Thursday, 11 October 2007
Philip Ball on the Physics of Social Behaviour
How groups of people make decisions, form opinions, and determine social norms has traditionally been the focus of sociology, anthropology and political science. But physics too has a long tradition of studying systems of many interacting components and has developed tools for understanding how such systems can generate collective behaviours that can't be anticipated by studying their components or their interactions in isolation. In this talk for Disarmament Insight on 25 September 2007, Dr.
Tuesday, 31 July 2007
'Cognitive ergonomics' (John Borrie)
In these concluding off-the-cuff remarks from our 25 May Disarmament Insight symposium on ‘Human Security, Human Nature and Trust-building in Negotiations’, John Borrie talks about what he calls “cognitive ergonomics” and the relevance of the concept in thinking about the structures and procedures in multilateral negotiations. Not to mention Jimi Hendrix, the Who and Formula One and World Rally Car racing ...
John Borrie leads UNIDIR’s project on Disarmament as Humanitarian Action: Making
Friday, 20 July 2007
Warring instincts: what can we learn from behavioural economics & neuroscience?
In the second half of this edited two-part podcast, Paul Seabright discusses perspectives from behavioural economics and neuroscience of potential help in understanding violence as part of a presentation entitled "How have human beings tamed our warring instincts?". Slides accompany audio on this podcast.
This podcast is an edited recording of Professor Seabright’s presentation at a Disarmament Insight symposium on ‘Human Security, Human Nature and Trust-building in Negotiations’ held near
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Warring instincts: What do we know about levels of violence? (Paul Seabright)
In the first half of this edited two-part podcast, Professor Paul Seabright discusses what’s known about levels of violence since prehistoric times as part of a presentation entitled "How have human beings tamed our warring instincts?". Audio on this podcast is accompanied by slides.
This podcast is an edited recording of Professor Seabright’s presentation at a Disarmament Insight symposium on ‘Human Security, Human Nature and Trust-building in Negotiations’ held near Geneva on 25 May 2007.
Tuesday, 19 June 2007
War and Peace and Primates (Frans de Waal)
Professor Frans de Waal, one of the world’s foremost primatologists, explores what multilateral practitioners can learn from our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, including the chimpanzee and the bonobo, about negotiating, the nature of conflict and reconciliation.
Professor de Waal is Director of the Living Links Center & C. H. Candler Professor of Primate Behavior at Emory University's Department of Psychology. He has written many books, including Chimpanzee Politics, Peacemaking
As part of its work, Disarmament Insight is holding events throughout 2007 bringing together people from our target audiences in multilateral disarmament diplomacy.
The idea is to inspire them with some useful out-of-the-box perspectives and prompt them to discuss obstacles and challenges in human security-related work in new, more productive ways.
We don’t report on the discussions between participants at those invitation-only events. But we’re pod casting some of the presentations as we reckon they’re too good not to share. Standard weasle-word disclaimers apply of course: what speakers say in their pod casts is their sole responsibility and doesn’t necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the United Nations, UNIDIR, Geneva Forum, their staff members or sponsors.
With that out of the way, get prepared to be inspired too!
If you like our pod casts, you can subscribe to download presentations as they become available by clicking on the ‘Subscribe’ link.
