Beyond obvious political polarization and the rancor that generates, Alexandra Hudson says that contemporary America—and the world—is "otherizing" people in a way that makes us all worse off by threatening our ability to peacefully coexist. In her new book The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles To Heal Society and Ourselves, Hudson draws on the writings of figures from antiquity through Henry David Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr. to show how to reawaken classical liberal virtues of mutual respect and tolerance in a world seemingly hell-bent on putting politics at the center of human meaning.

We talked about the difference between civility and manners, the need for and limits of civil disobedience, Hamas terrorism and the rules of war, and whether the decline of religion, family, and traditional forms of community spell the end of self-governance. Hudson publishes a Substack called Civic Renaissance, "a newsletter and community dedicated to ennobling our public discourse with the wisdom of the past."

This episode was taped live in New York City as a Reason Speakeasy, a monthly, unscripted conversation with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy. Go here to listen to past Speakeasy events and go here to learn about upcoming ones (including one on October 23, featuring Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott discussing their new book, The Canceling of the American Mind). This event was cosponsored by Young Voices, "a nonprofit talent agency and PR firm for a rising generation of heterodox thinkers." Go here to learn more about them.

The post Alexandra Hudson: How Civility Can Save America—and the World appeared first on Reason.com.

This is an audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern on Reason's YouTube channel.

On June 30, Pornhub—America's most-trafficked adult website—announced that it was blocking access in Mississippi, Virginia, and Utah. Why? Well, Pornhub was reacting to the passage of age-verification laws in those three states. Similar laws have passed in Louisiana, Texas, Montana, and Arkansas, leading Politico to declare that "A Simple Law Is Doing the Impossible. It's Making the Online Porn Industry Retreat." But the industry is fighting back and won a preliminary injunction against Texas' law.

Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe talked about these developments with Aella, a former OnlyFans star and outspoken libertarian defender of sex workers who leverages her sizable social media following to run sex polls and surveys, the results of which she analyzes and publishes on her blog Knowingless. In this conversation, they discuss Aella's sex surveys, delve into the psychological literature examining online porn consumption, unpack the privacy implications of age verification laws, and talk about a recent debate Aella attended hosted by The Free Press and FIRE about the effects of "the sexual revolution" on American society.

The post Aella: Is Porn Too Pervasive? appeared first on Reason.com.

My guest today is Johns Hopkins professor Yascha Mounk, the founder of the online magazine Persuasion and the author of the important new book The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. 

The Identity Trap explains how identity politics and social justice discourse have come to dominate contemporary discussions of just about everything, analyzes their negative influence on society, and shows how to confront and defeat them in the name of liberal values of free expression and open inquiry.

Yascha was a prime mover behind the 2020 open letter on "justice and open debate" in Harper's magazine and is one of the most powerful defenders of free speech and the marketplace of ideas at work today.

This interview took place at the Reason Speakeasy, a live, unscripted monthly conversation held in New York City with outspoken defenders of free speech and heterodox thinking. Go here for information about upcoming events.

Today's sponsor:

• BetterHelp. Are you at your best? Working with a therapist can help you get closer to the best version of you—because when you feel empowered, you're more prepared to take on everything life throws at you. If you're thinking of giving therapy a try, BetterHelp is a great option. It's convenient, flexible, affordable, and entirely online. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. If you want to live a more empowered life, therapy can get you there.

The post Yascha Mounk: Avoiding The Identity Trap appeared first on Reason.com.

This is an audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern on Reason's YouTube channel.

The second GOP primary debate of the season took place this Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, absent frontrunner Donald Trump. The debate revealed real divides among the candidates on issues like foreign policy, broad agreement on topics like closing the southern border, and some candidates' increased willingness to take direct shots at Trump.

To help sift through the debate, Reason's Liz Wolfe and Zach Weissmuller are joined by Josh Barro, a journalist and political commentator who publishes the newsletter Very Serious and co-hosts the Serious Trouble podcast with attorney Ken White. Barro is a former Republican voter who turned Democrat after Trump's nomination in 2016. 

We discuss Ron DeSantis' proposal to send U.S. troops to Mexico to fight the drug cartels, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy's feud over TikTok, the candidates' scuffle over whether to continue sending military aid to Ukraine, and more. We wrap up with a broader conversation about the 2024 election and what the best-case scenario might look like for libertarians and political independents. 

The post Josh Barro: A Republican Presidential Debate Detached From Reality appeared first on Reason.com.

In 2001, Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomborg burst onto the international scene with his bestselling and controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist. The onetime member of Greenpeace said that climate change is real and that human activity is clearly contributing to it, but he said the best science didn't support the apocalyptic visions put forth by people like Earth in the Balance author and former Vice President Al Gore.

Lomborg went on to create the Copenhagen Consensus, a think tank that applies cost-benefit analysis to problems facing the global poor and works with Nobel laureates, policymakers, philanthropists, and researchers to develop pragmatic, relatively low-cost solutions to issues such as tuberculosis, malaria, lack of education, and access to food. 

His new book is called Best Things First and it presents what Lomborg says are "the 12 most efficient solutions for the world's poorest people." He argues that for about $35 billion a year—a little more than half of what the U.S. spends annually on humanitarian aid—these policies could save 4.2 million lives and generate an extra $1.1 trillion in value every year.

I caught up with Lomborg in New York City during the latest meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. We talked about Best Things First, his view of the current environmentalist movement, and why politicians and the media continue to fixate on the possibility of a future climate apocalypse rather than helping the global poor in the here and now.

The post Bjorn Lomborg: How Our Climate Fixation Hurts the World's Poor appeared first on Reason.com.

This is an audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern on Reason's YouTube channel.

This week, Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe sat for an in-depth discussion with Johan Norberg about the lessons to draw from Sweden's pandemic policies

The Swedish government's decision to forgo lockdowns as most of Europe, Asia, and North America's political leaders forcibly closed businesses and schools in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic became one of the most controversial policies of 2020.

The New York Times in April 2020 designated Sweden "the world's cautionary tale," and President Donald Trump proclaimed that "Sweden is paying heavily for its decision not to lockdown" as an early wave of COVID deaths hit Sweden harder than its Nordic neighbors.

But to Swedish officials, "it looked like it was other countries that were engaging in a dangerous experiment," writes Cato Institute Senior Fellow Johan Norberg in a policy paper entitled "Sweden during the pandemic: Pariah or paragon?"

Today, Sweden's COVID-19 death rate is not an outlier, and its excess death rate from 2020 to the present is the lowest in Europe.

In a retrospective report on the country's pandemic response, Sweden's public health officials say that they should have more aggressively protected senior citizens and tested and quarantined travelers from COVID hot spots in those early days, but they consider the focus on public health recommendations that people can "follow voluntarily" over coercive lockdowns was "fundamentally correct."

Norberg also points out that Sweden avoided the economic contraction that its neighboring countries suffered, as well as the learning loss experienced in countries that closed schools for months or even years.

The post Johan Norberg: How Sweden Defied Dire COVID Predictions appeared first on Reason.com.

Over the past few episodes, I've been talking with people involved with what we at Reason are calling a psychedelic renaissance, or a rebirth of interest in substances long associated with the CIA and hippies and counterculture. Today's interest in these substances is mostly motivated by a desire to help veterans and victims of sexual violence who suffer from PTSD and related conditions, including substance abuse. The psychedelic renaissance may well sound the death knell for the war on drugs, at least in its current form.

So it makes sense that today's guest is a historian who studies the man who coined the term psychedelic.

Erika Dyck is a professor at the University of Saskatchewan who studies the history of psychedelics with a special interest in the legacy of Humphry Osmond, the British-born psychiatrist who gave Aldous Huxley his first dose of mescaline, and conducted pathbreaking work using LSD to help alcoholics stop drinking. Among Osmond's best-known patients was Bill W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Reason sat down with Dyck at the MAPS Psychedelic Science 2023 conference held in Denver this June, where a reported 13,000 people gathered to talk about all aspects of today's psychedelic renaissance. We talked about why drugs such as MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD are making a comeback; how tensions are rising between indigenous people and medical practitioners; and whether prohibitionists have finally lost the war on drugs.

The post Erika Dyck: Are We Living in a Psychedelic Renaissance? appeared first on Reason.com.

This is an audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern on Reason's YouTube channel.

It's back-to-school season, and for some parts of the country, that means dealing with COVID restrictions again. Americans are no longer experiencing indefinite school closures or ubiquitous masking, but intermittent school closures, temporary mask mandates, and COVID vaccine requirements persist.

Will it ever end? Or are we in "the new abnormal"?

To examine these questions, Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe spoke with Aaron Kheriaty, the psychiatrist fired from the University of California, Irvine for refusing to get vaccinated. He's a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who wrote a book called The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State, in which he argues that the authoritarian measures implemented during the pandemic are sure to linger and reshape American society for the worse absent concerted and organized political pushback. 

Zach and Liz discussed his firing at length, surveyed the landscape of remaining COVID restrictions across America, reacted to clips of both Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom reflecting on their governance through the emergency, and talked about policies that can best help us escape "the new abnormal."

Sources referenced in this conversation:

ABC News: "School districts in Kentucky, Texas cancel classes amid 'surge' of illnesses including COVID"

Bloomberg: "Covid Mask Mandate at Elementary School Draws Ire of Some Republicans"

Reason: "The University of Michigan Will Force Students With COVID To Leave Campus"

Cochrane Library: "Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses."

American College Health Association report on campus vaccine mandates and COVID policies

Reason: "A Federal Judge Blocks California's Ban on Medical Advice That Promotes COVID-19 'Misinformation'"

Aaron Kheriaty in The Wall Street Journal: "University Vaccine Mandates Violate Medical Ethics"

Aaron Kheriaty's lawsuit against the University of California, Irvine

5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Missouri v. Biden

The post Aaron Kheriaty: Will COVID Restrictions Persist Indefinitely in Schools? appeared first on Reason.com.

In June, I traveled to Denver with Zach Weismueller to cover the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference, organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a group that has been working to gain Food and Drug Administration approval of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD since the late 1980s. We produced a 30-minute documentary about today's "psychedelic renaissance."

The most surprising speaker at the conference was Rick Perry, the former Texas governor and Trump administration energy secretary. What in tarnation was a conservative Republican doing on the stage, extolling the virtues of drugs long associated with hippies and 1960s counterculture?

I sat down with Perry to learn why he believes psychedelics should be legal medicine for veterans and others suffering from PTSD, how to allow more immigrants to come to America lawfully, and why if he were ever to take a psychedelic drug it would be Ibogaine, a notoriously powerful substance made from the bark of an African tree.

The post Rick Perry: The Conservative Case for Psychedelics appeared first on Reason.com.

This is an audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern on Reason's YouTube channel.

Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe sat down for a live discussion about the political and social ramifications of the indictments of Donald Trump with George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin.

"Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election well deserves punishment from the standpoint of both retribution and deterrence," wrote Somin following the four-count indictment filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith in early August. "For the head of state in a democracy, there are few more serious crimes than using fraud to try to stay in power after losing an election."

Somin also says "some of the charges seem compelling" in the case against Trump in Fulton County, Georgia.

Critics of the indictments have pointed out the conspicuous timing of a scheduled trial date, accused Trump's prosecutors of trying to "criminalize speech," and suggested that the former president is being held to a double standard. Others worry the prosecution will inspire "ever more aggressive tit-for-tat investigations."

Sources referenced in this conversation:

"Retribution, Deterrence, and the Case for Prosecuting Trump for Conspiring to Overturn the 2020 Election," by Ilya Somin

"The Georgia Case Against Trump," by Ilya Somin

William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen on Trump's presidential eligibility and the 14th Amendment

"FBI resisted opening probe into Trump's role in Jan. 6 for more than a year," by Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis

John Eastman's memo for how to challenge the 2020 election results

"Conservative Legal Luminaries Release Report Entitled 'Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election,'" by Ilya Somin

"Section 3 Disqualifications for Democracy Preservation," by Ilya Somin

Today's sponsor:

• Why We Can't Have Nice Things. A six-part Reason podcast series about the frustrating and foolish aspects of American trade policy that make everyday items more expensive. From last year's sudden shortages of baby formula to the Jones Act and President Lyndon Johnson's infamous "chicken war," host Eric Boehm sits down with industry experts and libertarian policy wonks to explore how these counterproductive rules got made—and explains why they can be so difficult to undo.
• BetterHelp. Are you at your best? Working with a therapist can help you get closer to the best version of you—because when you feel empowered, you're more prepared to take on everything life throws at you. If you're thinking of giving therapy a try, BetterHelp is a great option. It's convenient, flexible, affordable, and entirely online. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. If you want to live a more empowered life, therapy can get you there.

The post Ilya Somin: Should Libertarians Support the Prosecutions of Trump? appeared first on Reason.com.