The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

This is the audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern.

The guests this week were the podcaster and writer Coleman Hughes and the Cato Institute's Walter Olson. We talked about the recent high-profile Supreme Court cases that struck down the use of affirmative action in college admissions and ruled that a web designer in Colorado could not be forced to make a site for same-sex couples. Along with the legal issues involved, we discussed the immense cultural changes over the past 50 years related to racial, ethnic, and sexual identities.

Today's sponsor:

• BetterHelp. When you're at your best, you can do great things. But sometimes life gets you bogged down, and you may feel overwhelmed or like you're not showing up in the way that you want to. 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. Visit BetterHelp.com/TRI today to get 10 percent off your first month.

The post Coleman Hughes and Walter Olson: The Supreme Court Got Its Affirmative Action and Gay Website Cases Right appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is the immensely popular podcaster and writer Bridget Phetasy, who recently packed up her family and left Los Angeles for Texas in search of affordable living, lower crime, and quieter evenings—all within an easy drive to Joe Rogan's Comedy Mothership club in Austin, where she sometimes performs.

Leaving the hustle-heavy entertainment capital of the world hasn't dulled her edge, though. "What stupid fucking times we live in," reads a signature tweet (she's a must-follow on that platform). In recent columns for The Spectator, she talks frankly about how she "learned to stop worrying and love the 'burbs," when she realized she needed to leave California, and talks with members of the LGBTQ+ community about "why Pride lost the public."

We talk about all that, especially what motivated her and her husband to choose Texas over California, and why she remains "politically homeless" despite just moving to a red state. At one point in our conversation, she says that living in a blue area surrounded by red voters might be the best of all possible worlds. She also explains why she's done with Joe Biden and Donald Trump but muses over the circumstances under which she might just vote for conservative Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Within hours of our talking, she messaged me with a link to a terrible DeSantis campaign attack video accusing Donald Trump of being too trans-friendly and touting the Florida governor's bona fides on shutting down gay-friendly activities in the Sunshine State. "I knew I never should have said that I'd vote for him," she wrote, with a laugh/cry emoji. "Puke can we rerecord."

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. Visit BetterHelp.com/TRI today to get 10 percent off your first month.

The post Bridget Phetasy: Why I Left California for Texas appeared first on Reason.com.

This is the audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern.

The guest for this week's livestream was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmentalist and anti-vaccine activist who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination. My colleague Zach Weissmueller and I talked with him about the war in Ukraine, COVID-19 policy, gun rights, bitcoin, pardoning Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Ross Ulbricht, and much more.

To watch the video version, go here.

Today's sponsor:

• BetterHelp. When you're at your best, you can do great things. But sometimes life gets you bogged down, and you may feel overwhelmed or like you're not showing up in the way that you want to. 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. Visit BetterHelp.com/TRI today to get 10 percent off your first month.

The post Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: COVID, Ukraine, Bitcoin, Guns, Free Speech, and More appeared first on Reason.com.

My guest today is Kevin Kelly, one of the original gang of people at Wired magazine back when it was not just reporting on but helping to create digital culture and cyberspace (he remains listed on the masthead as a "senior maverick"). He's a longtime techno-optimist who worked with people like Stewart Brand at the Whole Earth Catalog, Whole Earth Review, and CoEvolution Quarterly and has published a shelf's worth of books such as Out of Control, which helped popularize the idea of emergent orders and self-regulating systems as preferable to traditional, top-down systems of control. 

Since 2000, he has published Cool Tools, "which recommends the best/cheapest tools available" and he is one of the people behind a weekly Substack newsletter that suggests interesting gadgets, books, and offerings. He is one of the founders of The Long Now Foundation, which pushes people to think in 10,000-year-long increments, and he maintains a comprehensive database of the writing, art, presentations, blogs, and other material he's generated over the past several decades.

His new book is Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier, a collection of 450 aphorisms and insights gleaned from a life spent traveling the globe and at the intersection of technology and culture. We talk about his body of work, how his Christianity informs his scientific beliefs (and vice versa), and not only why he believes optimism wins in the long run but also why he believes it's warranted by the facts on the ground.

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. Visit BetterHelp.com/TRI today to get 10 percent off your first month.

The post Kevin Kelly: Excellent Advice for Living From the World's Leading Optimist appeared first on Reason.com.

My guest today is Brendan O'Neill of Spiked, whose new collection of essays, A Heretic's Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable covers heated topics such as attacks on J.K. Rowling by trans activists; dismissals of populist moments that gave rise to Brexit, Donald Trump, and Emmanuel Macron; and the refusal by elites to own up to their mistakes related to COVID lockdowns. I blurbed this provocative and irresistibly readable book, writing that "Brendan O'Neill is the reincarnation of Christopher Hitchens, a devil's advocate who is willing to always state his case clearly, convincingly, and courageously."

Today's sponsor:

• The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy. On Monday, June 26, Nick Gillespie talks with Tara Isabella Burton, author of Self-Made: Creating Our Identities From Da Vinci to the Kardashians. Tickets are $10—which includes beer, wine, soda, food, and plenty of time to talk about politics, culture, and ideas in one of the coolest settings in midtown Manhattan. For details, go here.

The post Brendan O'Neill: A Heretic's Manifesto appeared first on Reason.com.

This is the audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern.

The guest for this week's livestream was Clark Neily, senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. We talked about the indictment against Donald Trump, the parallels between the former president's behavior and Hillary Clinton's, whether the Espionage Act should exist, and deep-seated corruption at the Justice Department and the FBI.

Today's sponsors:

• BetterHelp. When you're at your best, you can do great things. But sometimes life gets you bogged down, and you may feel overwhelmed or like you're not showing up in the way that you want to. 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. Visit BetterHelp.com/TRI today to get 10 percent off your first month.
• The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy. On Monday, June 26, Nick Gillespie talks with Tara Isabella Burton, author of Self-Made: Creating Our Identities From Da Vinci to the Kardashians. Tickets are $10—which includes beer, wine, soda, food, and plenty of time to talk about politics, culture, and ideas in one of the coolest settings in midtown Manhattan. For details, go here.

The post Clark Neily: Regardless of Guilt, Trump Won't Go to Jail appeared first on Reason.com.

Adam Smith turns 300 this week, and the July issue of Reason commemorates his life and legacy with a great set of articles by fantastic economists such as Deirdre McCloskey and Nobel Prize–winner Vernon Smith (no relation!), both of whom are recent guests on this podcast. My favorite piece in the issue, though, was created by today's guest, Peter Bagge, the legendary alternative comics genius behind Hate, Neat Stuff, and graphic biographies of Margaret Sanger, Zora Neale Hurston, and Rose Wilder Lane.

Born in 1957, Peter has been drawing professionally for over 40 years and contributing to Reason for the entirety of the 21st century. I talk with him about Adam Smith, material and moral progress, and what it's like to be an ardent libertarian in a creative space dominated by liberals and left-wingers. An eyewitness to the punk scene in New York in the late 1970s and the grunge scene in Seattle in the late 1980s, we also talk about what might be coming next in politics and culture and why he's optimistic that the future will be better than the past.

• BetterHelp. When you're at your best, you can do great things. But sometimes life gets you bogged down, and you may feel overwhelmed or like you're not showing up in the way that you want to. 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. Visit BetterHelp.com/TRI today to get 10 percent off your first month.
• The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy. On Monday, June 26, Nick Gillespie talks with Tara Isabella Burton, author of Self-Made: Creating Our Identities From Da Vinci to the Kardashians. Tickets are $10—which includes beer, wine, soda, food, and plenty of time to talk about politics, culture, and ideas in one of the coolest settings in midtown Manhattan. For details, go here.

The post Peter Bagge: From Adam Smith to Punk to Grunge appeared first on Reason.com.

This is the audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern.

The guest for this week's livestream was Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed, the creator of the 3D-printed "Liberator" gun. We talked with Cody about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, which is trying—and failing—to shut down Defense Distributed's ability to sell unfinished gun components; the philosophical roots of his crypto-anarchist project and interest in cyberpunk thinking; and his predictions about the future of gun control and American politics as we enter the 2024 presidential cycle.

Today's sponsors:

• BetterHelp. When you're at your best, you can do great things. But sometimes life gets you bogged down, and you may feel overwhelmed or like you're not showing up in the way that you want to. 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. Visit BetterHelp.com/TRI today to get 10 percent off your first month.
• The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy. It doubles as a live taping of The Reason Interview podcast and always provides a great evening of camaraderie and conversation about cutting-edge topics and ideas. On June 26, Nick Gillespie talks with Tara Isabella Burton, author of the phenomenal new book Self-Made: Creating Our Identities From Da Vinci to the Kardashians. As in her previous Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World, Burton zeroes in on the amazing freedom we have to define our reality and all the complications, problems, and possibilities that come along with such freedom. They'll talk about her findings in Self-Made, whether Kim or Kris is the ultimate Kardashian, the insights she picked up while getting a Ph.D. in theology from Oxford, and how traditional and modern cultures mix uneasily. Tickets are $10 and include beer, wine, soda, food, and plenty of time to talk about politics, culture, and ideas in one of the coolest settings in midtown Manhattan. For details, go here.

The post Cody Wilson: The Future of Gun Control and U.S. Politics appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is the Gutfeld! show and Fox News contributor Kat Timpf, whose new book, You Can't Joke About That: Why Everything Is Funny, Nothing Is Sacred, and We're All In This Together, is a massive bestseller. It's also a full-throated defense of free speech and a compelling argument for humor as the best possible coping mechanism.

I talk with Kat about her life as a standup comedian, her past work at National Review and Barstool Sports, how she deals with sexism, what it's like to be an unapologetic libertarian at Fox News, and how her mother's untimely, tragic death convinced her that humor can be a powerful tool to bring a fragmented country together.

This episode was taped live in New York City at the Reason Speakeasy, a monthly, unscripted conversation with defenders of free speech and heterodox thinking. Get information about upcoming events by signing up for Reason's NYC Events newsletter.

Today's sponsors:

• BetterHelp. When you're at your best, you can do great things. But sometimes life gets you bogged down, and you may feel overwhelmed or like you're not showing up in the way that you want to. 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. Visit BetterHelp.com/TRI today to get 10 percent off your first month.
• The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy. On Monday, June 26, Nick Gillespie talks with Tara Isabella Burton, author of Self-Made: Creating Our Identities From Da Vinci to the Kardashians. Tickets are $10—which includes beer, wine, soda, food, and plenty of time to talk about politics, culture, and ideas in one of the coolest settings in midtown Manhattan. For details, go here.

The post Kat Timpf: Make America Funny Again! appeared first on Reason.com.

This is the audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern.

The guest on this week's livestream was Dave Rubin, the host of The Rubin Report. A self-described classical liberal, Dave talked with Reason about why he's supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president. We cover a lot of ground, including DeSantis's highly controversial and very successful handling of COVID, his disturbing willingness to use the government to punish corporations that cross him, and why Rubin has soured on Donald Trump, who he supported in 2016 and 2020.

Today's sponsors:

• BetterHelp. When you're at your best, you can do great things. But sometimes life gets you bogged down, and you may feel overwhelmed or like you're not showing up in the way that you want to. 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. Visit BetterHelp.com/TRI today to get 10 percent off your first month.
• The Reason Speakeasy. The Reason Speakeasy is a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy. It doubles as a live taping of The Reason Interview podcast and always provides a great evening of camaraderie and conversation about cutting-edge topics and ideas. On June 5, Nick Gillespie talks with Fox News contributor Kat Timpf about her best-selling book, You Can't Joke About That: Why Everything Is Funny, Nothing Is Sacred, and We're All in This Together. Tickets are $10 and include beer, wine, soda, food, and plenty of time to talk about politics, culture, and ideas in one of the coolest settings in midtown Manhattan. For details, go here.

The post Dave Rubin: Why Libertarians Should Vote for Ron DeSantis appeared first on Reason.com.