Polling uncertainty and a surge in voter enthusiasm could make tomorrow an embarrassing day for many in the political class.

Polling uncertainty and a surge in voter enthusiasm could make tomorrow an embarrassing day for many in the political class.

Blockchain, the decentralized, incorruptible ledger system that undergirds bitcoin, "gives you an actual power to affect change in the world," says hacker Lauri Love. "It's gonna scare the shit out of some very powerful people."

Love is one of the people featured in actor and filmmaker Alex Winter's new documentary, Trust Machine, which explains how blockchain works and how businesses are using it to reinvent power grids, music distribution, and even grocery stores. For today's Reason Podcast, Nick Gillespie talks with Winter, whose previous documentaries include Downloaded, which looked at how Napster and other file-sharing services disrupted the music industry, and Deep Web, a sympathetic portrait of Silk Road and similar websites, about the potential for blockchain to change how governments—and corporations—go about their business.

Q&A with Alex Winter, whose new documentary, Trust Machine, explores the radical potential of blockchain to decentralize just about everything.

Are we in a new era of political violence? Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch debate on the latest Reason Podcast.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

Are we all just living through Elon Musk's dystopian simulation?

Are we all just living through Elon Musk's dystopian simulation?

Is socialism more effective than capitalism in bringing freedom to the masses?

That was the resolution at a recent public debated hosted by the Soho Forum on October 15, 2018. It featured Bhaskar Sunkara, the founding editor and publisher of Jacobin magazine, and Gene Epstein, the Soho Forum's director and former economics and books editor of Barron's. Naomi Brockwell moderated.

It was an Oxford-style debate in which the audience votes on the resolution at the beginning and end of the event, and the side that gains the most ground is victorious. Epstein, arguing the negative, prevailed by convincing about 11 percent of audience members to change their minds.

Music: "January" by Kai Engle is licensed under a CC-BY creative commons license.

Which economic system is most effective at bringing freedom to the masses?

The prolific George Mason University economist outlines his unabashedly libertarian argument for a government that does less and individuals who do more.