Where Shall We Meet

Omid Ashtari & Natascha McElhone

Explorations of topics about society, culture, arts, technology and science with your hosts Natascha McElhone and Omid Ashtari.

The spirit of this podcast is to interview people from all walks of life on different subjects. Our hope is to talk about ideas, divorced from our identities - listening, learning and maybe meeting somewhere in the middle. The perfect audio diet for shallow polymaths!

Natascha McElhone is an actor and producer.
Omid Ashtari is a tech entrepreneur and angel investor.

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Wednesday · 56 min
On Autocracy with Anne Applebaum
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Welcome to the Where Shall We Meet podcast. Our guest this week is Anne Applebaum, who is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. She is a historian of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. She also hosts The Atlantic's podcast Autocracy in America with Peter Pomerantsev. For the past decade she has written about the dismantling of liberal democracy, and about the people inside democracies who help them. Anne started her career in 1988 as The Economist's correspondent in Warsaw and covered the collapse of communism. She went on to be deputy editor of The Spectator and a columnist at The Washington Post. Her book Gulag: A History won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize, and Iron Curtain, Red Famine and Twilight of Democracy followed. In 2024 she won the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. She is now a Polish citizen and is married to Poland's foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski. Her latest book is Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. It argues that today's autocracies don't share an ideology. Communist China, theocratic Iran, nationalist Russia and a handful of others instead cooperate like the separate companies of one big corporation. They trade drones, weapons, markets and propaganda, and they hide stolen money in an offshore system that Western bankers, lawyers and accountants built. We talk about: Is having no constraints the only thing autocrats share? Swapping Putin for Trump: where the comparison breaks down The offshore economy we built, and could take apart Crypto, Nigel Farage and who is paying whom Evan Mawarire, a flag, and how a smear campaign works "Am I sure this is true?" Fact-checkers and knowing who to trust Ceuta, and why the images win even after the facts change Democracy is not water from a tap Let’s begin! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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September 23 · 51 min
On Prophecy with Carissa Veliz
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Welcome to the Where Shall We Meet podcast. Our guest this week is Carissa Véliz, who is Associate Professor in Philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI and Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford University. She works on privacy, digital ethics and the ethics of AI, and her new book argues that AI has become the new Oracle of Delphi. That book is Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future. It is a history of prediction as much as a book about AI — tracing the line from ancient oracles to credit scores, bail algorithms and tech CEOs, and arguing that a prediction is never a neutral forecast but an instrument of power. As she points out in the conversation, for all the thousands of books on how to forecast, nobody had yet written one on the ethics of it. Carissa is also the author of Privacy Is Power, an Economist book of the year translated into seven languages, and The Ethics of Privacy and Surveillance. She is also the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics. She has advised the UK and Spanish governments, sits on the board of the Proton Foundation alongside Tim Berners-Lee, and is a member of UNESCO's Women4Ethical AI expert group. We talk about: Is AI the new Oracle of Delphi? When a CEO predicts, is it a forecast or an order? Obeying in advance A prediction can never be a fact The turkey’s disappointment at Thanksgiving Does polling corrupt democracy? Why a self-fulfilling prophecy is the perfect crime A blow dryer, a sensor, and what's wrong with prediction markets Is AI doing the creative work while we do the boring jobs? Let's not prophesise! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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September 9 · 1 hr 2 min
On Discovery with James Manyika
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Welcome to the Where Shall We Meet podcast. Our guest this week is James Manyika, who is Senior Vice President of Research, Labs, Technology and Society at Google and Alphabet. He joined Google in 2022 in a newly created role reporting to Sundar Pichai, and has spent the years since arguing that AI's largest contribution may turn out to be to science itself. His latest essay in the new volume of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is devoted to AI and scientific discovery which features Demis Hassabis, Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio, Eric Topol and others. He also co-chaired the United Nations Secretary-General's High-Level Advisory Body on AI, served as vice chair of the US National AI Advisory Committee, and co-wrote No Ordinary Disruption. James was born and raised in Zimbabwe and read electrical engineering at the University of Zimbabwe before going to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, where he took a doctorate in AI and robotics and became a fellow of Balliol College. He was a visiting scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, then spent twenty-five years at McKinsey, thirteen of them as chairman of the McKinsey Global Institute. We talk about: AlphaFold and a fifty-year grand challenge Did it understand how proteins fold, or just learn the grammar? Is hallucination a bug or a feature? Move 37 and the bitter lesson Turing on why an infallible machine is a boring one Is this the first time we have had a cognitive competitor? The impossible problem of alignment AI as an invention for making inventions Missed use, and who actually benefits from a breakthrough Let's discover! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S3 · E6
June 24 · 1 hr 2 min
On AI Filmmaking with Xavier Collins
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Welcome to the where shall we meet podcast. Our guest this week is Xavier Collins who is the CEO and Co-founder of Wonder Studios, an AI-native creative studio redefining how film, advertising, and music video content is made. Based in London, Xavier founded Wonder alongside CCO Justin Hackney with a clear thesis: that the most valuable creative work in the AI era lives at the intersection of human taste and intelligent production — what the studio calls “crafting jewelry from AI gold.” Wonder has raised $15M from investors including LocalGlobe and Blackbird, with angels from ElevenLabs, OpenAI, and Google DeepMind — and is building toward becoming the A24 of the AI generation. Before Wonder, Xavier held senior roles scaling some of the world’s fastest-growing consumer platforms, including Uber and Deliveroo. We talk about: Who is the maker when we use AI? Does what we value change when things don’t require effort? Is the box office truly reflective of what care about? Will AI tools empower the unskilled? How will we adjust to fakery? Is Inga Rose a watershed moment? Will artisanal always resonate more AI? Can AI create novelty? Let’s wonder! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S3 · E5
June 10 · 50 min
On Traversal with Maria Popova
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Welcome to the Where Shall We Meet podcast. This is the first time we have a returning guest. We talk about Maria Popova’s new book Traversal, which to be honest defies summary. Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S3 · E4
May 27 · 59 min
On Embodied Brains with Nick Potter
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Welcome to the Where Shall We Meet podcast. Our guest this week is Nick Potter, who is a consultant Osteopath at King Edward the VII hospital, in London. He researches “Bendy Bodies, Bendy Brains”: studying the relationship between hypermobility, ADHD, anxiety, and nervous-system regulation He is the author of The Meaning of Pain: A Radical New Approach to Overcoming Chronic Pain, which has been translated into several languages. His book explores how modern stress, biology, behaviour and breathing can interact with pain. In the early 2000’s, Nick worked in Paris with Alain Prost’s team doctor for The Institut Biomedical Sports et Vie. There he conducted intensive assessments of Formula 1 drivers and their environments, going on to be a Human Performance Advisor to Jaguar F1. From the findings they made, particularly in sleep and stress medicine, the concept of the ‘Corporate Athlete’ was formulated, which Nick presented at INSEAD Business School. Through his links with Brevan Howard he has worked with John Coats and Dr. Danny Kahneman to study stress responses universal to us all and which are independent of personality type. Nick knows, through personal experience of a spinal injury, what pain is all about. Through applying his principles he is now pain-free. We talk about: How Descartes was wrong - it should be a synergy of mind and body Captain Tom and how motion is lotion Do we really move less now than before The importance of dancing Is Asthma a stress response How keeping healthy can cost nothing Keeping traders zen The practice of interoception Is anger unaddressed fear Let’s move! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S3 · E3
May 13 · 56 min
On Fashion Science with Amanda Parkes
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Welcome to the Where Shall We Meet podcast. Our guest today is Dr Amanda Parkes. Amanda calls herself a fashion scientist - she has a PhD from the MIT Media Lab, where her research bridged computer science and material science, and dual Stanford degrees in mechanical engineering and art history. She has spent fifteen years trying to answer a deceptively simple question: what if we rebuilt the material world around nature's logic instead of against it? That question has taken her from algae biofuels to 3D printed couture, from developing science exhibits at the Exploratorium in San Francisco and the Science Museum here in London to running R&D at Pangaia, the company she describes as a material science company masquerading as a fashion brand. There she turned wildflowers into jacket insulation, Himalayan nettle into denim, and carbon dioxide pulled from the air to make sunglasses. She is now CTO at Mothership Materials, where she has gone even deeper - extracting the building blocks of biology from food waste to feed the next generation of bio-manufacturers. We talk about: Fashion as a material science Designing clothing as part of a biological cycle High-tech Naturalism How algae can transform into clothing dye Bio fabrication Humans are good at building not at breaking down Using carbon air pollution to make ink How banana skin can become a dress Let’s get dressed! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S3 · E2
April 29 · 1 hr 10 min
On Trust with Jimmy Wales
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Welcome to the Where Shall We Meet podcast. Our guest this week is Jimmy Wales. He is an internet entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that launched in 2001, creating a radically collaborative model that allows anyone to contribute to and edit what has become the world’s largest free encyclopedia. Born in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1966, Wales studied finance before working in Chicago as a trader. Beyond Wikipedia itself, Wales also founded the Wikimedia Foundation in 2003, the nonprofit organization that supports Wikipedia and its sister projects, and later co-founded Wikia, now known as Fandom, a commercial wiki platform built around fan communities. Over the years, he has become both an advocate and a symbol of the broader idea that knowledge can be created collaboratively and made freely accessible at global scale. His role has often been less that of a traditional executive and more that of a public steward for a radically open model of information. Wikipedia is not just a website; it is a living experiment in whether strangers can cooperate, disagree, revise one another, and still produce something of enormous public value. That question of trust is central to his 2025 book The Seven Rules of Trust, in which he reflects on how trust can be built, and sustained in institutions and communities. We talk about: His seven rules of trust Trusting people to contribute wisely The mechanics of Wikipedia How a crisis lead to an innovation News shouldn’t be entertainment How collective knowledge negotiates truth Can we find consensus as a society Crisis of trust in politics Let’s search! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S3 · E1
April 15 · 58 min
On Reading with Samantha Harvey
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Welcome to the third season of the Where Shall We Meet podcast. Quick housekeeping, in the show notes you will find a link to send us a voice note, should you feel the urge. Our guest today is Samantha Harvey who is a British novelist and a senior lecturer in creative writing at Bath Spa University. Her Phd centred on writing philosophical fiction. She has published five novels and one work of non-fiction, and her work has been shortlisted for the Women's Prize, the James Tait Black Award and the Walter Scott Prize. Her debut, The Wilderness, was narrated from inside the mind of a man with Alzheimer's and won the Betty Trask Prize. Her non-fiction book The Shapeless Unease is an account of a year of severe insomnia, exploring how prolonged sleeplessness changes the way you think, write, and experience time. Her most recent novel, Orbital, was published in 2023 and won the 2024 Booker Prize - one of the shortest novels ever to do so. Harvey wrote much of it during COVID lockdowns, watching live footage from the ISS. Her work consistently returns to questions of consciousness, perception, and attention - how we experience time, place, and the limits of what the human mind can hold. We talk about: What is reading Can we still pay attention? A love letter to planet Earth The value of new media How she got 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets into one day It’s the reader who finishes the novel The humbling impact of the Overview effect How to be an intrepid explorer from your desk Let’s go into orbit! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S2 · E14
Nov 26, 2025 · 1 hr 28 min
On Constructing Reality with Joscha Bach
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Our guest this week is Joscha Bach. He is a German cognitive scientist, artificial-intelligence researcher and philosopher of mind who consistently bridges the gap between what human intelligence is and what machines could become. He has an MA in computer science and a PhD in cognitive science. Over the course of his career he has held research positions at institutions such as the MIT Media Lab and the Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. Bach is best known for his work on computational models of human-like cognition: he developed the cognitive architecture called “MicroPsi”, exploring how perception, motivation, emotion and decision-making interact in autonomous agents. He is the author of Principles of Synthetic Intelligence. In addition to his academic output, he has taken roles in applied AI research and strategy, bringing theoretical insight into real-world settings. What sets his approach apart is his deeply integrative mindset: he treats intelligence not just as surface behaviour or pattern-recognition, but as the emergent result of rich internal models of the world and self. His philosophical lens brings questions of consciousness, free will and meaning into the technical domain, framing AI and cognition as part of a broader inquiry into what it means to think, feel and act. We talk about: We live in a story not in the physical world Consciousness does not depend on the substrate Can you learn reality by just watching YT Alternative approaches to building AI Intuition is the part of your mind you cannot yet reflect The constraint to becoming superhuman only applies to humans There is no obligation to unite your many selves This episode will require your full focus. We recommend you put on headphones and turn off all your other devices. Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S2 · E13
Nov 12, 2025 · 1 hr 4 min
On Planets with Natalie Batalha
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Our guest this week is Natalie Batalha. Natalie is professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz where received her PhD. Previously, she was a research astronomer in the Space Sciences Division of NASA Ames Research Center. She held the position of Science Team Lead on the Kepler Mission, the first mission capable of finding Earth-size planets around other stars. This mission revolutionised our understanding of planetary systems. The Kepler Mission discovered thousands of exoplanets revealing that planets are common in the galaxy, not rare and many even lie in the habitable zone. Natalie is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was listed as one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2017. We talk about: Where is everyone AKA the Fermi Paradox What is an exoplanet The Drake equation in simple terms The revelation that planets like ours are more common than ever imagined What was the Kepler mission and what did it achieve? Who owns space? Will our alien friends be receptive? Can we be trusted to become multi-planetary? Unfortunately, we had a couple of technical issues on this recording but have done our very best to iron them out. Let’s look through the telescope! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S2 · E12
Oct 29, 2025 · 56 min
On Leadership with Jacinda Ardern
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Our guest this week is Jacinda Ardern. She became the world's youngest female head of government at age 37. Ardern served as Prime Minister of New Zealand from 2017 to 2023, earning global admiration for her empathetic and decisive leadership through crises like the Christchurch attacks and the COVID-19 pandemic. Her trademark “be kind” approach redefined what modern political leadership could look like. In 2025, she released her memoir A Different Kind of Power, reflecting on how empathy can drive real progress. It’s more than a political memoir, it’s a profound insight into how it feels to lead. Since leaving office, Ardern has turned her focus to global initiatives on climate action, online safety, and compassionate leadership. She’s a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, a Distinguished Fellow of Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government and a Trustee of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, continuing her work to inspire change on the world stage. She was recently made a Dame Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit — a fitting recognition for a leader whose grace and humanity have left a lasting mark far beyond her time in office. We talk about: A kinder definition of leadership Media’s new incentives Changing the culture of engagement Taking the money out of politics The dangerous loss of nuance Caring is more important than caring about politics Allowing politicians to change their mind Buying back guns from civilians Let’s do this! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S2 · E11
Oct 15, 2025 · 1 hr 7 min
On Science Fiction with Kim Stanley Robinson
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Our guest this week is Kim Stanley Robinson, also know as Stan. He is an American science fiction writer best known for his Mars trilogy of novels. Over his career he has published over 20 books. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, and political themes, featuring scientists as heroes. Robinson has won numerous awards, including the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novel, as well as the World Fantasy Award. The Atlantic magazine has called Robinson's work "the gold standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction writing." According to an article in The New Yorker magazine, Robinson is "generally acknowledged as one of the greatest living science-fiction writers." Time magazine named him “the hero of the environment” for his optimistic focus on future possibilities. His most recent novel “The Ministry for the Future” presents a vision for how humanity might unite together to overcome the climate crisis. We talk about: What is science fiction The difference between Utopia and Optopia Being optimistic whilst remaining vigilant Predicting the future What the hell is terraforming Finance as a tool for changing civilisation The current state of American politics Championing scientists If anything is possible, is nothing interesting? If you want to support the podcast please follow us on your favourite podcast apps, rate the show and share it with your friends. You can now message us with feedback and ideas following the link at the top of the episode description. Let’s talk about the future! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S2 · E10
Oct 1, 2025 · 1 hr 2 min
On Friendship with Alain de Botton
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Our guest this week is Alain de Botton. Alain is a London based writer and psychotherapist. His first book, Essays in Love was published when he was 23 years old and went on to sell two million copies. His books emphasise philosophy's relevance to everyday life. Other bestsellers include How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997), Status Anxiety (2004), and The Architecture of Happiness (2006). He’s written 15 books under his name and many more under The School of Life imprint, which have become bestsellers in 30 countries. He is not just a writer, but also an organizer of ideas and institutions. He founded The School Of Life in 2008, which is dedicated to help people lead more emotionally intelligent lives – through classes, books, games, therapy, films, articles, their app, and their podcast. Their website says, everything they do supports self-knowledge, better relationships, and brings calm to modern life. His public profile emphasises his desire to bridge intellectual ideas into a lived experience. We talk about: 2 and a half friends is plenty A more rigorous approach to friendship Different types of friends - from the teasing to the mirco Platonic sleepovers One way friends Enemies of friendship The bravery of being weird Good substitutes for friends Let’s make friends! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S2 · E9
Sep 17, 2025 · 1 hr 6 min
On Moral Ambition with Rutger Bregman
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Our guest this week is Rutger Bregman. Rutger is a Dutch historian and author. His books Humankind: A Hopeful History and Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There were both Sunday Times and New York Times Best Sellers and have been translated in 46 languages. The Guardian described him as 'the Dutch wunderkind of new ideas', while TED named him 'one of Europe's most prominent young thinkers'. His TED Talk, 'Poverty Isn't a Lack of Character; It's a Lack of Cash', was selected by TED curator Chris Anderson as one of the top ten talks of 2017. He studied History at Utrecht University and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Initially considering a career as an academic historian, Rutger instead ventured into journalism. He began his career at the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant before moving to the independent journalism platform De Correspondent, for which he wrote for ten years. In 2024, Rutger co-founded The School for Moral Ambition, a non-profit organization inspired by his latest book, Moral Ambition. The initiative helps people to take steps toward an impactful career. ‍We talk about: Not resting on ones laurels Individual versus societal responsibility How just being decent isn’t enough The value of harsh feedback When is the best time to make people morally ambitious Pragmatic Alliances Noble Loosers aka Social Media Activism Effective Altruism The School of Moral Ambition ‍Let’s get moral! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S2 · E8
Sep 3, 2025 · 58 min
On the Future with Howard Covington
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Our guest this week is Howard Covington. Howard is a Cambridge graduate in physics and maths. He has been a banker, a co-founder and chief executive of New Star Asset Management, and a trustee of the Science Museum. He’s also been and chair of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge, The Alan Turing Institute, ClientEarth, and the Scotia Group. He is the incoming chair of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford. Howard is a fellow of the Institute of Physics and an honorary fellow of the Isaac Newton Institute and The Alan Turing Institute. We want to a talk Howard gave recently and were very amazed about how many of his predictions have come to pass and therefore left comforted by his positive predictions of the future. We talk about: A quick history of 540 million years Living in the midst of the third Intelligence Explosion Printing meat to eat Dark factories Are robots part of evolution How capitalism drives the race to net zero The restoration of the planet Let’s gaze into the future! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S2 · E7
Jun 25, 2025 · 56 min
On Death with Paul Bennet
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Paul Bennett is a designer. For 23 years he worked at design and innovation powerhouse IDEO, where he was Chief Creative Officer and then co-CEO. There he was responsible for content excellence across the whole firm, and was active in developing and publishing new thinking in the field of human-centered and design-led innovation. Today, Paul is a Senior Advisor at McKinsey, where he continues to provide creative leadership and cross-pollination of insights and ideas to clients and colleagues on an extended scale by traveling, learning, and working across the globe. Paul has taught and coached students from the Royal College of Art (UK), Stanford University and Columbia Business School. Most recently he has taught on the Masters program at KHiO in Oslo and at Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavík. We talk about: Redesigning death Losing parents Digital remains of our lives Death is a universal market opportunity Using the full extent of the design space death provides The pursuit of immortality Euthanasia Who matters more the dying or the left behind Let’s design! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S2 · E6
Jun 11, 2025 · 1 hr 6 min
On Prisons with Carine Minne
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Dr Carine Minne is Consultant Psychiatrist in Forensic Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis at England’s High Security Hospital, Broadmoor. She was also based at The Portman Clinic, London for three decades - an out-patient psychotherapy clinic for people suffering from problems of violence and sexual paraphilia - both under the NHS public health service. She chairs the International Psychoanalytic Association Violence Committee and is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Forensic Psychotherapy. She has published widely and lectures nationally and internationally. Her main focus always remains the rehumanising of the dehumanised. She doesn’t believe in innate evil but in evil acts that are carried out, therefore intervention and treatment is always worthwhile. She is speaking personal experience whilst not representing any of the aforementioned organisations. We talk about: Working as a psychotherapist in a high security prison What creates a violent criminal How childhood trauma causes disinhibition Interventions during the first 1000 days of life Comparing reoffending rates in different countries The prison industrial complex Asymmetry of empathy for perpetrators and victims Education’s impact on recidivisim Let’s investigate! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S2 · E5
May 28, 2025 · 1 hr 3 min
On Consciousness with Anil Seth
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Our guest today is Anil Seth, Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. He was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness Oxford University Press. Anil is a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (2019-2024), which recognizes the top 0.1% of scientists in the world, by the impact of their publications. N - In 2023, he was awarded the Royal Society’s Michael Faraday Prize, which is ‘awarded annually to the scientist or engineer whose expertise in communicating scientific ideas in lay terms is exemplary’. His 2021 book Being You: A New Science of Consciousness was a Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller, and was Economist, Guardian and FT Science Book of the Year. Anil edited and co-authored the best-selling 30 Second Brain, and also writes the blog NeuroBanter. We talk about: How to define consciousness What it feels like to be a bat Are we at the mercy of our brain chemistry The concept of interoception The white and gold OR the blue and black dress We predict ourselves into existence Does consciousness need a body Let’s get our neurons firing! Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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S2 · E4
May 14, 2025 · 53 min
On Climate Law with Laura Clarke
Questions, suggestions, or feedback? Send us a message! Our guest today is Laura Clarke. She is the CEO of ClientEarth. She was recognised as one of the most influential climate business leaders globally in Time magazines top 100 climate list. Her background is in diplomacy and environmental advocacy. Laura was British High Commissioner to New Zealand, Governor of the Pitcairn Islands, High Commissioner to Samoa and has an OBE. Laura holds an MA in German and Russian from Cambridge University and a MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics. ClientEarth uses the law to hold polluting companies and negligent governments to account for the climate and nature crisis. It is one of the most ambitious environmental organisations that works across boarders, systems and sectors using the law to protect life on Earth. ClientEarth works in over 60 countries with around 140 active cases tackling the most pressing environmental challenges. The impact of this charity’s work goes far beyond the cases that they fight in court but sets standards and creates precedents that lead to wider climate compliance. We talk about: Holding governments to climate laws 2 million abandoned oil wells Using shareholder interests to companies accountable Holding directors personally liable for climate action not taken China’s proactive stance on climate How we can use the law as citizens Suing multinational organisations into climate compliance How 36 companies are responsible for half the world’s total emissions Let’s go to court Web: www.whereshallwemeet.xyz Twitter: @whrshallwemeet Instagram: @whrshallwemeet
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