A look at the first critics of modern life during the 18th and 19th centuries; those who worried about factories, pollution, capitalism, and modernity.

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A look at the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, exploring why his ideas matter, and the context they arose from. It looks at the Critique of Pure Reason and the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of morals, explaining concepts like transcendental idealism and the Categorical Imperative. Born in 1724, he wanted to make us a truly scientific species – he wanted to bring together reason – how we think - and experience – what we see, hear, touch through our senses - on a sure foundation – one that scientific knowledge could be built on.

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What the Evidence on Immigration Says by Then & Now

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I look at Tucker Carlson's conspiracy theory-riddled mind, where it comes from, and why he does it. I draw from Richard Hofstadter's 1964 The Paranoid Style in American Politics, review Carlson's book, Ship of Fools, and look at his Fox News show, the Fedsurrection, Patriot Purge, and the Great Replacement.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018

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A dive into the long history of television news in America to understand what the conditions were that made Fox News’s emergence possible. We look at what Fox’s underlying social, cultural, and philosophical toolkit and formula looks like. What it’s predecessors were (TVN, Roger Ailes’ consultancy, Nixon’s adverts), Reagan’s rolling back of FCC regulation and the fairness doctrine, the stories that made Fox (Lewinsky Scandal, 9/11, Obama, The Tea Party, Trump), and their post-rational, postmodern methods. Finally, how we counter the O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson playbook.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018

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I explore our consumer society, looking at the history, philosophy, psychology, and sociology of what consumerism really means. Is it a useful concept? Where did it appear from? Are there alternatives? How is the desire that drives consumption manufactured? Are we shallow? Is there any possibility of ethical consumption? To help answer some of these questions I draw from thinkers including Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, and David Harvey.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018

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Free Will – Our Freedom to choose for ourselves – is at the heart of our sense of being human. How we think about free will effects everything from responsibility and criminal justice to laziness and poverty to seemingly ordinary choices like what I’ll have for dinner. Free Will is of course the power to select from options, for ourselves, unencumbered, unrestrained, uncaused – to be the author of our own thoughts and actions. But what does this really mean? Does Free Will really exist? And is it a wider social, cultural, and political concept? Is it really about responsibility? I look at a few philosophers - P.F. Strawson, Spinoza, Plato, Socrates, and more - to explore the conceptThen & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018

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A long view on the sense of Russian history that Vladimir Putin has inherited and draws from culturally. Looking at the roots of Russian anti-westernism, its response to Europe during the Enlightenment and Peter and Catherine the Great's modernizing projects. From Rousseau and the influence of the Romanitics through to Dostoevsky, Carl Schmitt's influence, and Ivan Illyin today.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018

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Nuclear Weapons changed us. One author said we have a ‘nuclear consciousness’ If so, how specifically did it develop? What shapes did it take? I’ll look at some surprising consequences of the discovery of Nuclear power, how it changed our ideas about fear and irrationalism, about world government and philosophy, how it changed literature and cinema and comics, religion, science, and our idea of progress.Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018

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