Tag: Weekend Watch

Matt Ridley and Jordan Peterson

This was my weekend watch. It’s a fantastic, far-reaching discussion across the evolution of virtue, morality, free trade and more. It touches on the green revolution and on Ridley’s Rational Optimist perspective (similar to Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now.

In fact, it’s all that you might expect from a discussion between Peterson and Ridley.

Well worth a watch.

Steven Pinker’s inconvenient truths

Another great podcast from CapX’s Free Exchange series. In this episode, Steven Pinker discusses his recent book, Enlightenment Now.

It’s a fascinating book, but I confess I’ve been reading it all year. The takeaway is clear but the wealth of data takes time to digest. The book is worth the work, but this 30-minute podcast will give you the gist.

The podcast you can hear, here.

You can also get it on iTunes, here.

Photo credit: Rose Lincoln / Harvard University

Niall Ferguson on Brexit and Boris

Now that we have Boris and a very clear statement of intent with regard of Brexit, it’s worth listening to this podcast.

From CapX’s Free Exchange, it dates from a couple of weeks ago. Professor Niall Ferguson gives a historian’s view on Europe, Brexit and politics. He also offers a personal perspective on Oxford contemporary Boris Johnson. It’s both thought-provoking and amusing.

A couple of snippets:

I’m not convinced Churchill would have approved of Brexit since it amounts to a leap in the dark to think Britain can simply exit the EU and hope for a bunch of free trade agreements, including with the United States, to turn up – at a time when most of the world is turning away from free trade.

and…

Ultimately you could argue, in that case Brexit doesn’t really matter – and I would say ‘right, exactly right!’. So why waste all this time on a divorce from something that is in the end becoming weaker over time and is almost certain not to become a superstate…We’re divorcing a slowly decomposing spouse.

A good use of 30 minutes.

You can access the podcast, here.

A reflection of other people

Robert Greene on the importance of being grounded and knowing your selves:

If you’re constantly listening to what other people are saying, if you’re plugged into the matrix continually, and that’s your only reality, then … you’re never understanding who you are. What you see when you look in the mirror is a reflection of all the opinions that other people have … You become a reflection of other people.

A five-minute film for the weekend…

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