This episode features an interview of education and parenting researcher, writer, and lecturer Alfie Kohn from 2009 by Laura Markham of Aha! Parenting. They consider and critique the misguided use of both punishments and rewards in the rearing of children.
Tag: war
Universal Basic Income is a Totalitarian State’s Dream Scheme
Andrew Yang’s small but solid polling in the Democratic Party’s 2020 nomination race shows that “Universal Basic Income” has gone from a fringe idea to an idea with a foothold in the popular consciousness.
The Equality of the iPhone
My daughter brought home a busted up Motorola Razor flip phone yesterday. She got it trading stuff with neighbors. It’s still a beautiful piece of hardware. She couldn’t understand how it was so cool when it came out despite doing nothing but calls and texts. I couldn’t explain.
Why I Like Working Next to a Construction Site
Have you ever had to go to work next to a construction site? If you’re like most people, you’re happy when it’s over. The end of a construction project means the end of congested roads, loud equipment noises, and the occasional equipment mishaps. I get it. There’s a building going up next to my office building right now.
Why Do Good People Do Evil Things?
Statism is the most popular religion in the world. It usually comes before any other religion the believer may have. When combined with other religions it can become even worse– just look at the Muslim world, the old “Moral Majority”, or “Focus on the Family” if you have any doubt about this danger.
UBI: Some Early Experiments
The Universal Basic Income is only a tangential interest of mine. Yet when I’ve debated it, I’ve been consistently impressed by how little the eager advocates try to teach me.* Case in point: I learned more from reading three paragraphs in Kevin Lang’s Poverty and Discrimination than in my typical conversation with a UBI enthusiast.
Christopher Preble: War Is the Health of the State (54m)
This episode features an interview of U.S. foreign policy academic Christopher Preble from 2015 by Trevor Burrus and Aaron Powell, hosts of the Free Thoughts podcast. They ask whether there exists a single libertarian foreign policy that all libertarians would agree with; talk about the idea that war powers, resolutions, and laws passed during wartime don’t recede in times of peace; give a quick rundown of American military history; and discuss the rise of a permanent private industry supplying the military. When should the United States go to war? When did the American military really start to get massive? How much do we spend on the military today? Relative to recent history? Is the military open to the same kinds of critiques that libertarians make about other government programs?
War in All But Name as US State Department Offers Bribes to Pirates
If at first you don’t succeed, spread some money around. The Financial Times reports that the US State Department is offering cash bribes to captains of Iranian ships if they sail those ships into ports where the US government can seize them.
Codifying Our Worst Impulses: The Ideas that Started World War II
Today (9/1) is the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II, the deadliest violent conflict in human history. Death tolls vary, but often reach 80 million souls. What caused it? Lists of proximate causes never end, but the only credible “root cause” is simply: ideas.
The 16th Amendment: How the U.S. Federal Income Tax Became D.C.’s Favorite Political Weapon
Nowadays Americans collectively spend more than 6 billion hours each year filling out tax forms, keeping records, and learning new tax rules according to the Office of Management and Budget. Complying with the byzantine U.S. tax code is estimated to cost the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually – time and money that could otherwise be used for more productive activities like entrepreneurship and investment, or just more family and leisure time.