Should we phase out Social Security? Social Security's retirement trust fund is projected to run out in 2032, and if Congress does nothing, benefits get cut by 22%. A Cato Institute budget expert who wants to replace it with a simpler safety net and a labor economist who wants to expand it debate whether the program is worth saving. Arguing Yes: @RominaBoccia Director of Budget and Entitlement Policy at @CatoInstitute and co-author of "Reimagining Social Security: Global Lessons for Retirement Policy Changes" Arguing No: @tghilarducci, Professor of Economics and Policy Analysis at @nssrnews and author of "Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy" @JohnDonvan moderates. Watch the full debate: youtube.com/watch?v=XCP6SdSd…

Did Israel have another option in Gaza after the October 7 attacks? @mehdirhasan argues Israel has shown it can target Hamas leaders precisely, so the scale of destruction in Gaza was a choice, not a necessity. @EylonALevy counters that Hamas deliberately embedded itself among civilians and hostages, so reaching its leaders was never as simple as a single strike. Watch the full debate: bit.ly/4zldU3Q

Has the 401(k) failed American workers? @tghilarducci argues saving on your own hasn't worked, leaving even well-paid workers retiring with far too little. @RominaBoccia counters that the private system is working, and lower earners would save more if Social Security took less of their pay. Watch the full debate: youtube.com/watch?v=XCP6SdSd…

Excited to be nominated for a @signalawards for hosting @OpentoDebateOrg's Generational Divides podcast. Info, voting rules at vote.signalaward.com/PublicV…

Does the U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear agreement serve America's interests? Saudi Arabia made its fortune on oil, and now it wants nuclear power with the United States as its partner. The agreement is signed and under review in Congress. A former Deputy Secretary of Energy and a former White House Middle East negotiator face two of Washington's leading nonproliferation experts, debating whether the deal makes America safer or more exposed. Arguing Yes: Daniel Poneman, Former Deputy Secretary of Energy; Distinguished Fellow of the @AtlanticCouncil Global Energy Center and Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security @amoshochstein, Former White House Senior Advisor to President Biden; Managing Partner at TWG Global Arguing No: Sharon Squassoni, Research Professor at the @ElliottSchoolGW; Former Director of Nonproliferation and Prevention at CSIS @Cirincione, Former Director for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace @JohnDonvan moderates. Watch the full debate: bit.ly/3VzaFqO

The U.S. just signed a deal with Denmark and Greenland for permanent military rights on the island. Is control of Greenland a strategic necessity? @MaxBoot argues the push for Greenland revives 19th century imperialism, and a world where great powers take what they want is an open invitation for Russia in Ukraine and China in Taiwan. @AlexGrayForOK believes autocracies move faster than democracies, and the answer is a respectful agreement with Greenland and Denmark that lets the U.S. guarantee the island's security and deny any hostile power its air and sea. Watch the full debate: bit.ly/4iII9N6

Xi Jinping is in Washington this week for his first state visit in over a decade. Can Trump and Xi make diplomacy work? @SusanShirk1, argues diplomacy with China starts with knowing what you actually want, then bargaining toward a deal that leaves both sides better off, as history has shown can work. @DerekScissors1 counters that Xi is not the leader with whom those past deals were made, and he is not looking to make America comfortable at the table. @isaacstonefish adds that neither is Trump, which makes this a clean break from how diplomacy with China has ever been conducted. Watch the full debate: youtube.com/watch?v=KyCJ6rzv…

A major crypto bill just collapsed in the Senate, but can governments actually stop Bitcoin? Eric Posner argues regulators will tolerate Bitcoin right up until it threatens the money central banks control, and then every country would move to kill it. @gilliantett argues governments already have power over Bitcoin. Their crackdowns can drive its price down, and embracing blockchain technology doesn’t mean they have to embrace Bitcoin. Moderated by @JohnDonvan, with @PatrickByrne & @TimDraper Watch the full debate: bit.ly/3UXLNsF

Is the United Nations obsolete? The UN was built for the world of 1945. It now faces wars on multiple fronts, a warming planet, the rise of AI, and calls to reform itself from the inside. Two of its sharpest critics face two people who spent their careers working closely with it, debating whether the UN can still do the job it was created for. Arguing Yes: Rajan Menon, Spitzer Professor Emeritus of International Relations at the City College of New York; @NileGardiner, Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom @Heritage Arguing No: @kaneview, German diplomat and Senior Fellow at @VCDNP, Former UN Under-Secretary-General; Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, scholar and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mauritania. John Donvan moderates. Watch the full debate: bit.ly/3V0GjgP

Should DNA decide which kids get the best education? Ann Pleshette-Murphy argues the danger is already here, with genetic findings used to push for backing the strongest students and writing off the rest. Robert Plomin argues the science carries no policy of its own, and the same data can just as easily justify putting the most resources behind the kids most likely to struggle. Watch the full debate: youtube.com/watch?v=zpEEorMN…

Is parenting overrated? Every parent worries about getting it right, but DNA and twin research suggests the biggest decisions may already be made at birth. Two of the world's leading behavioral geneticists take on a psychologist who runs her own twin study and a former Parents magazine editor, arguing whether the way we're raised really shapes who we become. Arguing Yes: Robert Plomin, Professor of Behavior Genetics at @KingsCollegeLon @nlsegal, Director of the Twin Studies Center @csuf Arguing No: @kph3k, Psychology Professor at @utaustintx Ann Pleshette Murphy, parenting expert and former Editor-in-Chief of Parents magazine John Donvan moderates. Watch the full debate: bit.ly/3T31bDj

LIVE IN BALTIMORE ON OCT 27 We’re excited to announce our next debate in The Hopkins Forum series: Will Generative AI Stunt or Enhance College Learning? Featuring: @mathbabedotorg, and bringing Rumman Chowdhury back to our Hopkins stage. Please note: the debater lineup is still in formation. Moderated by @JohnDonvan. 📅 Tuesday, Oct. 27, 6:00 PM at Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus, Shriver Hall. Reception to follow the debate. Reserve your free tickets now: bit.ly/generative-ai-debate Presented by @SNFAgora and ​​@OpentoDebateOrg.

Do Americans love work, or fear losing it? Juliet Schor argues most Americans aren't workaholics at all. Outside of white-collar jobs, nobody is asking for longer hours, and the people who do overwork are protecting their jobs, not chasing a passion. @joannelipman argues the culture runs deeper. Nearly half of us don't take the vacation we're owed, and history shows that when America got a shorter workweek, working more became a badge of honor. Watch the full debate here: bit.ly/4yuHCTJ

Is a four-day work week a competitive disadvantage? Joanne Lipman, journalist and former Editor-in-Chief of USA Today, believes the concerns are real. A four-day company risks losing its customers to whoever stays open, and workers doing the same output in fewer days may have to worry about pay cuts. Juliet Schor, Boston College economist and sociologist, argues the data says otherwise. In her research, companies covered customers by staggering days off, kept pay the same, and lost no business. Watch the full debate here: youtube.com/watch?v=wdvoI7zD…

Venture capitalist @NickHanauer : "Since 1975, roughly $79 trillion has been redistributed upward from the bottom 90% to the top 10% — not through theft, but through the steady accumulation of rules written to favor capital over labor, shareholders over workers, assets over wages. If productivity and wages had stayed linked the way they did from 1945 to 1975, the median American household would be earning $120,000 a year today instead of $75,000. In 1985 it took one worker 39.7 weeks of work to pay for the basics of a middle-class life. By 2022 it took 62 weeks." Video credit: @OpentoDebateOrg Full video below.

Is America ready for a four-day workweek? A majority of Americans say they want it — the question is whether it can actually happen in the U.S. An economist whose research tracks hundreds of companies already making the switch takes on a journalist who has spent four decades watching predictions about the future of work fall apart. Arguing yes: Juliet Schor, @BostonCollege economist, sociologist, and author of "Four Days a Week: The Life-Changing Solution for Reducing Employee Stress, Improving Well-Being, and Working Smarter”. Arguing no: Joanne Lipman (@joannelipman), journalist and former Editor-in-Chief of USA Today, and author of “NEXT! The Power of Reinvention in Life and Work” and the bestseller “That's What She Said”. @JohnDonvan moderates. Watch the full debate here: youtube.com/watch?v=wdvoI7zD…

What do corporations owe their employees? @NickHanauer argues that corporations have a responsibility to pay workers fair wages that allow them to live in dignity without government assistance. @jasonfurman of @Harvard counters that everyone benefits from public programs, and that treating government assistance as an indignity is the real mistake. Watch the full debate: youtube.com/watch?v=VtuuvyLE… Cast your vote at opentodebate.org/vote by Friday, September 4.

Do the benefits of college football outweigh the costs? New research from @bmj_latest says at least 1 in 4 former NFL players who died in recent years had CTE. Every one of those careers started with four years of college hits. @Gladwell argues the benefits don't have to come packaged with the costs. Everything football gives its players could come from a sport that doesn't damage their brains. @jasonwhitlock argues football is the one sport that pays for all the others, and pulling it out of colleges means losing the whole system it funds. This debate was originally recorded live on May 8, 2012 Watch the full debate here: bit.ly/4wXExdH

Where should corporate profits go? @NickHanauer argues that companies are spending $1.5 trillion a year buying back their own stock, a practice that was illegal until 1982, while the share of the economy going to wages keeps shrinking. @jasonfurman argues that wages are the highest they have ever been in American history, and they are growing fastest for the lowest-paid workers. Watch the full debate here: youtube.com/watch?v=VtuuvyLE… Cast your vote at opentodebate.org/vote by Friday, September 4.

What should corporations be for? @NickHanauer argues the law should shift the purpose of a corporation from enriching shareholders to solving human problems, because the norms we set shape how people behave. @jasonfurman argues it's rhetoric without a mechanism, a rule that companies would simply ignore. Watch the full debate here: youtube.com/watch?v=VtuuvyLE… and cast your vote at opentodebate.org/vote by Friday, September 4.