Shows / Aeon Magazine
Aeon Magazine
Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant ideas, told through essays that help us make sense of ourselves and the world. We ask the big, existentially significant questions and find the freshest, most original answers, provided by leading thinkers on philosophy, science, psychology, society and culture. Each episode features a narrated Aeon essay, a journey into expert concepts and stories that provoke, enrich and expand our horizons. Aeon is a nonprofit digital magazine publishing…
Episodes
Aeon MagazineThe house is a work of art
Frank Lloyd Wright exalted the individual and made ordinary life beautiful. But his life was marked by scandal and grief. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineBanking beyond the law
A centuries-old network of secret codes and shadowy brokers continues to outpace financial systems controlled by the state. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineThe hypercurious mind
ADHD isn’t merely a dysfunction. It’s best understood as an impulsive motivational drive for novel information. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineMedieval moons
Some saw the Moon as representing creation, yearning for the Divine, some saw the Moon as almost Divine herself. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineSleep is delicious
The idea that we should reduce sleep to an efficient minimum in our lives gets something fundamentally wrong. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineCatastrophe markets
Americans love to gamble. But placing bets on wildfires, floods and storms comes with serious moral and social costs. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineOne China, one world
China’s regime insists on national unity and international harmony. Is this anything more than an imperial posture?. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineThe clock in our genes
The biologist Victoria Foe discovered a timing device in ‘junk’ DNA that could unlock the evolution of complex life. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
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An African philosophy
Lansana Keita rejected Eurocentric ideas, tracing the philosophical tradition back to African Kemet or ancient Egypt. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineDesert survivors
Elephant families are matriarchal, inclusive and caring. But when environmental scarcity hits, everything changes. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineCosmic imposters
We know that black holes are strange, but they could be hiding something even weirder beyond their horizons. Aeon audio explores the most profound and relevant…
Aeon MagazineBitch: a history
The word can morph from noun to verb to adjective, from dog to human, from female to male. What will it do next?. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineGeist in the machine
As the 18th-century war between mechanism and romanticism returns, we face a new question: can we build artificial souls?. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineAbandoning ourselves
Since living requires choosing, we will always feel regret about the paths not taken. But what matters is the future we forge. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineUnbounded
In the early 20th century, Emmy Noether’s mathematics transcended the physical world. She longed to do the same herself. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineFrom cells to selves
Contemplating the world requires a body, and a body requires an immune system: the rungs of life create the stuff of thought. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineA wondrous brew
Ayahuasca has gone global. But do corporate managers in China’s megacities have the same visions as shamans in Peru?. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineA duty to oneself
African philosophical values of harmony and vitality have much to offer our thinking about what we owe to ourselves. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineReversing extinction
Technologies of preserving and reviving organisms are already redefining the meaning of life, death, and extinction itself. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineDoes culture make emotion?
Franz Boas helps us solve the puzzle of where our emotional lives originate: in our selves or in the cultures around us. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineNothing alive is alien to me
Who belongs to our moral community? The Greek philosopher Empedocles had an answer: all life, from humans to the laurel bush. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineNot in our name
The gravest of all decisions, to go to war, happens without the consent of the people. This is a great flaw in democracy. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineSavage care
Neat ethical principles have nothing to say to doctors like me, faced with the brutal, bloody compromises of hospital life. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineOn her own terms
Doris Lessing’s Golden Notebook remains shocking, necessary and imperfect – a dazzling experiment in living as a woman. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineThe insurance catastrophe
Whole regions of the world are now uninsurable, bringing radical uncertainty to the economy. How do we fix the problem?. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineWho is Walter Mignolo?
A prominent architect of decolonial theory, his diagnosis of European colonial ills is both penetrating and flawed. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineOur phosphorescent world
This life-giving element, stored in rock and organic material, moves around Earth in an ancient cycle we have just broken. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineThe inflammation age
Acute inflammation helps the body heal. But chronic inflammation is different and could provoke a medical paradigm shift. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineThere are no psychopaths
Virtually everything you think you know about psychopathy has been thoroughly debunked. Why does this zombie idea live on?. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineThe presence of power
The Indian thinker Rammohun Roy believed that good governance must be close: distance made the British Empire cruel. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineThe six-second hug
From art to religion to sex, instrumentalisation has drained away intrinsic value. But life is about more than material benefits. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineConservation’s prejudice
Ecology is pervaded by a nativist dogma against invasive species that distorts the science and undermines wildness. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon Magazine‘I awoke at ½ past 7’
Our cursed age of self-monitoring and optimisation didn’t start with big tech: as so often, the Victorians are to blame. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineMask on/mask off
People with ADHD and autism have to mask their instincts if they want to be included. But the strain exacts a very high price. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineGoing-against-the-grainers
If our ethical beliefs come from our social environment, how do some people find the moral courage to defy convention?. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineBooks and screens
Your inability to focus isn’t a failing. It’s a design problem, and the answer isn’t getting rid of our screen time. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineMexistentialism
The Mexican embrace of uncertainty, forged in the crucible of history, captures the true vulnerability of our existence. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineThe snowball effect
Our planet was once a harsh, alien, icy world. Yet this deep freeze may have shaped you, me and all life on Earth. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineThe deepest South
Slavery in Latin America, on a huge scale, was different from that in the United States. Why don’t we know this history?. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineThe model of catastrophe
The immense complexity of the climate makes it impossible to model accurately. Instead we must use uncertainty to our advantage. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineGuarding the guardians
Good institutions are social technologies that scale trust from personal relations to entire nations. How do they work?. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineSubverting hell
In their visions of the underworld Dante and Milton were truly subversive, incorporating predecessors into their own repudiation. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineCompost modernity!
The vision of solarpunk: joining nature with technology in vibrantly inclusive ways to create a world that truly blooms. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineOrcas and ourselves
Sea pandas or sadistic killers? These enigmatic creatures invite contradictory labels that say far more about us than them. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineThe ant you can save
Should we simply assume that all animals can feel pain and are of moral concern? Or is that taking things too far?. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineAre you Confusedocene?
As a scientific concept the Anthropocene is dead. But it’s such a helpful idea to think with, should we use it anyway?. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineHow selfish are we?
An age-old debate about human nature is being energised with new findings on the tightrope of cooperation and competition. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineBetween being and emptiness
In Japanese philosophy, unlike the atomised Western self, we are ‘ningen’ (人間), each enmeshed with other humans and nature. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineCan you rewire your brain?
The metaphor of rewiring offers an ideal of engineered precision. But the brain is more like a forest than a circuit board. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineVictims and villains
In Southeast Asia’s scam compounds, workers are being enslaved but the boundary between victim and perpetrator is blurred. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineMegastructures on Mars
Images of vast ‘canals’ rippling across the red planet inspired fears of alien ‘engineers’ and changed science forever. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineValuable misunderstandings
Scientific progress depends on disagreement. So why are vaccine sceptics and other science critics not worth listening to?. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineIs inherited wealth bad?
Despite associations with the idle rich, the fact that inheritances are rising is a sign of a healthy, growing economy. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineA lesson in coexistence
The 17th-century town Cacheu was a hub of West African and European cultures, languages and beliefs (and run by women). Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazinePower and flesh
As struggles over the human body escalate, we should return to the work of cinema’s greatest anatomist: David Cronenberg. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineThe world without hegemony
As Pax Americana ends, a multipolar order is emerging. The history of Southeast Asia holds lessons for what’s to come. Aeon audio explores the most profound…
Aeon MagazineComputers can’t surprise
As AI’s endless clichés continue to encroach on human art, the true uniqueness of our creativity is becoming ever clearer. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineDreams of the far Right
Young Europeans join far-Right movements less out of grievance than out of a profound yearning to believe and belong. Aeon audio explores the most profound and…
Aeon MagazineA light from the periphery
The life of Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose illuminates how scientific genius can emerge from the most unexpected quarters. Aeon audio explores the most…
Aeon MagazineOur unfinished republics
Economic republicanism shows us how to achieve authentic freedom: citizens require economic as well as political power. Aeon audio explores the most profound…