Rational and Irrational decision making
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From economics to dreams: Anne McElvoy and guests consider the value of irrationality. How often is emotion, instinct and unsound thinking behind the decisions taken by governments, financial markets and citizens? And does it matter if long term strategic thinking relying on calm assessments of the trade offs, conventional wisdom and the lessons of experience take a back seat. Is there a value in irrationality? Guests include: Bronwen Maddox, Director and CEO of Chatham House, the international think tank; Lionel Barber, author of Gambling Man: The Wild Ride of Japan's Masayoshi Son; Salma Shah, who sits on the boards of Policy Exchange and the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge; Patrick Foulis, the foreign editor at the Economist and, Jonathan Egid, philosopher and BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.
Producer: Ruth Watts
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:07.3 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. |
| 0:10.5 | Evil genius. |
| 0:11.6 | He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. |
| 0:15.5 | That's like hiding at your own funeral. |
| 0:17.1 | Yeah, a bit great gig. |
| 0:18.6 | I'm Russell Kane. |
| 0:19.6 | Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:42.4 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:47.6 | Hello and welcome to the Arts and Ideas podcast with me, Anne McHelvoy. |
| 0:52.1 | On the road in America last week, I encountered very different viewpoints, |
| 0:54.7 | ranging from the maga passions of Trump devotees at a Christian conservative university in the South to the heated anti-maga passions |
| 0:59.8 | of the Washington No King's demonstration. And I was struck by how much that seemed logical |
| 1:05.6 | and desirable to one group of people could seem fully irrational, hairbrained to another. |
| 1:12.1 | That contrast was apparent in one of the great knockabouts of election feuds |
| 1:15.7 | in the US-1964 election |
| 1:18.2 | when the conservative Barry Goldwater ran on the slogan, |
| 1:22.1 | In your heart, you know he's right. |
| 1:24.2 | And his Democrat opponent, Lyndonby Johnson, retorted tartly, and in your guts, you know he's nuts. And his Democrat opponent, Lyndon B. Johnson, retorted tartly, and in your guts, |
| 1:28.9 | you know he's nuts. But irrational phenomena are also woven deep into our societies, beneath the |
| 1:35.4 | veneer of modernity. Global markets can rise or crash, often on sentiment, distinct from raw |
| 1:42.1 | facts. Fears that the AI bubble might burst |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.