Nile Ferguson's new book is doom, the politics of catastrophe. We talk about natural versus man made disasters and to what extent they're all political and economic. Nile also talks about counter factual history and conservativism post trump. And now, all these years later, after post covid when that comes, do we need some more kille raps? So with that, please enjoy this conversation.
Disasters are inherently hard to predict. Pandemics, like earthquakes, wildfires, financial crises, and wars, are not normally distributed; there is no cycle of history to help us anticipate the next catastrophe. In this episode, Michael Shermer speaks with one of the world’s most renowned historians, Niall Ferguson, who explains why our ever more bureaucratic and complex systems are making us worse, not better, at handling disasters.