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  • The Lost Sailors: From Aboriginals to Schumpeter

    The Lost Sailors: From Aboriginals to Schumpeter
    2025/10/23
    Deep in an Australian rainforest, surrounded by birds older than any cathedral, We unpack one of the greatest mysteries in human history, how the first people to sail across open seas, 60,000 years ago, became a civilisation that forgot how to sail. The Aboriginal Australians, the oldest continuous culture on Earth, arrived when Europe was still under ice. They built languages older than Latin, mapped deserts the size of continents, and thrived for 99.7% of Australia’s human history before a single European set foot here. Then, in just decades, 90% of them were gone, wiped out not by conquest, but by microbes. From this collision of worlds, we explore what makes societies innovate, why isolation freezes progress while connection multiplies it. Drawing on Harvard anthropologist Joseph Henrich’s idea of the collective brain, they trace how collaboration fuels invention, from the first tools to AI. The episode arcs from the Aboriginal sailors who crossed 100 miles of open water before anyone else, to the Nobel Prize winners studying the alchemy of innovation, and ends with Ireland’s own late awakening from creative isolation.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    39 分
  • Saudi the Kingmaker: Gaza, Trump & a New Middle East with Andrew Maxwell

    Saudi the Kingmaker: Gaza, Trump & a New Middle East with Andrew Maxwell
    2025/10/16
    Live from Christchurch, literally tomorrow, we bring on Andrew Maxwell, fresh off stage in Riyadh, to ground-truth the social shift you won’t see in think-tank PDFs: 8k-seat comedy arenas, mixed audiences, and a culture moving at startup speed. With approximately 17% of the world’s proven crude reserves, a sovereign fund near $900bn, and a population that’s 65% under 35, Riyadh can bankroll outcomes, including a Gaza deal. Female labour-force participation has doubled since 2016, internet use is near-universal, and Vision 2030 is pointing trillions in capex at tourism, sport, and tech. We dig into how a Saudi–Egypt–Pakistan triangle (money, manpower, nukes) changes the bargaining set, why normalisation with Israel would be a geopolitical earthquake, and what a “phase two” looks like. We also hit the shelved India–Gulf–Med trade corridor, Qatar’s broker role with Hamas, and why Europe’s mostly a spectator in a multipolar game.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    55 分
  • The Behavioural Budget: How Tax Shapes Us

    The Behavioural Budget: How Tax Shapes Us
    2025/10/14
    We promise this isn’t another boring budget breakdown! This week, we’re asking a bigger question: what if taxation isn’t really about raising money, but about changing behaviour? With Ireland awash in corporate tax revenue, the old logic of “tax to fund spending” doesn’t quite hold. So, should we start using taxes to shape how people act, from derelict sites to carbon emissions, and borrow the money we need instead? We explore how Ireland’s unique position in global finance could make it a testing ground for a new kind of economic thinking, one where the budget becomes less about arithmetic, and more about incentives, behaviour, and human nature.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    37 分
  • The Art of Creation with The Edge - Part Two

    The Art of Creation with The Edge - Part Two
    2025/10/09
    We’re back with The Edge for part two of our conversation. This time, on the creative mind itself, we talk about what connects the artist and the entrepreneur: the instinct to imagine something that doesn’t exist and make it real. From James Joyce’s Volta Cinema to U2’s Berlin reinvention, we explore how creativity and risk are two sides of the same coin, and why failure, not success, is what really drives innovation. The Edge opens up about reinventing old songs, finding confidence in chaos, and what it means to stay curious for decades. We also dig into AI and the future of music, asking whether algorithms can ever truly create something new, or if the human imagination will always win out.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    43 分
  • The Art of Creation with The Edge

    The Art of Creation with The Edge
    2025/10/07
    Live from the basement, we sit down with The Edge, the musician who wanted to be a scientist, to talk about the spark that connects rock bands and startups. From U2’s early ambition to his work with Endeavour, The Edge shares how curiosity, mentorship, and a willingness to fail can turn creativity into success. We explore why Ireland can’t rely on multinationals forever, how to build a real culture of innovation, and why begrudgery has held us back for too long.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    44 分
  • What is Radical Politics?

    What is Radical Politics?
    2025/10/02
    We like to think of the centre as steady, sensible, and grounded, but what if the “centre” is actually the most radical place in politics right now? The real fault line in modern politics isn’t about tax or spending, it’s about culture. Onn those cultural questions the political class has drifted miles away from the people they claim to represent. In Britain, nearly 9 in 10 people think immigrants should adapt to local customs, yet most MPs don’t. In Germany, it’s the same. In Ireland, the gap is smaller but still real. On economics, tax, spending, capitalism, the public and politicians broadly agree yet on culture, they’re worlds apart. With Financial Times' John Burn-Murdoch, we dig into the numbers from Ireland, the UK, Germany and Denmark, and ask: if the centre has abandoned the centre, who’s really radical anymore?What is Radical Politics?

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    46 分
  • Culture Wars in the West, Alliances in the East

    Culture Wars in the West, Alliances in the East
    2025/09/30
    While the West burns itself out on culture wars, the East is quietly stitching together something bigger. This is the age of geo-economics, where oil, factories, and sheer population size matter more than headlines. On Russia’s border, the numbers tell the story: 4.5 million Russians facing 107 million Chinese. Add India into the mix and you see the outline of an alliance with the power to redraw the map. Meanwhile, Europe feels tired, America feels divided, and the old certainties of Pax Americana begin to fade. The question isn’t just who holds the power now, it’s whether we’ll even recognise the world that emerges next.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    37 分
  • Who Owns the Flag? From the American Revolution to Charlie Kirk

    Who Owns the Flag? From the American Revolution to Charlie Kirk
    2025/09/25
    We’re in New York this week, celebrating my mam’s 90th birthday and launching The History of Money in the U.S., but the backdrop is America’s deepening culture war. With the 250th anniversary of the Revolution looming, both liberals and MAGA are fighting to “own” the flag, the story, and the soul of America. We dive into Ken Burns’s new PBS series The American Revolution, the forgotten role of General O’Hara (an Irishman who surrendered for the British), and why 75% of Black troops fought for the Crown. We reflect on Monica Lewinsky’s powerful talk on shame in the internet age, before turning to the fallout from Charlie Kirk’s killing, how one event is being weaponised to fuel division, echoing darker moments of history like Kristallnacht. And we look ahead: could the 2026 World Cup become the liberals’ unlikely answer to MAGA pageantry?

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    38 分