Whistle-blowers and Rumour-mongers

Rahul is a politics professor at Princeton University in the US. In his new book Secrets and Leaks, he weighs the ethics of revealing sensitive government information, from Deep Throat and Watergate to Edward Snowden and the NSA.

Ana Maria is a leading writer in Brazil and the President of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.  Her most recent novel Infamia won the prestigious Zaffari & Bourbon Award (Best novel in Portuguese language 2011-2013), and includes the story of a whistle-blower whose world falls apart when a false rumour about him spreads like wildfire.

Jayson is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Baruch College, City University of New York.  His most recent research focuses on political ‘Rumor Bombs’ and the public sphere, and is currently writing a book on the subject.

In this week’s 60 Second Idea to Change the World, Princeton academic Rahul Sagar says let’s base citizenship on ideology rather than birth or ancestry. That way everyone will be able to live with people they agree with. Don’t want to pay taxes and be saddled with oppressive public services? You can move to Libertarian-Land. Want the State to provide everything and tax the living daylights out of evil corporations? Good news, Socialist-stan awaits you. Wait a minute, you’ll say. Won’t Libertarian-Land and Socialist-stan end up going to war with each other? Don’t worry, they won’t be able to—they’ll all be kept in check by Moderate-stan, to whom we’ll give all the nuclear weapons.

 

Fear: What makes animals and humans either fearful or fearless?