A Point of View

Margaret Heffernan argues that, in the world of technology, there's nothing inevitable about the future. "I'm not saying that automation isn't a big trend or that driverless cars aren't a possibility", she writes, "but there is nothing about them that is inevitable". She believes all these assertions of inevitability have agendas. "If we let Silicon Valley hijack our future", she says, "we gain the comfort of certainty, but lose our freedom". Producer: Adele Armstrong

"Childhood really should be the happiest days of our children's lives," writes Michael Morpurgo. "But for so many of them today it is not". Michael Morpurgo reflects on the damage being caused to increasing numbers of children by stress and anxiety. He makes an impassioned plea to schools to do much more to alleviate stress. Producer: Adele Armstrong

Michael Morpurgo reflects on growing old. "You find you are now amongst the last old trees in the park", he writes, "wary of wild winds of fortune that might weaken you or uproot you". But he finds his mentors - the young and the very old. Producer: Adele Armstrong

"Let me tell you about dwarfs and being stared at". With a hint of stand up comedy, Tom Shakespeare writes poignantly about what it feels like to be stared at. "The English," he says, "who were once known everywhere for their politeness and decorum, no longer hold back...we do what we want because we consider we have a right". Tom appeals for a rediscovery of "the chain of mutual dependency in which we are still all linked together." Producer: Adele Armstrong

The economist, John Maynard Keynes once said to someone, "When my information changes, I change my mind. What do you do?" Tom Shakespeare argues that we need to reconsider our view that changing your mind is a weakness. "Sticking to your guns", he says, is of little benefit in today's complicated, fast-changing world. Producer: Adele Armstrong