Messy Times

Craig Wright, Chief Scientist at nChain, visited the Messy Times studios for a wide-ranging discussion around technical intellectual property, the origins of blockchain, Bitcoin, the myriad applications and potential confusion about the technology and a future comprised of one blockchain versus the current diverse portfolio of blockchains we have now. 

We even mourn the loss of Little Britain and poke fun at the woke.

Maureen Tatsuko Loughnane is the Chicago Executive Director of the non-profit Facing History and Ourselves. I am delighted to welcome an old friend and college classmate as she shares Facing History's mission, its origins and the important role it plays in supporting our nation's middle and high school teachers in what is arguably the most important job in our society - preparing young minds to participate thoughtfully and responsibly in a society whose government is run by the people, for the people.  Before, during or after listening, take a minute to check out their website and make a donation.

Nick Hudson, Actuary and Man of θύμος visits us in the studio to discuss the genesis and driving force behind PANDA, the Pandemics Data and Analytics think tank he co-founded in 2020 to shine an objective analytical light on the enormous piles of nonsense shoveled at us daily since February 2020.

Join us for a buoyantly Enlightentaining discussion, including such exciting tidbits as how the Upper West Side of Manhattan correlates to some slices of South African society and how much of the human biome is composed of viral DNA in the first place.

Wolfram Research will be familiar to many people for their advanced computation tools. Separately, in the public policy arena, Conrad Wolfram has founded https://computerbasedmath.organd written a book, The Maths Fix, all part of an effort to improve how we teach mathematics in our schools. If you are one of the people who find or found mathematics a challenging subject in school and are looking for improved ways of teaching this critical subject so that more people gain the practical skills for computational confidence, have a listen and take this discussion as a call to action. In schools, far too much emphasis is placed on the mechanics of math - working problems manually with pen and paper - rather than leaving the boring mechanics to computers, as we do in the real world. The conceptual, problem-solving abstraction is what children need to learn, not the mechanics. Engineers don't use slide rules anymore; why are we bashing kids with testing emphasizing speed of worked calculations? What does that have to do with preparing them for real life?

We at Messy Times have long clamored for mathematical fluency in society, if only for improved civic health. Politicians love nothing more than an ignorant population. On a practical level, the last two years of insane, irrational treatment of formerly free people would have experienced far greater pushback had more people possessed a firmer grasp of statistics and probability. Focusing on the positive, campaigns for computational skills echo the campaigns for universal literacy in the early 19th century. As pure manual labor began to require advanced knowledge, it was no longer sufficient to swing an axe or a shovel - all levels of society required the basic ability to read and the advanced abilities to reason. Similarly, for people to succeed in today's economic and social advances, they require a broad-based computational "literacy." Current primary and secondary math curricula are failing to deliver that literacy, but working together, we can change that system to deliver better results for kids.

Much as there were critics in the 1800s who laughed at the idea of universal literacy, there are those whose outdated idea of what constitutes "teaching math" restricts them from understanding that most of society can learn mathematical thinking in the context of using computers to do the mechanics of computation. One needn't know how to perform rigorous mathematical proofs to use a computer or manage an automated factory line.

How lucky can one State get? It's starting to appear that the Almighty has a particular preference for The Last Free State in America, Florida. A focused, clear-thinking, entrepreneurial patriot has decided to fix his patch of America by running for Mayor of Orange County.  Freedom-loving family man Chris Messina (https://chrismessina.com) is campaigning to be the next Mayor of Orange County.  He dropped by the Messy Times studios in the county next door to talk about his background, his faith, his family, his disgust with petty totalitarianism and why good people of principle are called to true service in their communities, over and above the crop of parasites who live their lives as career politicians.

We at Messy Times love nothing more than great, driven people building businesses and developing communities on principles of free choice and rational markets. Founder, Chairman and CEO D'Arcy Rahming has deep experience to show that the only way to foster better economic and social development is through private capital growing the economic pie with more participants, rather than governmental zero-sum approaches to cutting up a pie that already exists.   

ArawakX launched in August 2021 and will become the greatest offshore destination for capital inclusion and broadened capital markets. Technology makes it possible; D'Arcy and his team are making it happen.   #Enlightentaimnent doesn't get any better!  Listen to the whole discussion. You'll be glad you did and be a whole lot smarter at the end, or your money back. Get involved at https://www.arawakx.com/

We are honored to be joined by Dr. Kenneth Dekleva for a fascinating discussion spanning the role of physicians in the US diplomatic corps, the process of open source analytics as a tool to aid US government understanding of world leaders like Putin and how the art of analytical profiling contributes to critical decisions made - often in real time - about how America and its allies deal with opponents in global affairs.

Tune in for a series of insights into a fascinating yet largely opaque component of US foreign policy.

Ken and I first met at a superb national security conference organized by The Cipher Brief, the unique and excellent journal dedicated to national security. Check them out.

Also, we're starting a crowdfunding campaign to buy Vladimir Putin a hunting shirt. His got torn off while he was wrestling bears.

Jeffrey Tucker, Founder of the Brownstone Institute joins us for an in-depth conversation on issues of passing import, like societal cohesion, trust in authority figures, the remote possibility of honesty and dignity in any of the people perched atop our governmental structure.

Y'know, the small stuff.

Tune in! Enlightentainment does not get much more fundamental!

Thomas Harrington, Professor Emeritus of Hispanic Studies at Trinity College (https://www.thomassharrington.com) visits Messy Times for a rollicking discussion about the radical changes in American behavior over the last thirty years.  

Is it weird that the most educationally overprocessed - in terms of years slogging through higher education - people in our society are susceptible to the obviously irrational dictates of power-hungry nitwits?

Can a nation of illiterate, innumerate sheeple operate the American Experiment?  Does today's crop of risk-averse rule-followers meet the requirements for full participation in a governing structure created by rugged individualists with a serious reading habit?

If you have only one hour for this entire year to be Enlightentained, this is that hour.  

The background to this delightful dialogue is we've both published essays on https://brownstone.org.  Check it out. 

Ari Pine, veteran trader and Co-Founder of the crypto trading firm Digital Gamma braves the Messy Times studios for a Valentine's Day discussion. Until recently, people knew that money was stateless and currency was local; crypto enthusiasts have "discovered" this ancient fact and made it shiny new.

Why does the USD seem immune to the forces of financial gravity? What's this whole crypto thing about anyway? How does one trade markets without guidance from traditional financial analysis? Are Americans fat and happy because the whole world is short dollars? Tune in to find out why it's really difficult to predict anything, including the future.

Peak Enlightentainment is just a click play away! Messy Times is here all century - be sure to try the NFTs and don't forget to tip your server.