Ideas

The face we give to our monsters says much about our anxieties as a culture. But birds? Two classic works of 20th-century horror featured a violent avian army. This podcast looks at why a Daphne du Maurier short story, and the Alfred Hitchcock thriller inspired by it, imagined “The Birds” as humanity’s mortal enemy. Seeded with fears of technological overreach and environmental disaster, and terror at the rise of the violent irrational, our reality was anticipated. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 6, 2023.

Guests in this episode:

Lynn Kozak is an associate professor in history and classical studies at McGill University and editor of Scapegoat Carnivale's Tragic Trilogy.

W. Scott Poole is a professor in the department of history at the College of Charleston. He is the author of Dark Carnivals: Modern Horror and the Origins of American Empire.

Catherine Wynne is a reader in English, and an associate dean for Research and Enterprise at the University of Hull. Her most recent book is on the war artist, Lady Butler. She wrote about The Birds for The Conversation.

There are 19 centibillionaires and a growing list of 3,000 billionaires worldwide. So it might not surprise you that the richest one per cent possesses nearly half of the world’s wealth. History has never seen such an extreme concentration of wealth. Some economists argue the battle of the 21st century is between oligarchy and democracy. How did we get here? IDEAS begins a four-part documentary series The Billionaire Age.

Guests in this episode:

Ingrid Robeyns is a philosopher and economist. She is the chair in Ethics of Instutions at Utrecht University and the author of Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth.

Lucas Chancel is the co-director of The World Inequality Lab and a professor at the Paris School of Economics.

Gabriel Zucman is also the co-director of The World Inequality Lab. He is a professor at the Paris School of Economics and the University of California, Berkeley.

Nitin Bharti is an economist and lecturer at The University of Western Australia. He is the South and South Asia coordinator at the World Inequality Lab.

Lars Osberg is an economics professor at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His latest book is The Scandalous Rise of Inequality in Canada.

Abigail Disney is an American film producer, philanthropist and social activist. She is a member of Patriotic Millionaires which advocates for higher taxes on the wealthy.

Paul Krugman is an American economist and the winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Tim Wu is a Canadian/American legal scholar and a professor at Columbia Law School. He is also a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times. His latest book is The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity.

Nick Hanauer is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He co-authored his latest book with Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen, Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing The Lies and Half-Truths that Protect Profit, Power and Wealth in America. And he hosts the podcast: Pitchfork Economics.

Guido Alfani is a professor of economic history at Bocconi University, Milan, Italy. His latest book is As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West.

Earthworms are supposed to be a sign of healthy soil. But they're actually an invasive species that can even damage forests. So have we been sold a lie about worms and soil? Not exactly. The relationship between the two depends on the context. And the way we garden — or farm — can make all the difference. IDEAS producer Annie Bender unearths the complicated truth about the not-so lowly earthworm.

Guests in this episode:

Joshua Steckley is a political ecologist, postdoctoral fellow at Carleton University and the author of The Nightcrawlers: A Story of Worms, Cows, and Cash in the Underground Bait Industry.

Peter Groffman is a professor at the City University of New York Advanced Science Research Center and Brooklyn College, with research interests in ecosystem, soil, landscape and microbial ecology, with a focus on carbon and nitrogen dynamics.

Mike McTavish is a conservation scientist at a rare Charitable Research Reserve in Cambridge, Ontario.

Janet Browne is a historian of science and Darwin biographer, author of a two-volume set called Darwin: A Biography.

The bombing of civilians has been called one of the "great scandals" of modern warfare. So why, despite nearly a century of drafting laws and signing conventions protecting the sanctity of human life, does bombing civilians remain a widespread military tactic? IDEAS producer Naheed Mustafa looks at a century of bombing civilians to try and answer that very question.

Guests in this episode:

Yuki Tanaka is a historian and emeritus research professor of history at the Hiroshima Peace Institute.
Mark Selden is senior research associate in the East Asia program at Cornell University, and the founder of Asia-Pacific Journal.
Azmat Khan is a professor of journalism at Columbia University and an investigative journalist with the New York Times.

"Our democracy is what’s at stake," says Karen Hao, an engineer who used to work in Silicon Valley. Now she’s an outspoken critic of its AI giants. The investigative journalist argues AI companies run their businesses like empires and it has to stop. In her 2025 bestseller, Empire of AI, Hao digs into the global impact of Big AI and explores how we need to rethink AI to build a better future. This podcast includes a lecture by Karen Hao and a discussion with host Nahlah Ayed.