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IDEAS is a place for people who like to think. If you value deep conversation and unexpected reveals, this show is for you. From the roots and rise of authoritarianism to near-death experiences to the history of toilets, no topic is off-limits. Hosted by Nahlah Ayed, we’re home to immersive documentaries and fascinating interviews with some of the most consequential thinkers of our time.

With an award-winning team, our podcast has proud roots in its 60-year history with CBC Radio, exploring the IDEAS that make us who we are. 

New episodes drop Monday through Friday at 5pm ET.

Ideas

It is possible. Flavours have been lost to the past, as culinary physicist Lenore Newman explains. She points to the extinction of the passenger pigeon — a species numbering in the billions throughout North America — as an example. In 1914, Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati zoo — and in place of the pigeon, came the industrialized farming of chicken. Newman says we're now transitioning to lab-raised food — a technology capable of pushing a global history of scarcity into one of abundance, all the while easing land usage. She calls it the "food singularity."

What if your favourite food became extinct?

At a time when the future of Iran is uncertain, we revisit an IDEAS documentary about the history of women’s resistance in Iran — women who in 1979 harboured dreams of freedom and democracy. After ousting the Shah, and mere weeks after Ayatollah Khomeini took power, Iranian women marched to show their fury at the revolution. Forty years after their protest, documentary maker Donya Ziaee spoke to three Iranian women who were there, fighting to turn the tide of history. *This episode originally aired on March 8, 2019.

Lessons from the women of Iran's 1979 'stolen' revolution

Accusations of a stolen election, laws targeting NGOs and media, violent treatment of protestors — sometimes live on TV. What’s happening in the republic of Georgia right now typifies what is happening geopolitically around the world. The authoritarian ruling party called Georgian Dream aligns itself with Russia but most citizens want the country to join the European Union. There have been 400 consecutive days of protests before 2026 against the Georgian Dream government.

Radio documentary makers David Zane Mairowitz and Malgorzata Zerwe were in the capital Tbilisi, and to record the Family Purity Parade and a demonstration, each from opposing ends of the political spectrum, for this documentary.

God, parades and authoritarianism on the streets of Georgia

That’s what Hanna Pickard argues. After analyzing the scientific research, and working with those who’ve stopped self-destructive drug and alcohol use, the Johns Hopkins philosopher sees addiction as a complex behavioural disorder. She argues it’s driven by individual psychology and social circumstances, and should be treated that way. Jowita Bydlowska and Michael Kaufmann, both memoirists of addiction, weigh in.

Guests in this episode:

Hanna Pickard is the author of What Would You Do Alone in a Cage with Nothing but Cocaine? A Philosophy of Addiction (2026). She is a professor of philosophy and bioethics, as well as psychological & brain sciences, at Johns Hopkins University.

Jowita Bydlowska is a writer of fiction, as well as two memoirs of addiction: Drunk Mom, and Unshaming: A Memoir of Recovery, Relapse, and What Comes After (2026).

Dr. I. Michael Kaufmann is emeritus medical director of the Physician Health Program of the Ontario Medical Association. He is a retired family doctor, a retired addiction doctor, and the author of Drugs, Lies, and Docs: A Doctor's Memoir of Addiction (2024).

Wait, so addiction might not be a brain disease?

Connie Greyeyes describes herself as an ‘accidental activist.’ After her cousin was murdered and her childhood best friend went missing, she started organizing vigils for missing and murdered Indigenous women in Fort St. John, B.C. — then asking questions about the relationship between resource extraction and violence against women. This episode is the first in a series of profiles of human rights defenders, recorded alongside the 2025 CBC Massey Lectures.

'Accidental activist' links resource extraction to missing and murdered Indigenous women

You likely have never heard of Matilda Joslyn Gage. Gloria Steinem calls her “the woman ahead of the women who were ahead of their time.” Matilda worked side by side with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to get women the vote in the United States and co-wrote the history of the women’s movement with them. IDEAS producer Dawna Dingwall looks into why the towering figure was erased by her peers, and the work that is being done to write Matilda back into history.

If you liked this podcast, you may like: Why there's no place like Oz. Matilda Joslyn Gage was a big influence on the author Lyman Frank Baum, famous for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Feminism runs through this book. 

Guests in this episode:

Angelica Shirley Carpenter, author of Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist

Michael Patrick Hearn, author of the Annotated Wizard of Oz

Gita Dorothy Morena, great-great-granddaughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage

Ciarrai Eaton, executive director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation

The late Sally Roesch Wagner, former ED of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation appears courtesy of The Book Dreams Podcast, WCNY's Repeating History podcast, the International Wizard of Oz Club and filmmaker Jeremy Kagan.

The suffragist who was too radical for Susan. B. Anthony

There are two things most people agree on — artificial intelligence is rapidly advancing, and the grave risks AI poses are very real — no one, not even ChatGPT, really knows how this will play out. Renowned “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton argues we need to put the brakes on AI development until we know for sure it can be kept safely under control.

Owain Evans is a leading AI researcher and the founder/director of Truthful AI. In his 2025 Hinton lecture series, organized by the AI Safety Foundation, he discusses the risks presented by AI, the means at our disposal to keep it escaping human control, and the challenges of developing coherent, comprehensive strategies to prevent AI from becoming a menace to humankind.

Have time for one more podcast? Don't miss our feature interview with AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton: Why AI needs to be nicer to us and develop 'maternal instincts'

How can we prevent AI from becoming a menace?

And it is dying. At least for us, humans. Our chatter and connection online is being overrun by bots — more than half of online activity is non-human. The internet is on it's way to feeling haunted, like a deserted mall where the fountain is still gurgling, the canned music is still playing, but the people are nowhere to be found. IDEAS explores the dying internet and what we will do when it's dead?

If you like this episode, you may want to listen to: We're not machines. Why should our online world define life?

Guests in this episode:

Cory Doctorow is an activist with a non-profit called the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He's a writer and journalist. His most recent book is called Enshitification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse And What To Do About It

Matt Hussey is a UK-based therapist and tech journalist.

What will happen to us when the internet dies?

It was a simple honeymoon photo from 1941. A stranger posted it online and the commentary was vicious. The woman in that picture was Albanian author Lea Ypi’s grandmother. In the midst of the Second World War and the violent end times of Mussolini’s government, Ypi’s grandmother must have been a fascist, a collaborator, a traitor to Albania. In her book, Indignity: A Life Reimagined, Ypi attempts to find the truth of her grandmother’s life, in a journey that mixes philosophy, fantasy, history, and family narrative.

When your grandmother is accused of being a 'fascist spy'

Thanks to AI, it's easier than ever to avoid reading books — but that convenience may come with a cost. IDEAS explores how our digital landscape, coupled with the decline of reading, is changing the way we think.

If you like this episode, listen to our podcast with Geoffrey Hinton, the 'godfather of artificial intelligence' who says AI must develop empathy and 'maternal instincts' or we risk human extinction.

Guests in this episode:

Adriaan Van der Weel is a professor emeritus by special appointment at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. He's also the co-author of The Ljubljana Manifesto on Higher-Level Reading.

Maryanne Wolf is director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and the author of Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World (2018).

Naomi Baron is a professor emerita of World Languages and Cultures at American University and the author of Reader Bot: What Happens When AI Reads and Why It Matters (2026).

Leah Sargeant is an author and senior policy analyst at the Niskanen Center.

Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) at the University of Edinburgh, where she is also appointed in Philosophy. She is the author of The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (2024).

With a decline in reading is our capacity to think eroding?

It depends on who you ask. Until recently empathy was generally considered a positive thing. But a growing number of mostly conservative voices believe empathy can be extremely dangerous — even toxic. Their argument is that empathy can drive irrational thinking and behaviour in public life. The result is a growing battle over empathy in a world that has never seemed to need it more.

If you like this podcast, you may want to listen to this: Why practicing empathy is far from simple.

Guests in this podcast:

Matt Richins – neuroscientist and psychologist, who did research on empathy at Exeter University, UK.

Susan Lanzoni – author, historian of psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience and professor at Harvard’s School of Continuing Education

Mary Gordon – founder of Roots of Empathy program, Toronto

Michael Slote – author, philosopher and professor of ethics at the University of Miami

Margaret Davidson – Roots of Empathy classroom facilitator, Chiganois Elementary

Kourtney Simms – Chiganois Elementary teacher

Ellie – Grade 1 student, Chiganois Elementary

Can empathy be dangerous?

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