Silicon Valley used to be regarded as the global hub of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation. It was the home of the world’s best technologies, new products and services. Yet today, Silicon Valley’s tech companies seem to have become the twenty-first-century equivalent of mediaeval robber barons. They are condemned for fleecing customers, evading taxes, and pocketing monopoly profits. Once associated with freedom, Silicon Valley is now condemned as the agency of global surveillance. Has it gone from overhype to over-reach? Or given emerging new technologies – such as express transit systems, autonomous vehicles and biotech – is the criticism mostly unfair?
SPEAKERS
JAMIE BARTLETT
director, Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, Demos; author, Radicals; presenter, BBC’s The Secrets of Silicon Valley
DANIEL BEN-AMI
journalist; author, Ferraris for All: in defence of economic progress
ANDREW BERNSTEIN
author, The Capitalist Manifesto: the historic, economic, and philosophic case for laissez-faire; affiliate, Ayn Rand Institute
LAUREN RAZAVI
managing director, Flibl; award-winning writer and consultant
#BattleFest2021: From GB News to Ben & Jerry’s - boycotts or censorship?
#BattleFest2021: How to fight cancel culture and win
#BattleFest2021: Girl, boy, other: how do we talk to kids about gender?
#BattleFest2021: Is it time to rethink the precautionary principle?
#BattleFest2021: Is levelling up really levelling down? The great inequality debate
#BattleFest2021: Racism and how to fight it
#BattleFest2021: The status of science after the pandemic
#BattleFest2021: The Irish border question
#BattleFest2021: Will green jobs save us?
#BattleFest2021: Can our data be used for good? The ethics of research
#BattleFest2021: Protection for me but not for thee? The equality conundrum
#BattleFest2021: Hate, heresy and the fight for free speech
#BattleFest2021: Feminism’s civil war
#BattleFest2021: From profits to prophets - why has big business gone woke?
#BattleFest2021: Is there a case for fossil fuels?
#BattleFest2021: A ’nudge’ too far? The rise of behavioural science and technocratic rule
#BattleFest2021: 20 years in Afghanistan - what happened?
#BattleFest2021: Who are we? Identity in crisis
#EducationForum: Teaching white privilege: making schools less racist or more divided?
#Arts&Society: Truth and politics in the theatre - in conversation with David Ireland
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free