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Breaking The Fever

By: Alison Taylor & Jérôme Tagger
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  • Summary

  • The Coronavirus pandemic is the biggest crisis many of us have experienced in our lifetime, so far. And, as Arundhati Roy said, it is "a portal, a gateway from one world to the next." In any crisis, impossible ideas suddenly become possible, and precedents are set that can transform society over the long term. How can we identify, harness and shape these precedents so that we emerge into a better future? Join Jérōme Tagger of Preventable Surprises and Alison Taylor of Ethical Systems in this lively series of discussions exploring the social, political, environmental, economic and governance consequences of the pandemic. We bring together experts from a range of disciplines and a highly engaged audience to challenge and push their thinking. We hope our conversations spark ideas, connections, and solutions.
    Copyright Alison Taylor & Jérôme Tagger
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Episodes
  • Breaking the Fever takeover: The Aftermath finale - Timothy Morton on how to panic cheerfully

    Breaking the Fever takeover: The Aftermath finale - Timothy Morton on how to panic cheerfully
    Dec 18 2021
    This episode of Breaking the Fever features a podcast takeover by interdisciplinary researcher Nithya Iyer, who has been investigating existential risks and systemic change. The theme of the takeover is AFTERMATH, which starts from a fictional aftermath of systemic and ideological collapse, and seeks to interview thinkers acting at the apex of present and future technologies, mainstream and alternative philosophies, factual and fictional realities, asking: where do we go from here?

    In this takeover finale, we feature Timothy Morton - a prolific writer, philosopher and interdisciplinary thinker. Tim has carved out a celebrity status through their pioneering ecological thought and the conception of the 'hyperobject' - a tool for thinking about the vastness of existential threats. We discuss what it means to live in a world where the individual is helplessly entangled in existential threats and the narrative of the 'End of the World', how to make sense out of the chaotic dismantling of meaning in 2021, 'panicking cheerfully' and the George Harrison method of trying to change stubborn minds.


    You can read more about Tim's ideas at

    - Wired: https://www.wired.com/story/timothy-morton-hyperobjects-all-the-way-down/

    - Liberation: https://www.liberation.fr/idees-et-debats/cest-le-bon-moment-pour-paniquer-rencontre-avec-le-philosophe-timothy-morton-20211201_PZOWKJCHCVCUDPUSW36BZU2KBY/
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    58 mins
  • #31 - Combatting Bullshit in the Workplace with Ian McCarthy

    #31 - Combatting Bullshit in the Workplace with Ian McCarthy
    Nov 4 2021
    In this episode of the podcast, we speak with Ian McCarthy about the many faces of bullshit — how it’s different from lies, the harmless and harmful forms it can take, and what organizations can do to measure and mitigate its effects.

    We discuss:

    - How McCarthy's background as an engineer, particularly engineering’s focus on authenticity and risk management, have shaped his approach to bullshit
    - Why reading the seminal essay “On Bullshit” by Harry Frankfurt prompted his curiosity about the role of BS in the corporate world
    - The many shapes of BS, from pub banter to persuasion tool
    - What distinguishes BS from lying
    - BS as a power strategy with career risks
    - The effect of BS on organizational cultures, and how culture rewards BS
    - The use of BS in the more visionary and creative stages or parts of an organization
    - How organizational leaders can counter BS when it is destructive
    - The place of BS in ESG
    - How remote work shapes BS in organizations

    Ian McCarthy is the W.J. VanDusen Professor of Innovation and Operations Management. He came to Simon Fraser University from the University of Warwick, England, where he was a Reader and Head of the Organizational Systems Strategy Unit. He worked for several years as a manufacturing engineer before earning his PhD in operations strategy from the University of Sheffield. His research and teaching focus on operations management, change and innovation management, and social media.
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    54 mins
  • #30 - A More Prosocial World in Theory and Practice with David Sloan Wilson

    #30 - A More Prosocial World in Theory and Practice with David Sloan Wilson
    Oct 2 2021
    In this episode of the podcast, we speak with David Sloan Wilson about cooperation—how it evolved in social beings, how culture and norms can support and disrupt it, and how to sustain it across different levels (community, industry, nation, etc).

    We discuss:

    - How David got interested in the evolution of positive or prosocial cultural change
    - The intellectual tradition of individualism
    - The idea of society as an organism
    - Why natural selection at the smallest scale is socially disruptive
    - The game of Monopoly as an illustration of multilevel selection theory
    - Polycentric governance in a nutshell
    - Archipelagos of knowledge
    - The spread of new norms, like those constituting the Me Too movement, online and off
    - Elinor Ostrum’s Nobel Prize-winning core design principals of effective groups
    - How nations approximate Ostrum’s core design principles
    - The problem with the invisible hand, neoliberal model of globalization
    - Changing norms in tight versus loose cultures

    David Sloan Wilson is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He applies evolutionary theory to all aspects of humanity in addition to the rest of life, both in his own research and as director of EvoS, a unique campus-wide evolutionary studies program that recently received NSF funding to expand into a nationwide consortium. His books include Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society, Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives, and The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time and Does Altruism Exist? Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others.
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    1 hr and 4 mins
Economics
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