Free Thoughts

Kate Sills joins us for a conversation on smart contracts and the future of blockchain technology. We also discuss how Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency platforms are using smart contracts to ensure a more secure network, the DAO implosion and the future of cryptography.

More about Kate Sills http://katelynsills.com/

Free Thoughts Episode: Your World on the Blockchain

Encyclopedia of Libertarianism: Voluntary Contract Enforcement

Encyclopedia of Libertarianism: Contractarianism/Social Contract

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Cato Institute Vice President of Communications Khristine Brookes joins us to discuss the ever-changing world of news and media. How has social media changed the way we consume news? Are traditional news sources eventually going to die out?

Cato Institute Media Highlights

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Tom W. Bell joins us for a Live Free Thoughts to talk about the emerging trend of bottom up governments. Private providers increasingly deliver services that political authorities formerly monopolized, inspiring greater competition and efficiency. We discuss this quiet revolution that is transforming governments with the potential to bring more freedom, peace and prosperity to people everywhere.

Watch the full Cato Institute event with Tom W. Bell; Your Next Government?: From the Nation State to Stateless Nations

Find Tom’s book here;  Your Next Government?: From the Nation State to Stateless Nations

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John Samples joins us to discuss how the Trump presidency is challenging America’s institutions. Political institutions in America are designed to stop someone like a populist or a demagogue; someone not fit for presidency. We discuss how America’s institutions have fared thus far, with a president that refuses to follow the norms, and if we should expect more celebrity presidents.

Matthew mentions that on Friday, January 12th Trump had just said something disparaging

Ross Douthat, The Tempting of the Media (2017)

The Claremont Institute, The Flight 93 Election (2016)

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Emma Ashford gives us a primer on Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich Middle Eastern nation that is also one of the last remaining absolute monarchies in the world.

We talk about the history of the Saudi royal family, Saudi Arabia’s importance in Islam, the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia after the first World War, the country’s legal system and culture, American-Saudi relations over the years, and what’s next for the kingdom as its rulership passes to a new generation.

Show Notes and Further Reading

Here’s the photo Ashford references, of Franklin Delano Roosevelt meeting Ibn Saud in 1945.

Here’s Thomas Friedman’s quite obsequious and gushing article about meeting Mohammad bin Salman.

Other Free Thoughts episodes on the Middle East, radical Islamic terrorism, and oil-producing nations:

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David Kopel joins us again to discuss firearms, gun violence, mass shootings, and whether a gun-free America is possible or desirable. Are there more mass shootings than ever before? What, if anything, can be done about them?

We also discuss the differences between mass shootings and spree killings, popular gun control methods in other countries around the world, the definition of an “assault weapon,” gun storage and safety, and we debunk common myths about gun ownership.

Show Notes and Further Reading

David B. Kopel, The Truth About Gun Control (2013)

John R. Lott, Jr., More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws (2010)

Other Free Thoughts episodes on guns, gun control, and the Second Amendment:

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George Selgin joins us again on Free Thoughts for a conversation about the origins and role of the Federal Reserve.

What is the Federal Reserve? What does it do, and what authority does it have? Why was the Fed created, and what was it’s role in the 2008 financial crisis?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Here is Selgin’s newest study on the founding of the Federal Reserve.

Here are our previous Free Thoughts episodes with Selgin:

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Will Duffield joins us this week to talk about the freedom of speech in the internet era. How has the shift to digital communication changed interpretations of the First Amendment?

We discuss the implications of lower barriers to entry for ownership of the mechanisms for distribution of speech, draw a distinction between speech gatekeepers and speech enablers, think about whether big web companies are beginning to act like states, and have a conversation about “fake news.”

Show Notes and Further Reading

Here’s the Youtube video Aaron mentions about software that can manipulate mouth and lip movement in video.

Our Free Thoughts episode with Brock Cusick on the blockchain.

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Michael Strong joins us this week to talk about the role that capitalism and social entrepreneurship play in alleviating global poverty.

We also discuss special economic zones, startup cities, the right of exit, mechanisms of public choice, and seasteading.

Show Notes and Further Reading

Strong is the author of Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems (2009) and The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice (1997).

Strong’s articles “Naomi Klein, Young Earth Creationist” and “Towards a Hierarchy of Moral Outrage”.

Here’s our Free Thoughts episode with Bruce Benson.

John Hasnas’s essay “The Obviousness of Anarchy”.

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Brink Lindsey and Steven M. Teles join us to discuss four pathological policy regimes they say are responsible for the slow growth and high inequality that’s plagued the US economy in the twenty-first century.

The case studies presented in Lindsey and Teles’s new book highlight how financial regulation, occupational licensing, intellectual property, and zoning and land use policies have been captured by the powerful and politically-connected to enrich themselves at others’ expense.

Show Notes and Further Reading

Lindsey and Teles’s book is The Captured Economy: How the Powerful Enrich Themselves, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequality (2017).

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