Understanding conflicts in the Middle East

On the last episode of this season of "I thought about it", Sofia and Bruna invite their friend Clara to discuss how their paths so far led them to see the world in the manner they do today. They also chat about what they would still like to achieve and how the creation of this podcast series resulted in a great learning (communication) experience for them. 

In this episode, Sofia and Bruna discuss the EU enlargement, what are the states which are more far ahead in adhering to integrating the European Union, and what are some of the steps still for those to accomplish membership. 

In 2019, a wave of protests broke out in Latin America. A region that's home to some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world, is also one of deep economic and political turmoil. In this episode, we discuss a bit about the past and present reality of some of these countries' economies: hyperinflation, refugee crisis, austerity, and hyperinflation. 

"God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World", is the book we discuss in this episode. Its author, the religion scholar Stephen Prothero argues that persistent attempts to portray all religions as different paths to the same God is incorrect. Each religion wants to address different questions and provides different answers. If tolerance rests on the respect for difference, one must first acknowledge difference exists. Also, as history has proven, politics and religion have long been intertwined, so we decided it was worth discussing some historical episodes where religion was particularly influential in world politics.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is probably a direct consequence of China’s reinforcement of different institutions that needed to be built to improve (trade) relations between China and other countries. With the this ambitious iniative, China is aiming to sustain its new phase of development. Across continents, however, other countries' perspectives on this project are diverse. In this episode, we take a general look at the BRI framework and discuss some of its implications. 

We take a look at the historical trend of some conflicts in the Middle East, and the role of US and European foreign policy on those.

"The White Man's Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good" is one of the books written by the development economist William Easterly and the inspiration for this episode. We discuss some of the past and contemporary conceptions on economic development policy and compare cases of success and failure.

We discuss the EU refugee crisis, the mobility issue, and what the New Pact on Migration and Asylum may signify. To learn a bit more about this topic we suggest the book "Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System", by A. Betts and P. Collier.

" The Precipice", by Toby Ord, presents us with a major reorientation to how we see the world. We take the author's metaphor as a starting point for discussing the European Green New Deal and what it might mean for the next decades. 

In this episode, we discuss the book "Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People", by Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald. You may expect some new psychology vocabulary and a lot of discussion about stereotyping and its potential harms. If you wish to take the implicit association test (IAT) , here's a link where you can do so: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html