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Featured
Elica Le Bon: War with Iran? | Elica Le Bon | Just Asking Questions, Ep. 19
Elica Le Bon, an attorney and Iranian-American activist, talks about Iran's recent strike on Israel
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Elica Le Bon: War with Iran? | Elica Le Bon | Just Asking Questions, Ep. 19
Elica Le Bon, an attorney and Iranian-American activist, talks about Iran's recent strike on Israel
57.5K
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51
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Regulating smartphones? Jonathan Haidt vs. libertarians | The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie
The author of "The Anxious Generation", Jonathan Haidt, argues that parents, schools, and society must keep kids off of social media, but libertarians tend to disagree.
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Stop Obsessing Over Our Children's Happiness | Abigail Shrier | The Reason Interview
Abigail Shrier is author of the best-selling new book Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up. She argues that the mental health of Gen Z—people born between 1997 and 2012—is a mess because an infantilizing therapeutic culture pervades every aspect of their lives.
0:00- Why do kids have no interest in growing up?
3:37- Do kids see too many doctors?
4:10- The difference between adult therapy and child therapy
7:48- How many children are in therapy?
9:32- Therapy in K-12 education
13:00- Who is Elizabeth Loftus?
16:35- Has every child been traumatized?
18:05- What is trauma?
20:33- Who is Viktor Frankl?
24:20- The redefinition of trauma
28:20- How to understand what our ancestors experienced?
30:44- Are we delaying adulthood?
32:04- What happened to after school jobs?
34:06- Is social media making kids sad?
37:02- Why do parents surrender authority to experts?
42:36- Are we done with the cult of experts?
48:38- How to be a good parent
50:16- How to fix mental health at school
https://reason.com/podcast/2024/04/10/abigail-shrier-stop-obsessing-over-our-childrens-happiness
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Shrier stresses that she's not against psychological counseling and help per se, but she believes too many unqualified and misguided people are causing far more problems than they solve.
Her previous book was the controversial Irreversible Damage, which looked at the rapid rise of girls identifying as transgender. We talk about the roots of today's therapeutic culture, the extent of the problems it causes, and how parents, teachers, and young people themselves might find a better way forward.
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The social media panic is based on bad science
In his 1996 book, "The Vision of the Anointed", economist Thomas Sowell sketched out a pattern that many of the "crusading movements" of the 20th century have followed. First, they identify a "great danger" to society, followed by an "urgent need" for government action "to avert impending catastrophe."
A new book by psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation, argues that the government must regulate social media because it's causing a teen mental health crisis. Haidt is, in many ways, a model researcher because of his rigor, transparency, and openness to dissent. On this issue, however, he fits neatly into Sowell's framework.
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Why this Palantir cofounder left California for Texas | Joe Lonsdale | The Reason Interview
Serial entrepreneur Joe Lonsdale, who founded the Cicero Institute to fix government and University of Austin to fix higher education, wanted space to flourish in Texas.
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What went wrong at Harvard | Steven Pinker | The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie
Psychologist and bestselling author Steven Pinker is one of the leading defenders of academic freedom and liberal values of limited government, secularism, tolerance, and free enterprise.
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Dave Smith vs. Chris Freiman | What's the ideal immigration policy? | Just Asking Questions, Ep. 16
Podcaster Dave Smith and philosopher Chris Freiman debate open borders on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions.
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Liberalism is the most successful system ever | David Boaz | The Reason Interview
How Vietnam, Watergate, and stagflation supercharged the libertarian movement.
https://reason.com/podcast/2024/03/20...
Few individuals have had a bigger impact on the libertarian movement than David Boaz, the longtime executive vice president of the Cato Institute. Boaz recently turned 70 and gave a keynote address at LibertyCon, the annual gathering of Students for Liberty, in Washington, D.C. Reason's Nick Gillespie caught up with Boaz to discuss the disarray in the libertarian movement, why he thinks the nonaggression principle and cosmopolitanism form the core of the movement, why libertarians can never seem to take wins when they get them, and whether there's anything to look forward to in a rematch of Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
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Who's right about George Floyd? | Coleman Hughes vs. Radley Balko | Just Asking Questions, Ep. 14
Radley Balko debates Coleman Hughes about his recent column arguing that Derek Chauvin may have been wrongly convicted of George Floyd's murder on this latest episode of Just Asking Questions.
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Text and links to sources available here: https://reason.com/podcast/2024/03/14/coleman-hughes-vs-radley-balko-whos-right-about-george-floyd
0:00- Summary of Coleman Hughes' and Radley Balko's disagreement about George Floyd's death
2:09- Balko asks Hughes to correct his article
9:27- Hughes' response to Balko
19:27- What is maximum restraint technique (MRT)?
27:20- Derek Chauvin ignored warnings from his colleagues and the surrounding crowd
32:42- Why did Chauvin keep kneeling on Floyd after he went limp?
37:18- Was “The Fall of Minneapolis” a trusthworthy documentary?
47:02- Did Floyd die of positional asphyxia?
1:10:50- Would Hughes change anything if he had to rewrite the article?
1:21:14- The aftermath of George Floyd's death
1:36:00- Is there systemic racism in policing?
1:43:13- How do we hold police officers accountable?
1:51:24- Did Derek Chauvin get a fair trial?
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Libertarians are the real liberals | Nate Silver | The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie
"People are not in politics for truth-seeking reasons," argues the data journalist and author of "On The Edge: The Art of Risking Everything."
0:00- The difference between liberals and the left.
11:00- Is progress slowing?
14:57- Is the two-party system dead?
20:00- The future of journalism
27:44- Free speech is in trouble
30:07- Is Biden too old?
35:57- Silver's new book, "On the Edge"
45:00- Questions from the live audience.
https://reason.com/podcast/2024/03/06/nate-silver-libertarians-are-the-real-liberals/
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Journalist Nate Silver burst onto the national scene in 2008, when he correctly predicted 49 out of 50 states in that year's election, outstripping all other analysts. His former website FiveThirtyEight became a must-visit stop for anyone interested in political forecasting and helped mainstream the concept of "data journalism," which utilizes the same sort of hard-core modeling and probabilistic thinking that helped Silver succeed as a professional poker player and a staffer at the legendary Baseball Prospectus. Reason's Nick Gillespie talked to Silver about the 2024 election, why libertarian defenses of free speech are gaining ground among liberals, his take on the "crisis" in legacy media, and his forthcoming book, "On The Edge: The Art of Risking Everything."
Photo Credits: Brian Cahn/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Sandy Carson/ZUMA Press/Newscom; 157014269 © Ilnur Khisamutdinov
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Can this rich transhumanist beat death? | Bryan Johnson | Just Asking Questions
Bryan Johnson, venture capitalist and founder of Blueprint, discusses his $2 million a year effort to reverse aging on Just Asking Questions.
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Text and links to sources available here: https://reason.com/podcast/2024/02/27/bryan-johnson-can-this-rich-transhumanist-beat-death
0:00- A day in the life of a transhumanist trying not to die
3:18- How important is our sleep cycle?
8:30- Humanity's imminent "evolutionary transition"
14:02- How close are we to finding the real "Fountain of Youth"?
16:30 - Do genetics trump lifestyle?
22:30- Self-experimentation and scientific progress
24:50- Why Bryan Johnson measures his nighttime boners
35:01- Liz reacts to Bryan Johnson's daily meal plan
48:00 - Coping with the "existential crisis" of AI
1:00:00- In defense of blood boys
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Bryan Johnson made his fortune when he sold his company Braintree to PayPal for $800 million, netting about $300 million for himself. He spends about $2 million a year creating a system to reverse his "biological age." He's 46 years old, chronologically, but claims he's de-aged himself following a program he's branded "the Blueprint protocol."
"I wanted to pose the question in this technological age: Can an algorithm, paired with science, in fact, take better care of me than I can myself?" Johnson tells Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions.
They talked with Johnson about his daily routine, the results he's published including measurement of his nighttime erections, the transhumanist philosophy he outlines in his free e-book Don't Die, the role that artificial intelligence is likely to play in prolonging human life and health spans, and the value and limitations of self-experimentation in an era of pharmaceutical stagnation.
Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher.
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The 'Coolest' Dictator?
The Nayib Bukele model in El Salvador means security without liberty.
https://reason.com/video/2024/02/27/the-bukele-model-means-security-without-liberty/
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"They were delicious," said a woman about the pupusas she received after casting her vote in El Salvador's recent presidential election. The stuffed corn tortillas, the country's best-known dish, were handed out courtesy of the federal government and its incumbent President Nayib Bukele, who was running for reelection despite a constitutional ban on serving consecutive terms. Giving out food at polling stations might qualify as illegal voter interference. Bukele was undeterred.
Bukele ended up winning 85 percent of the popular vote, and his New Ideas party held on to its majority control in Congress. The 42-year-old president called the landslide victory "a record in the entire democratic history of the world."
El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America with a population of about 6.3 million, but Bukele has made himself one of the best-known political leaders in the world. His outsized public profile stems from his public embrace of bitcoin and the staggering decline in crime and violence in El Salvador since he took office.
Bukele's gang crackdown suspended constitutional protections and drew allegations of human rights abuses. People were arrested without a judicial order or access to a lawyer. Arrest quotas were handed out and thousands were wrongfully detained. Mass hearings are being held for as many as 300 defendants at a time. There are reports of over 250 people being placed in a single prison cell, and inmates are often denied food for extended periods. There are allegations of torture. And Bukele's government is accused of secretly negotiating a truce with gang leaders, buying their support with financial benefits and special privileges.
But Bukele remains incredibly popular thanks to the dramatic improvement in public safety. According to a recent poll, he has the support of 70 percent to 90 percent of the country.
Bukele brushes aside claims that he is forming a single-party state, pointing to his landslide victory and broad support. There's an understandable tendency to overlook rule-bending for expedience in deeply troubled nations, but if robust institutions don't constrain El Salvador's political majority, it could become yet another Latin American dictatorship.
Music Credits: “Eyes on the Ball” by Sémø via Artlist; “Yelema” by Captain Joz via Artlist; “Piki Piki” by Captain Joz via Artlist; “CloudCity” by Out of Flux via Artlist.
Photo Credits: Valter Campanato/ABr, CC BY 3.0 BR, via Wikimedia Commons; nicolas genin from Paris, France, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Dilma Rousseff, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Alexander Pe?a / Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; La Prensa Gráfica, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Salvador alc, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; MPfoto71/Newscom; Camilo Freedman/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom; 總統府, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Franklin Reyes from La Habana, Cuba, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; The photographer is Carlos Granier-Phelps., CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons; Alexander Pe?a / Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Camilo Freedman/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; DPST/Newscom; Album / Oronoz/Newscom; Claudia Guadarrama/Polaris/Newscom; La Prensa Gráfica, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Joka Madruga, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Fernanda LeMarie - Cancillería del Ecuador, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Cancillería Ecuador, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Camilo Freedman/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Camilo Freedman/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Jonathan Alpeyrie/SIPA/Newscom; Joel Alvarez (Joels86), CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Russian Foreign Ministry/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; RICARDO BARBATO / BlackStar Photos/Newscom; Eneas De Troya, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; LEONARDO GUZMAN / GDA Photo Service/Newscom; Prensa Miraflores; Darafsh, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Secretaría de Prensa El Salvador; Javier Campos/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Francisco Arias/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Notimex/Newscom; Allison Dinner/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Jimmy Villalta/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Cindy Miller Hopkins / DanitaDelimont.com / "Danita Delimont Photography"/Newscom.
Producer: Katarina Hall
Video Editor: Regan Taylor
Graphics: Adani Samat
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Brian Riedl: Who Bankrupted Us More—Trump or Biden?
"I'm concerned about a Trump-Biden rematch," argues Riedl. "You have two presidents with two of the worst fiscal records of the past 100 years."
reason.com/video
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You probably already know that the national debt is bigger than our whole economy. But relax, because things can always get worse! And they will, regardless of whether Biden or Trump gets elected in the fall. Each has a proven track record of spending like a drunken sailor and most projections show that debt will grow to between 181 percent and 340 percent of GDP over the next few decades. Reason's Nick Gillespie discussed all of this and more with Brian Riedl, a budget expert at theManhattan Institute. Riedl explains why massive and growing debt is really bad, why reducing it is really hard but really important, and why young people should be really pissed.
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Should America police the world? | Curt Mills | Just Asking Questions
The Senate passed a $95 billion foreign aid package as the Biden administration fights Houthis in Yemen without Congressional approval. Curt Mills, executive director of The American Conservative, talks about the state of U.S. foreign policy on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions.
0:00- Will Russia agree to a ceasefire in 2024?
7:52- What happens if the U.S. stops sending aid to Ukraine?
9:30- What is the connection between border security and foreign aid?
19:36- Is there a new wave of non-interventionists?
27:21- Is Biden still the best candidate that Democrats have for 2024?
39:20- Does Biden have a chip on his shoulder?
41:22- What is Biden doing in Yemen?
53:29- Why has Congress given up its war powers?
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Text and links to sources available here: https://reason.com/podcast/2024/02/14/curt-mills-should-america-police-the-world
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"The greatest risk of a Republican administration is a war with Iran, and the greatest risk of a Democratic administration is a war with Russia," says Curt Mills, executive director of The American Conservative, a magazine for the types of conservatives who are skeptical of foreign military intervention.
Mills joined Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions to talk about a $95.3 billion aid package, including $60 billion for Ukraine, that passed the Senate this week, which Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) called a "middle finger to America" during his filibuster of the bill. In this episode, they discuss the bill's passage, Paul's filibuster, Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent interview with Tucker Carlson, the Biden administration's airstrikes against Yemen, and whether or not the surge of foreign policy noninterventionism within the GOP is likely to last past 2024.
Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher.
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Thomas Massie: Warrantless spying has to end
A bipartisan effort to rein in warrantless spying failed this week when Congress reauthorized FISA Section 702. Before the votes, Rep. Thomas Massie discussed his objections to the spy program with Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe.
Watch the full replay of Massie's interview on the Just Asking Questions podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6rxC0JcFPA
Subscribe to the Just Asking Questions podcast:
YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBuns9Evn1w9K02WT8x-gzSI-UdeeXFG9&si=wwHoBJ_fbQaXMtXy
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/just-asking-questions/id1719355507
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Patriotism for Israel vs. America
“It’s okay in Congress to be patriotic for Israel, but you can’t be patriotic for America," Rep. Thomas Massie says. “Pride in Israel is something we have to vote on two to three times a week now in Congress.” #israel
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Why not vote 'no'? | Thomas Massie | Just Asking Questions - Ep. 2
Congressman Thomas Massie discusses his "no" votes on foreign aid, COVID relief, and labelling anti-Zionism antisemitism on episode two of "Just Asking Questions."
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Transcript available here: https://reason.com/podcast/2023/12/13/thomas-massie-why-not-vote-no/
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0:50 - Why does renewing Section 702 threaten Americans' privacy?
9:02 - Why does Massie oppose aid for Ukraine?
14:20 - Why did Massie vote against 19 pro-Israel resolutions?
18:10 - Is anti-Zionism antisemitism?
26:12 - What was it like being slammed by Donald Trump for opposing COVID bailouts?
30:08 - Does Congress have any remorse for bad COVID policy?
31:55 - Can we ever tame the national debt?
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Good news for Taylor Swift ticket resellers
The IRS will once again postpone enforcement of a new provision in the tax code that requires online sellers to report as little as $600 in annual income. So if you sold Taylor Swift concert tickets this year, congrats: the feds won't come after you for not giving them a cut. #taylorswift
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Which US states steal babies’ blood?
New Jersey steals babies’ blood and keeps it for years without parental consent, but they aren’t the only state to do so. Texas used to turn over infant blood samples to the Pentagon in hopes of creating a national registry. #parenting #parenthood #newborn #motherhood
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Racist blackface at an NFL game?
Racist blackface at an NFL game? That’s what the sports news site Deadspin alleges. In reality, the Kansas City Chiefs fan is a young boy with his face painted black and red. #sports
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Cops killed her son and hid the body
Even though Jackson, Mississippi, police knew they killed 37-year-old Dexter Wade, they didn't inform his mother and allowed him to be buried in a penal farm. #police #criminaljustice
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Cody Wilson: Guns are 'political power'
"Definitely what changed over these last 10 years regarding the politics of guns was how ineffective they actually are, and how they don't really reflect a large majority of the people they're trying to govern," says filmmaker Jessica Solce of her new feature documentary about Cody Wilson, "Death Athletic: A Dissident Architecture."
Watch the full interview of Jessica Solce with Reason's Zach Weissmueller: https://youtu.be/l1UPaAmWLxU
Documentary available for purchase here: https://www.encodeproductions.com/
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Rand Paul vs. Anthony Fauci
Reason spoke with Sen. Rand Paul about his quest to uncover the origins of COVID-19 and hold Anthony Fauci accountable. #publichealth #science
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Rand Paul on the lab leak 'deception'
"When I first heard about the debate [over the origins of COVID-19]…I assumed that the scientists were being honest with us," says Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.). But his mind changed after reading a May 2021 article self-published on Medium by formerNew York Times science journalist Nicholas Wade. "As I began looking at this, the evidence, I think, was very, very strong that it came from a lab."
Paul, who has a new book calledDeception: The Great COVID Cover-Up, famously clashed with former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci in multiple Senate hearings over the question of whether his agency funded risky "gain-of-function" research in Wuhan, China, that Paul believes may have resulted in the creation of the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic. Gain-of-function research involves enhancing the transmissibility or deadliness of viruses in human tissue. Fauci denied ever funding such research, telling Paul in July 2021, "You do not know what you're talking about."
But Paul tells Reasonthat the evidence that Fauci was lying has been piling up since then.
"It's a felony to lie to Congress," says Paul. "It's punishable by up to five years in prison."
He referred the matter to Attorney General Merrick Garland for criminal prosecution but says he's received no reply.
"It is a huge cover-up [by] not just Anthony Fauci, but throughout government, eight different departments of government," says Paul. "The [National Institutes of Health] is more secretive at this point than the CIA."
Paul has introduced multiple bills and amendments to cut public funding for gain-of-function research, to reform how the federal government funds scientific research,and to prohibit government officials from meeting with social media companies for the purpose of censoring legal speech.
"If Twitter wants to censor me or YouTube wants to take my speech down because I say masks don't work, that is their prerogative," says Paul. "But I do think that a consistent libertarian position is telling the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], [President Joe] Biden's spokesmen…that they can't be meeting on a weekly basis with either overt or implied threats of, 'You need to do this or else.'"
Watch the full interview on Reason's YouTube channel.
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Do rich countries help or hurt the planet?
“The richer you are,” says Swedish historian Johan Norberg, “the more you can also afford to care about the planet.” #capitalism #environment
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