Reynolds, Featherstone & Jennings, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, forthcoming, 2013

    Further Information:
    Women’s Weekly article about the Royal Commission - 28 December 1977 (http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/45656799)

    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/public-intimacies3a-the-royal-commission-on-human-relationships/4646926

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  4. Douglas Rushkoff and Present Shock - Future Tense - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

    Renowned US media theorist Douglas Rushkoff argues we now live in a state of ‘Present Shock’ where we’ve lost our understanding of time; and where our sense of what the future should and could be has been seriously diminished. He explains the cause and symptoms of ‘Present Shock’.

    Guests:
    Douglas Rushkoff, Media theorist and author of ‘Present Shock’.

    Publications:
    Title: Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now
    Author: Douglas Rushkoff
    Publisher: Current Hardcover

    Further Information:
    Douglas Rushkoff’s Website (http://www.rushkoff.com/present-shock/)
    Wall Street Journal Excerpt of "Present Shock’ (http://www.rushkoff.com/blog/2013/3/14/wall-street-journal-adaptation-from-present-shock.html)
    2011 Future Tense Interview with Douglas Rushkoff (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/douglas-rushkoff-and-program-or-be-programmed/3001884)

    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/douglas-rushkoff-and-present-shock/4631768

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  5. The Politics of Public Things - Big Ideas - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

    Professor Bonnie Honig opens the 2013 Thinking Out Loud lecture series and asks whether democracy can survive the neoliberal demand to privatise public things?

    In the first of three talks she discusses Donald Winnicott’s notion of transitional objects, the role it plays in childhood development and what it might mean for society. She also draws on the work of the highly influential political philosopher Hannah Arendt and by way of a few real world examples she describes how Hurricane Sandy forced people to remember and embrace “old world” public goods like pay phones ….and there’s reference to Big Bird from Sesame street which she contends has come to symbolise a world where the few remaining public objects are constantly under threat.

    Highlights of The Politics of Public Things: Neoliberalism and the Routine of Privatisation, presented by RN’s The Philosopher’s Zone and The Philosophy Research Initiative of the University of Western Sydney. April 2013

    Guests:
    Professor Bonnie Honig, Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and senior research professor at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago.

    Dr Charles Barbour, School-based Member of the Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy and a Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of Western Sydney

    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/the-politics-of-public-things/4630284

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  6. The corporate anthropologist - Future Tense - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

    Anthropologists are the new corporate must-have. Once seen as a dying area of academia, anthropology is now booming—and technology companies are among their biggest employers.

    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/the-corporate-anthropologist/4594694

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  7. Social Capital in Post-Disaster Recovery

    17.01.2013

    Daniel Aldrich, Professor, Purdue University

    This lecture puts the Great East Japan Earthquake into perspective by analysing it in the context of other major disasters. Using micro- and neighborhood-level data from four disasters in three nations over the 20th and 21st centuries, this talk will investigate standard theories of recovery and resilience. Bivariate, time series cross sectional, and matching analyses show that more than factors such as individual or personal wealth, aid from the government, or damage from the disaster, the depth of social capital best predicts recovery. Social capital works through three main mechanisms: elevating voice and suppressing exit, overcoming collective action barriers, and providing informal insurance. Should social networks prove the critical engines before, during, and after disaster, this suggests a new approach to disaster mitigation for NGOs, individuals, and governments.

    Daniel P. Aldrich is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Purdue University on leave for the academic year 2012 ̶ 2013 as a Fulbright research professor at Tokyo University. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from Harvard University, an M.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, and his B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published two books (Site fights and Building Resilience) and more than 80 peer reviewed articles, book chapters, reviews, and OpEds in locations such as the New York Times, CNN, and the Asahi Shinbun.

    http://i.dijtokyo.org/events/social_capital_in_post-disaster_recovery

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  8. The Cost of NIMBY: Policy Images, Foreign Blueprints and Civil Society’s Assault on Japan’s Post-Fukushima Energy Policy

    The political uncertainty of Japan’s post-Fukushima energy policy should not be surprising given the country’s energy constraints. Japan, an economic powerhouse operating within a geographically constrained landmass with virtually no independent energy sources to fuel and stabilize its economic needs, is trapped between two conflicting political problems: a growing segment of the Japanese electorate who reject essential facilities such as electric power plants and transmission wires being built in their backyards versus an equally large segment of the electorate who naturally expect a stable, environmentally safe and inexpensive flow of electric power to support their high standard of living and industrial production. That both expectations are technically and financially incompatible has led to the current political challenge.

    This lecture places Japan’s post-Fukushima energy challenges and its public policy decisions into perspective by analyzing it in cross-national context. Using heretofore-unexamined archival documents, microeconomic data, and qualitative interviews with key actors in a time-series, this talk explores how and why governments in three developed democracies—Japan, Germany, and UK—pursue the reform of their electric power markets over a long period. The talk emphasizes how periods of stasis (controlled by positive feedback or self-reinforcement) in terms of “policy image” are occasionally offset by bouts of frenetic institutional change. Variations in deliberation timetables, shifting voting patterns in committees, sporadic law promulgation, increasingly negative public opinion polls, and fluctuating media attention cycles (the dependent variables) are analyzed by using the ubiquity, consistency, and strength of foreign economic ideas and events (the independent variables) to explain the transformation of both formal and informal institutions in Japan. Should a media-transmitted image shift be the principal factor behind crisis-induced agenda-setting and decision-making behavior, this talk explores the "real-world" financial, environmental and technological trade-offs of policy objectives prioritizing renewable energy over nuclear power and fossil fuels.

    Paul J. Scalise is JSPS Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, and Non-resident Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies, Temple University, Japan Campus. He received his Ph.D. in comparative political economy from the University of Oxford, an M.A. in international economics and Japan studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and his B.A. in political science from Marist College. A former Tokyo-based financial analyst of Japanese energy companies and contributing energy analyst to several global consulting firms, Dr. Scalise was voted by institutional investors the number-one ranked Japanese utilities analyst in 2001 among all UK financial institutions. He has published more than 100 research reports, consulting briefs, reviews, journal articles, book chapters, encyclopedia entries, and OpEds in locations such as Foreign Policy, Newsweek, and Asahi Shimbun.

    http://i.dijtokyo.org/events/the_cost_of_nimby

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  9. RSA - The RSA President’s Lecture: Why Creativity is the New Economy

    The RSA President’s Lecture: Why Creativity is the New Economy, (10th Sep 2012)

    We are living in a time of "Great Reset" - when economic crisis provides an opportunity to rethink virtually every aspect of our lives - from how and where we live, to how we work, to how we invest in individuals and infrastructure, to how we shape our cities and regions.

    Taking a deeper look at the forces reshaping our economy, and giving us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do - and where we might be headed, Richard Florida shows how these forces, when combined, will spur a fresh era of growth and prosperity, define a new geography of progress, and create surprising opportunities for all of us.

    Using lessons from the last ten years to show how Creative Class theory has grown from a prediction to a prescription for an economy in turmoil, Florida argues the need for a new social compact to put us back on the path to economic growth. Florida’s Creative Compact commits to developing the full human potential and creative capabilities of every person, and suggests a new set of institutional supports to ensure a more robust and sustainable social system around the new world of work.

    Speaker: Dr Richard Florida, director, the Martin Prosperity Institute and Professor of Business and Creativity at the University of Toronto and NYU; senior editor, The Atlantic and is the author of several influential global best sellers, including the award-winning ‘The Rise of the Creative Class’.

    Introduced by: HRH The Princess Royal, RSA President.

    Chair: Luke Johnson, RSA Chair.

    http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2012/why-creativity-is-the-new-economy

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  10. RSA - The Scientific Method Of The Mind: What Sherlock Holmes can teach us about decision making

    RSA Thursday 24th Jan 2013; 13:00 (full recording including audience Q&A)

    When we think of the scientific method, we imagine an experimenter in his laboratory following a series of steps that runs something like this: make some observations about a phenomenon; create a hypothesis to explain those observations; design an experiment to test the hypothesis; run the experiment; see if the results match your expectations; rework your hypothesis if you must; lather, rinse, and repeat. Simple seeming enough.

    But how can we go beyond that? Can we train our minds to work like that automatically, all the time, through a mindful, present approach to our everyday thinking and decision making?

    Sherlock Holmes teaches us to do not only that, but to go a step beyond: by using his methodology and applying the mindfulness that has come to characterise the scientific method to our lives, we can learn to optimise not only our own everyday existence but our broader contributions to society and the lives of those around us.

    Speaker: Maria Konnikova, author and columnist

    Chair: Vikki Heywood CBE, RSA Chair

    http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2013/the-scientific-method-of-the-mind-what-sherlock-holmes-can-teach-us-about-decision-making

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