The Next Debate

It is a disturbing thesis: war is the engine of human civilization. The remarkable decline in rates of violence from the Stone Age to our own time did not happen by coincidence. It is the product of millennia of violent conflict producing larger and more stable societies that lower the benefits of using violence – for individuals, states and empires. Bestselling author and Stanford Classics professor Ian Morris on the past and the future of War.

Man-made islands rising out of the empty sea. Military planes and ships threating each other. A growing drumbeat of nationalist rhetoric on all sides. Seemingly out of nowhere the South China Sea has emerged as a global flash point pitting a rising China and its regional ambitions against is neighbours and the U.S. military. Is a major international conflict brewing in South China Seas’ contested waters? Can China, America and the nations who share one of the world’s most valuable pieces of geopolitical real-estate peacefully resolve their differences?

The statistics are mind numbing. 200,000 dead. 10,000 children killed. Upwards of 4 million refugees. Now in its fifth year, the Syrian crisis has emerged as the greatest humanitarian disaster of our time. But where is this crisis headed? Does the West and the international community have a strategy to stabilize this traumatized nation? Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s chief international correspondent thinks the West’s tinkering at the edges of the conflict needs to stop and global humanitarian action must start now.

It's a controversial thesis: The system of global capitalism is breaking down. The economic social and environmental grievances of millions of the poor and disempowered are growing. The consequence will be nothing less than a new age of revolt and rebellion unparalleled in our time. The proponent of this radical argument is no fly by commentator. It's Chris Hedges, a respected Pulitzer Prize winning author and decade’s long foreign correspondent for the New York Times.

More than just about anyone else, Joseph Stiglitz is the intellectual father of the global debate on economic inequality and what governments, corporations and citizens should to do about it. His new book, The Great Divides, explores his writing and advocacy on economic inequality since the issue first bosomed in the public consciousness in 2011 with the Occupy Wall Street Movement. But where is this debate headed? Is progress on social and economic equality now finally possible? Or is this a debate and movement that is struggling to gain wider spread traction as the economic recovery takes hold?

It sounds like science fiction: a computer many times smarter than any human being wiping out civilization. But the existential risks associated with thinking machines is an increasingly hot top topic in Silicon Valley and high-tech hubs everywhere. Renowned artificial intelligence expert Nick Bostrom thinks the dangers are real, and the sooner we take them seriously the more likely we can prevent a super intelligent machine from becoming humankind’s last invention.

In an era of billion-dollar high-tech start-ups and fierce global competition in the sciences, engineering and maths, the once venerated liberal arts are getting a bad rap from students, employers and governments. Author and liberal arts grad Fareed Zakaria thinks that it is time for pushback by the humanities. For Fareed Zakaria, a broad-based liberal arts education is more important than ever for the future competitiveness of our economies, the health of our democracies and for our very sense of self.

As the West expands and deepens its military mission against the Islamic State, how much do we really know about the foe we are fighting? Pakistani journalist, bestselling author and renowned expect on radical Islam, Ahmed Rashid, thinks the West has failed to understand the extent to which the Islamic State represents an entirely new breed of terrorist enterprise. Any chance we have of marginalizing ISIS as a force in the region will require unprecedented Arab -- as opposed to Western -- action. The prospect of failure for Ahmed Rashid includes nothing less than a catastrophic sectarian war within the Muslim world.

It's a controversial and sobering argument: ignore the soaring stock market, strong job growth in the U.S. and the global financial vibe that finally, after seven long years, better days lie ahead of the economies of the developing world. Instead, the Western world should be bracing itself for an extended period of feeble growth and persistent underemployment – so-called secular stagnation. The proponent of his sobering thesis is a person who knows a thing or two about the dismal science, economics. He is Lawrence H. Summers, former U.S. treasury secretary, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, runner up to replace Ben Bernanke at the Federal reserve and a celebrated Harvard economist. ## Links ## Lawrence Summers: http://larrysummers.com/ Munk Debates - North American Economy: https://www.munkdebates.com/debates/north-american-economy Globe and Mail - Globe Debate: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/

Welcome to The Next Debate, a new bi-monthly interview series from The Munk Debates, featuring past and future debaters on issues and ideas driving public debate.