The Law Commission recently put out a consultation paper on whether the law relating to 'hate crime' should be changed, and if so how. The Commission considers whether the current 'sentence aggravation' model (in which hatred may be factored into sentencing as an aggravating factor) should be replaced by a new, specific offence of 'hate crime.' But how should 'hate' (of various sorts) factor into how we think about different offences? How broad should our scope be when considering whether a particular act (or a particular person) has been 'hateful'? And is there a risk that the changes will erode expressive rights, including speech rights?

We are joined by Steph Martin of the Free Speech Union (and also Adjunct Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative) to discuss all of this, as well as Victoria University of Wellington's latest version of their academic freedom policy.

The Law Commission's 'hate crime' consultation paper: https://www.lawcom.govt.nz/our-work/hate-crime/tab/consultation-paper

Cody Ellingham is a Kiwi writer, photographer, and Bitcoin enthusiast who's currently based in Kamakura, Japan.

We asked him to explain Bitcoin to us and tell us about the Bitcoin scene in New Zealand.

Lyn Alden, Broken Money: https://www.amazon.com.au/Broken-Money-Financial-System-Failing/dp/B0CG8985FR
Angela Redish, Bimetallism: https://www.cambridge.org/nz/universitypress/subjects/economics/macroeconomics-and-monetary-economics/bimetallism-economic-and-historical-analysis?format=PB&isbn=9780521028936

Cody's 2024 Bitcoin briefing for NZ: https://www.thetransformationofvalue.com/articles/bitcoin-briefing-for-new-zealand-2024
Cody's podcast: https://www.thetransformationofvalue.com
Cody's website: https://codyellingham.com/#home 

James on The Transformation of Value: https://www.thetransformationofvalue.com/episodes/ancient-economies-declining-universities-and-free-speech-with-dr-james-kierstead

Alan Davison is Academic Lead at the Governance and Public Affairs Centre at the Australian Catholic University, and was until recently Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney. He co-founded the Permission to Think series on Josh Szeps' Uncomfortable Conversations podcast. He is also President of the Australian Free Speech Union. We talked to Alan about post-modernism, the evolution of (bad) ideas, and what to do about our universities. Alan's paper 'A Darwinian Approach to Post-Modern Critical Theory': https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper...

Dr Peter Boghossian is a freelance philosopher and former academic. He was jointly responsible for the 'Sokal squared' hoax, as a result of which he was investigated by his then-employer, Portland State University, for research misconduct. He later left the university and now travels the world engaging bystanders in 'street epistemology' - open, reasonable conversations on a range of topics. 

We talked to him about whether there are moral facts, what people think about in prison, whether universities should get state funding, and how to create a post-university educational and intellectual world. 

The 'Sokal squared' hoax: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/
'Street epistemology' on Peter's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYNjnJFU-62t25_8aD9loEqZL9J4p-82p

Nigel Biggar is an emeritus professor at Oxford University, where he was Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology. He is also an Anglican priest. His most recent book is Colonialism. A Moral Reckoning (2023). We talked to Prof. Biggar about the how to assess the British Empire and about the roots of our universities' ongoing travails. 

Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Colonialism-Moral-Reckoning-Nigel-Biggar/dp/0008511632

Only a few days after its Senate voted down the University of Auckland's 'academic freedom' policy, Victoria University of Wellington has come out with a similar policy of its own. Here to discuss VUW's policy with us is Steph Martin from the Free Speech Union. We also discuss Steph's work to help protect New Zealanders' speech rights on a variety of fronts. 

Toby Young is the founder of the Free Speech Union and The Daily Sceptic, an associate editor of The Spectator, and a former associate editor at Quillette. We talked to him about the prospects for free speech and academic freedom in the Anglosphere, why he left Quillette and founded The Daily Sceptic, and what his experience of free (or charter) schools has been.

https://freespeechunion.org/
https://dailysceptic.org/

Peter Ridd was formerly head of the Physics Programme and the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Queensland. We asked him how and why he was forced out of JCU, as well as about the Great Barrier Reef and climate change in the Pacific. An article by Peter calling for greater quality assurance in 'policy-science': https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

The morning after Victoria University of WELLINGTON's free speech event, Michael and James met to discuss the event, including both its set-up and points made by the speakers.

Jonathan Rauch is a US writer whose books include The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50 (2018); Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America (2004); Government's End: Why Washington Stopped Working (2000); and Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought  (1993).

We talked to him about his latest book, The Constitution of Knowledge, and how to get our institutional settings right for a society which is free and, at the same time, oriented towards truth.