Just Asking Questions

Is war with Iran coming?  Last Saturday, Iran launched hundreds of armed drones and missiles to attack Israel in retaliation for an airstrike on an Iranian consulate in Syria that killed seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, including a general. Israel and the U.S. report that they intercepted most of the drones, and the sole known casualty was a 7-year-old girl critically injured by falling missile shrapnel. Israel has not retaliated…yet.  In the wake of all that, today's guest had something to say about the way some American activists loudly defended the Islamic Republic of Iran after staying conspicuously silent during protests against the regime and crackdowns that began almost two years ago. That was Elica Le Bon, a first-generation Iranian immigrant born in the U.K. and currently living in Los Angeles, where she practices law and runs several large social media accounts that bring attention to the plight of the Iranian people. On the latest episode of Just Asking Questions, she talked to Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe about the Iranian attack, the state of the protest movement and how social media has affected it, and her recent televised exchange with Dave Smith.  Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher. Sources referenced in this conversation: Amnesty International: Iran executes 853 people in eight-year high amid relentless repression and renewed 'war on drugs' Mahsa Amini | Flickr  Iran Population 2024 (Live)  Dancing Iranian taxi driver becomes unlikely anti-regime hero Iranian advanced nuclear centrifuges: https://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Analysis_of_February_2024_IAEA_Iran_Verification_Report_March_4_2024_Final.pdf Producer: John OsterhoudtThe post Elica Le Bon: Is War with Iran Coming? appeared first on Reason.com.

At least 40 U.S. colleges still require a COVID vaccine, according to nocollegemandates.com, an initiative that tracks and opposes the mandates. Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine and biostatistician who lost his job at Harvard for refusing the vaccine even though he'd already survived a COVID infection, says such mandates are "unscientific" and "unethical." Harvard has since dropped the mandate, but Kulldorff likely won't be getting his job there back anytime soon because the Harvard-affiliated hospital that employs medical school faculty still requires a COVID vaccine.    Kulldorff, who created one of the earliest disease outbreak surveillance software systems, was also booted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) COVID-19 vaccine safety commission and regularly de-boosted on Twitter and YouTube for his views. Former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins labeled him and his co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration "fringe epidemiologists" and demanded a "quick and devastating…takedown" of their call to end lockdowns in favor of a "focused protection" strategy.  Kulldorff joined Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions to talk about his ordeal at Harvard, his retrospective on the pandemic and the cultural and governmental response to it, and his involvement in the ongoing Supreme Court case Murthy v. Missouri, in which plaintiffs argue that federal agencies violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to take down certain content about COVID-19.  Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher. Sources referenced in this conversation: NoCollegeMandates.com's Google Sheet list of U.S. colleges with and without vaccine mandates  COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Group at the CDC Flagged Kulldorff tweet  Our World in Data: vaccinated vs. unvaccinated U.S. COVID deaths "Sweden during the pandemic," by Johan Norberg "Serious adverse events of special interest following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in randomized trials in adults" Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo's recommendation on COVID vaccines The Food and Drug Administration and CDC's response to Lapado's recommendation "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False," by John P. A. Ioannidis Timestamps: 0:00 - Forty colleges still require COVID vaccines 2:17 - What happened between Martin Kulldorff and Harvard 5:57 - How vaccine mandates are unscientific and unethical 7:54 - Why is there a push to vaccinate children? 11:30 - Being a dissident at Harvard 14:00 - Fired by the CDC for being too pro-vaccine 19:25 - Vaccines are good for some while bad for others. 21:33 - Being censored online for speaking the truth 25:54 - How masks were ineffective during COVID 28:29 - There has been no reckoning for what happened during COVID. 30:31 - No one should be allowed to violate the First Amendment. 36:21 - How Sweden handled COVID 42:19 - How a good health system kept COVID deaths down 44:25 - What is jawboning? 47:20 - What is the best public health use of the mRNA vaccines? 50:22 - How COVID vaccine data is unreliable 55:32 - What should the COVID policy recommendations be now? 59:16 - Is the peer-review process flawed? 1:03:24 - Will politicians ever be held accountable for their COVID policies? The post Why Did Harvard Fire Martin Kulldorff? appeared first on Reason.com.

"I discovered something remarkably similar to an alien co-intelligence," wrote Ethan Mollick in his new book Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, describing the "sleepless nights" he experienced upon first encountering ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022. Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of the One Useful Thing Substack, has studied, taught, and written about the effects of artificial intelligence on work and education for years. He joined Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions to discuss the ways in which large language models like ChatGPT and Google Gemini are already transforming the workplace, the classroom, artistic production, and the truth-seeking process itself. In this episode, they discuss why you should treat your chatbot like a person even though it's not, how AI is "decomposing" jobs, what tools like OpenAI's Sora mean for the future of filmmaking, how to protect one's identity in the age of deepfakes, The New York Times' copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, the prospects for AI "doomsday," and whether regulation of AI is necessary or even possible. Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher. Timecodes: 0:00- Creating a digital clone of yourself 3:21- What exactly is artificial intelligence? 5:40- No one knows why ChatGPT is so good 10:37- Why you should give your AI chatbot a personality 15:03- Microsoft's AI said it was in love with a reporter 22:21- Can AI replace business school? 23:47- How AI has already transformed the workplace 30:02- AI will "decompose" human jobs 35:50- Will AI replace therapists? 40:59- How will AI affect art? 45:05- Do you have a right to your image? 50:02- Why the New York Times is suing OpenAI 57:33-  Does AI content lack originality? 1:02:35- Are deep fakes a threat? 1:11:47- Four possible AI-infused futures Sources referenced in this conversation: "A Case Study on the Impact of ChatGPT on AI Conference Peer Reviews" 2. New York Times lawsuit against OpenAI 3. New York Times reporter Kevin Roose's conversation with Microsoft's AI 4. "Air Head," a short film by shy kids created with OpenAI's Sora The post Ethan Mollick: How Will AI Change Us? appeared first on Reason.com.

Immigration ranks as the second-most important issue among registered U.S. voters and the top issue for Republican voters, according to a Marist Poll/PBS NewsHour/NPR poll released last month. Perhaps that's because of the 3.2 million border encounters documented by Border Patrol in 2023—a new record high that's so far being outpaced this year. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who continues to erect razor wire fencing at the border despite a Supreme Court ruling prohibiting Texas from stopping federal agents from cutting through the barriers, has likely also heightened the salience of the issue for Republican voters. Even politicians in blue cities like New York are calling the influx a problem, with Mayor Eric Adams saying that the arrival of 110,000 asylum seekers over a year and a half would "destroy New York City" as shelters become overwhelmed.  What do libertarians, traditionally in favor of permissive immigration laws, have to say about this? The truth is, there's a divide. Today's episode of Just Asking Questions features two thinkers on either side of that divide laying out what they each believe is the ideal immigration policy. Libertarian podcaster and comedian Dave Smith said on the Liberty Lockdown show last month that "all of our troops should come home and be stationed around our borders." He continued saying that "if you believe in open borders right now, under current circumstances, you're an insane person, and you're as bad as a communist." That sparked a social media firestorm, which included exchanges between Smith and today's other guest, Chris Freiman, a professor at the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University and author of several notable papers about the ethics of immigration.  Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher. Sources referenced in this conversation: NPR/PBS NewsHouse/Marist Poll, Feb. 1, 2024  Nationwide Encounters | U.S. Customs and Border Protection (cbp.gov) Gallup: Nearly 900 Million Worldwide Wanted to Migrate in 2021 The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the United States, by Alex Nowrasteh, Sarah Eckhardt, and Michael Howard, April 2023 U.S. Naturalizations: 2022 Annual Flow Report (dhs.gov) State Dept: Total immigrant visas issued, 2014-2022 Alex Nowrasteh's thread on X: "Immigration reduced the growth of the federal government…" September Startling Stats (house.gov) The post Dave Smith vs. Chris Freiman: What's the Ideal Immigration Policy? appeared first on Reason.com.

Are American cities crime-ridden hellscapes right now? Have cities rebounded from pandemic-era homicide spikes? Why do subway shootings in New York and carjackings in D.C. keep making the news? "I think a lot of this has to be disaggregated: There is a public order problem, and there is a violent crime problem, and they're not necessarily the same problem," Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City and former Baltimore cop, tells Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions. They discussed the pros and cons of broken-windows policing, how "soft-on-crime" district attorneys affect the cities they're tasked with keeping safe, and whether New York City should become more like Singapore by cracking down on petty crimes. Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher. Sources referenced in this conversation: "More Americans See U.S. Crime Problem as Serious," by Jeffrey F. Jones in Gallup Crime Data Explorer "Crime Trends in U.S. Cities: Mid-Year 2023 Update," by the Council on Criminal Justice, which tracks rates of homicide and other major crimes in 37 select cities. New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority's December 2023 crime report "National Guard and State Police Will Patrol the Subways and Check Bags," by Maria Cramer and Ana Ley in The New York Times The Reason Foundation's study on Ferguson, by Vittorio Nastasi and Caroline Greer "The correlation between more police enforcement and fewer shooting incidents in NYC," by Peter Moskos Fifty years of officer-involved shooting data, compiled by Peter Moskos The post Peter Moskos: What Does Good Policing Look Like? appeared first on Reason.com.

In this thought-provoking discussion, Coleman Hughes, a writer known for his sharp analyses of social issues, debates with Radley Balko, a journalist specializing in criminal justice. They tackle the controversial documentary about George Floyd's death, questioning its claims on police conduct and Chauvin's conviction. Hughes expresses skepticism about the murder verdict, while Balko critiques the documentary's factual accuracy. Their conversation also explores the implications of policing practices, public protests, and the challenges of communicating complex legal issues to the public.

In a special edition of Just Asking Questions recorded before a live audience on the Honduran island of Roatán, Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe talk with Mark Lutter, founder of the Charter Cities Institute, and Patri Friedman, founder and board member of Pronomos Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in charter cities. The conversation took place at the Alternative Visions for Governance conference sponsored by the Reason Foundation, which publishes Reason. The conference happened within the jurisdiction of Próspera, an autonomous zone for economic development—known as a ZEDE—made possible by a 2013 law passed by the Honduran National Congress.  They discussed lessons learned from the launch of Próspera, which has expanded despite a hostile presidential administration, the proliferation of biohacking and medical procedures within the zone, the history of self-governing cities, the relationship between charter cities and democracy, and where in the world prospects are best for future experiments in privatized governance.  Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher. The post Patri Friedman and Mark Lutter: Does a City Need a State? appeared first on Reason.com.

Bryan Johnson made his fortune when he sold his company Braintree to PayPal for $800 million, netting about $300 million for himself. He spends about $2 million a year creating a system to reverse his "biological age." He's 46 years old, chronologically, but claims he's de-aged himself following a program he's branded "the Blueprint protocol."  "I wanted to pose the question in this technological age: Can an algorithm, paired with science, in fact, take better care of me than I can myself?" Johnson tells Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions. They talked with Johnson about his daily routine, the results he's published including measurement of his nighttime erections, the transhumanist philosophy he outlines in his free e-book Don't Die, the role that artificial intelligence is likely to play in prolonging human life and health spans, and the value and limitations of self-experimentation in an era of pharmaceutical stagnation. Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher. The post Bryan Johnson: Can This Rich Transhumanist Beat Death? appeared first on Reason.com.

"One of the ways you understand a society is through its infrastructure," said Tucker Carlson as he stood in front of a Moscow subway station in a video he posted after his two-hour interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In contrast to America's public transit, Moscow's "is perfectly clean and orderly," explained Carlson. "How do you explain that? We're not even going to guess. That's not our job. We're only going to ask the question." On the latest episode of Just Asking Questions, journalist and Fifth Column podcast co-host Michael Moynihan joins Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe to dissect Carlson's interview with Putin and analyze his subsequent behavior, from releasing videos praising Russia's subway stations and grocery stores to his explanation at the World Government Summit that his reason for not challenging Putin to defend his political repression is that it's not interesting because "every leader kills people." They also discuss the recent death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison, Moynihan's experience reporting in Russia, and the state of economic and political freedom under Putin's rule. Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher. Sources referenced in this conversation: Russia Economy: Population, GDP, Inflation, Business, Trade, FDI, Corruption (heritage.org) Russia World Press Freedom Index Ranking | REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS Democracy Index (ourworldindata.org) World Population Review, from World Bank data:  Median Income by Country 2024 The post Michael Moynihan: What's Up With Tucker Carlson? appeared first on Reason.com.

"The greatest risk of a Republican administration is a war with Iran, and the greatest risk of a Democratic administration is a war with Russia," says Curt Mills, executive director of The American Conservative, a magazine for the types of conservatives who are skeptical of foreign military intervention. Mills joined Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions to talk about a $95.3 billion aid package, including $60 billion for Ukraine, that passed the Senate this week, which Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) called a "middle finger to America" during his filibuster of the bill. In this episode, they discuss the bill's passage, Paul's filibuster, Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent interview with Tucker Carlson, the Biden administration's airstrikes against Yemen, and whether or not the surge of foreign policy noninterventionism within the GOP is likely to last past 2024. Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher. Sources referenced in this conversation:  How the Ukraine delusion may end | Curt Mills | The Critic Magazine Ukraine funding package moves closer to Senate passage | The Hill Statement from President Joe Biden on Coalition Strikes in Houthi-Controlled Areas in Yemen | The White House Mike Lee on X: "I totally agree with @RoKhanna. The Constitution matters, regardless of party affiliation." / X (twitter.com) Rep. Pramila Jayapal on X: "This is an unacceptable violation of the Constitution. Article 1 requires that military action be authorized by Congress." / X (twitter.com) Letter to Biden from Sens. Kaine, Young, Murphy, and Lee, - Jan. 11, 2024  Secretary General Annual Report 2020 (nato.int)  The post Curt Mills: Should America Police the World? appeared first on Reason.com.