When the Great Recession struck, it was the start of the most significant economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. A slumping housing market revealed vulnerabilities of huge numbers of mortgage-backed securities and derivatives. In the aftermath, unemployment soared to 10%. GDP dropped by more than 4%, and federal authorities unleashed a series of unprecedented fiscal and monetary policies aimed at stemming the bleeding. When the dust finally settled, legislators and regulators pushed through a series of reforms meant to prevent the repeat of such a calamity. Fast forward to 2023 and the global banking system may be facing its most significant crisis since 2008. Within a short span, a run on deposits at Silicon Valley Bank quickly led to the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history, with Switzerland's Credit Suisse later seeking government lifelines. A second US regional bank — Signature Bank — failed, and a third — First Republic Bank — was propped up. To some, these are signs of the kinds of broader risks the global economy stared down in 2008. A combination of factors, including an eroding of regulations, sharp interest rate rises, mismanagement at banks, coupled with the overarching uncertainty of volatile crypto landscape, have raised new questions about the scale of turmoil that could confront markets. This cocktail of risks, some argue, has added such dangers to banking systems that it is no longer safer than it was in 2008. Others disagree. As bad this recent crisis appears to be, they say, regulatory reforms and liquidity requirements have made significant strides since the days of 2008. The system also effectively contained the contagion, something that required far greater government intervention in 2008. In that context, we debate the following question: Is the Banking System Safer Than It Was in 2008? 

Arguing YES: Jason Furman, Former Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers   

Arguing NO: Gillian Tett , Editor-at-Large, Financial Times (U.S.) 

Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates 

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By several measures, men are in trouble. Women outnumber them in college enrollment. And even once there, men are not as likely to graduate. Men also face higher levels of substance abuse, higher numbers of overdoses, higher incarceration rates, lower life expectancies, and suicide levels that are nearly four times more likely than women. In this context we debate the question: Are Men Finished and Should We Help Them? 

Arguing Yes: Richard Reeves, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow  

Arguing No: Hanna Rosin, Award-Winning Journalist and Podcast host 

Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates

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Defund the police. Abolish ICE. Redistribute the wealth. These are but a few of the one-liners that have emanated from the liberal wing of the Democratic party in recent years. With the emergence of “The Squad” in 2018 – or what began as four Democratic congresswomen who sought to push their party further left – liberal lawmakers have grown more prevalent in recent election cycles. And with just a slim 51-49 Democrat majority in the Senate, progressives are now eyeing 2024 as a way to strengthen their broader influence. By doing so, some say, the party risks aligning itself with ever more extreme politics, alienating moderate voices, and straying from what made it successful in the past. When President Bill Clinton was in office, they note, only 25 percent of Democrats described themselves as liberal; another 25 percent called themselves conservative, while an overwhelming 48 percent were self-described moderates. The equating of liberalism with Democratic policies, they argue, is a recent and dangerous trend, which makes governing more difficult. Others argue that the party is finally poised to make good what constitutes the reemergence of the political left, long stymied by the compromising influence of Washington and beltway politics. What’s more, they argue, this renewed focus on issues such as race, climate, income inequality has not only begun to address in earnest issues once paid only superficial notice, but is also electrifying the nation's progressive base in ways that can win elections. It is in this context that we debate the following question: Is The Democratic Party Too Far Left? 

Arguing Yes: Coleman Huges (Conversations with Coleman), Ruy Teixeira (American Enterprise Institute) 

Arguing No: Congressman Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), Alicia Garza (Co-founder of Black Lives Matter) 

Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates 

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Sixty years ago, in the sweltering August heat of Washington D.C., the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his most iconic speech, and a defining moment of the civil rights movement. "I have a dream,” he said before a crowd of some 250,000 people, pressed up to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." It is a sentence that has been repeated countless times in classrooms and lecture halls. And yet recently, King's words are more actively being parsed and debated about the appropriate place of race in America. With disparities in wealth, education, employment, housing, mobility, health, and rates of incarceration, some argue that King – who spoke during a period of more open bigotry – would not have wanted a “color-blind” society within these lingering racial inequalities. A raised consciousness plays an important role, they say, in recognizing and correcting such imbalances. Others argue that America has become overly concerned with race, to a level of obsession, pointing to things like critical race theory and diversity, equity, inclusion programs, which they fear could ultimately prove detrimental to the nation’s more egalitarian aspirations. Further, they argue, notions of race are often too broad to be useful, while the fixation on it divides those who might otherwise find common ground. In this context, we debate the following question: Is America Too Obsessed With Race? 

Arguing “YES” is Kmele Foster, co-host of The Fifth Column podcast and the co-founder and executive producer of the media company Freethink. Foster was one of the signatories of the Harper's Letter on justice and open debate, alongside more than 150 people, including Salman Rushdie, J.K. Rowling, and Noam Chomsky. He is an outspoken libertarian critic of cancel culture, the Black Lives Matter movement, and political orthodoxy. 

Arguing “NO” is Nsé Ufot, activist, community organizer, and former chief executive officer of the New Georgia Project, a voter support and legal action nonprofit organization founded by Stacey Abrams in 2013. In 2021, Ufot was named one of Time's 100 Next, a ranking of emerging leaders thought to define the next generation of leadership. 

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This year, the Federal Trade Commission decided shake up the labor market, proposing to ban non-compete clauses for the tens of millions of workers they affect. The clauses are essentially contracts between employers and employees that prohibit the former from competing with the business after the employment has ended. As many as 30% of all U.S. private sector workers have signed such agreements, which actually find their roots all the way back in 15th century England. Those who defend such clauses say employers need these contracts to protect their investments in training workers, not to mention safeguarding their trade secrets. The contracts, they say, represent not only a fair exchange, but also serve as an important fortification for businesses within the broader economy. The FTC, they say, is overextending. But opponents argue that such contracts prevent workers from starting their own businesses, locking them into undercompensated positions, and depress labor mobility and wage growth, while contributing to race and gender gaps. It is in this context that we debate the following question: Should the FTC Ban Non-compete Clauses? 

Arguing Yes: Arguing “YES”: Heidi Shierholz, Economic Policy Institute President and former Chief Economist to the U.S. Secretary of Labor. 

Arguing No: Neil Bradley, Executive Vice President, Chief Policy Officer, and Head of Strategic Advocacy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce 

Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates 

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What’s it take to change a mind? It turns out there is a science to it. That’s at least according to David McRaney, a journalist, author, and host of the You Are Not So Smart podcast. The first step, he says, is don’t overtly try to win. In any argument, an attempt to defeat the opposing party is not nearly as effective as leading the person along in stages, which eventually align with your own thinking. In fact, mere exposure to different ideas, according a recent Pew study, does not generally change most Americans’ perspectives on a given issue. Understanding techniques to communicate successfully and proactively active listen, is ultimately thought to be a more effective approach. Intelligence Squared US, since 2026, has made fostering intellectual openness in dialogue a core part of its mission. In that context, and to get a sense of what other methods are out there, John Donvan sat down with David McRaney on the science of changing minds.    

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With one billion active users across more than 150 countries, TikTok is by many measures the world’s most successful video app. Nearly one in three Americans have an account. It is the most downloaded app since 2021. And like virtually all of social media, user privacy concerns abound. But TikTok adds an extra layer. Owned by Chinese company ByteDance, there are worries that U.S. data could be transmitted to China’s government, despite assurances from the company that it is not. Those concerns prompted President Joe Biden to ban Tiktok from government phones. More than half of U.S. states have similar controls in place. But with increased tensions between Beijing and Washington, and mounting questions of Chinese surveillance, some are calling for the U.S. to go further and ban the technology outright. Those supporting such a move often to point to a ban on another Chinese tech giant, Huawei, as an effective means of limiting China’s influence and potentially extractive technological efforts. Those who argue against it say a ban would essentially undermine what has become an important tool in the video marketplace, and that such efforts are not only political motivated, but are also easily bypassed. In that context, we debate the following: Should the U.S. Ban TikTok? 

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It’s poised to “change our world.” That’s according to Bill Gates, referencing an advanced AI chatbot called ChatGPT, which seems to be all the rage. The tool, which was developed by OpenAI and backed by a company Gates founded, Microsoft, effectively takes questions from users and produces human-like responses. The "GPT" stands "Generative Pre-trained Transformer," which denotes the design and nature of the artificial intelligence training. And yet despite the chatbot’s swelling popularity, it’s also not without controversy. Everything from privacy and ethical questions to growing concerns about the data it utilizes, has some concerned about the effects it will ultimately have on society. Its detractors fear job loss, a rise in disinformation, and even the compromising long-term effects it could have on humans’ capacity for reason and writing. Its advocates tout the advantages ChatGPT will inevitably lend organizations, its versatility and iterative ability, and the depth and diversity of the data from which it pulls. Against this backdrop, we debate the following question: Will ChatGPT do more harm than good? 

Arguing "Yes" is Gary Marcus (Author of "Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust" and Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University)

Arguing "No" is Keith Teare (Entrepreneur, Author, and CEO & Founder at SignalRank Corporation)

Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates. 

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This was supposed to be the “Chinese century.” In just a few decades, China transitioned from a developing economy to the world’s second largest. Measured in purchasing power parity, it actually surpassed the U.S. economy in 2014, and has since expanded its military, monetary, infrastructure, and soft power capacities in ways that all seemed to point to long-term advantages as a rising power. At the Communist Party’s five-yearly congress in October 2022, Xi Jinping cemented his place as the country’s “helmsman” and its most powerful person since Mao Zedong, with an unprecedented third term as party chief. And yet the failure of China’s zero-COVID policy, a slumping economy, apparent supply chain vulnerabilities within its technology sector, and a problematic demographic profile have all raised questions about the scope of China’s future power. Those who say it has peaked say the Chinese system is facing significant economic headwinds, uneven innovation, a heavy debt burden, as well as mounting frustrations among its younger populations with regard to upward mobility and censorship. Those who say it hasn’t peaked argue that while the nation’s economic growth has indeed slowed, massive Chinese spending in infrastructure, defense, and technology will nonetheless allow it to enlarge its global power projections well into the future. Against this backdrop, we debate this question: Has China’s Power Peaked? 

Arguing “Yes” is Michael Beckley, formerly of the Harvard Kennedy School, the US Department of Defense, the RAND Corporation, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is the author of “Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower,” has a PhD in political science from Columbia University, and is currently associate professor of political science at Tufts University.  

Arguing “No” is Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, a leading global political risk research and consulting firm. He is also a founder of the digital media firm GZERO Media. Bremmer is the foreign affairs columnist and editor-at-large at Time magazine, where he writes about China, U.S. foreign policy, and geopolitics. He has published ten books, including “Superpower,” “The Power of Crisis,” and the national bestsellers “The End of the Free Market” and “Every Nation for Itself.”  

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Sexual violence is arguably the most devastating kind. But the sex offender registry has come under increasing scrutiny. Some suggest that it actually encourages further criminal offenses by making it virtually impossible for offenders to reintegrate into society. Others say that reducing such a proactive approach and tool will endanger communities. In this context, we debate the following question: Does the Sex Offender Registry Do More Harm Than Good?    

Arguing "YES" is Emily Horowitz, a sociologist who researches sex offense law and policy, and the author of "Protecting Our Kids? How Sex Offender Laws Are Failing Us" and "From Rage to Reason: Why We Need Sex Crime Laws Based on Facts, Not Fear." 

Arguing "No" is Cary Federman, author of "Democracy and Deliberation: The Law and Politics of Sex Offender Legislation" and associate professor at Montclair State University who focuses law and jurisprudence, free speech, democratic theory, prisons and prisoners’ rights.  

Emmy award-winning journalist John Donvan moderates. 

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