The Good Fight

Over the past decades, many social science studies have promised simple answers to complex problems. In his latest book, The Quick Fix: Why Fad Psychology Can't Cure Our Social Ills, Singal describes how many of these solutions fail because the findings they are based on turn out to be wrong or misleading.In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Jesse Singal sit down to discuss the reproducibility crisis in social science, whether to be skeptical about implicit bias training, and how to differentiate real solutions from illusory quick fixes. A written transcript of this conversation is available on persuasion.communityPlease do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: goodfightpod@gmail.comWebsite: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca RashidLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Foreign aid is meant to alleviate suffering and help poor countries develop. But according to Bill Easterly, a professor of Economics at NYU, it often does the opposite. Instead of helping countries develop, it wastes resources or makes it harder for them to make economic progress. And far from advancing democracy and human rights, it often helps autocrats to stay in power. In this week's episode of The Good Fight podcast, Yascha Mounk and Bill Easterly discuss how political considerations misdirect foreign aid, whether the “development industrial complex” ignores the human rights of the poor, and why foreign aid so often gives a lifeline to authoritarian leaders around the globe.A written transcript of this conversation is available on persuasion.communityPlease do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: goodfightpod@gmail.comWebsite: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca RashidLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion Community  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Leana Wen is fighting on the frontlines of the pandemic. She's not only taking on Covid-19, but also the rampant disinformation and political flip-flopping that turned a manageable threat into one of the worst crises in American history. An emergency physician and Washington Post columnist, Wen has emerged as one the nation's most poignant voices on America's dire need to prioritize public health.In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Dr. Leana Wen sit down to discuss the failures of expert opinions, the deadly consequences of inaction, and what the West needs to do to improve public health for the decades to come. Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: goodfightpod@gmail.comWebsite: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca RashidLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most Westerners have a one-dimensional view of China, identifying it with either its economic success or its authoritarian government. Rana Mitter, a professor of modern China at Oxford University, suggests that the best way to understand contemporary China is to look at the interplay of four key characteristics: authoritarianism, consumerism, globalization, and technology. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Rana Mitter discuss how to understand contemporary China; attempts by the Chinese government to change popular views of the country's history; and how younger Chinese citizens are likely to shape the country.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: goodfightpod@gmail.comWebsite: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca RashidLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Clay Shirky has always been an optimist, believing in the potential of the internet to bring humanity together. But recent trends – from the spread of fake news to the rise in online vitriol – seem to have thrown his vision of cooperation and trust into serious doubt. Does the promise of the internet which Shirky has spent so many years touting still hold true?In this week’s episode of The Good Fight, Yascha Mounk and Clay Shirky sit down to discuss if social media might be more of a curse than a blessing, whether or not to regulate the virtual public square, and how the internet has turned the world into a “global village.”Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: goodfightpod@gmail.comWebsite: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca RashidLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between 2003 and 2007, 96% of participants in social psychology studies were Westerners, most of them undergraduates at American universities. As a result, much of what psychologists have come to believe about human nature is actually a description of a geographically and historically specific group: people who are western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic ("WEIRD").Joseph Henrich, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard, has spent his career trying to change the parochial bias of social psychology. If we understand that WEIRD people are closer to the aberration than the norm, he argues, we can better understand the rise of the West, the rapid transformations now taking place from Asia to Africa, and the likely future of societies around the world.In this week’s episode of The Good Fight, Yascha Mounk and Joseph Henrich sit down to discuss the peculiarities of WEIRD people; whether non-western societies are taking on some of the same characteristics as they develop economically; and how new technologies might disrupt traditional bonds between human beings.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: goodfightpod@gmail.comWebsite: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca RashidLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is a lot of bad advice going around these days. If something bad happened to you, define yourself by your trauma. And if somebody inadvertently did something offensive, react as though they had intended to harm you. Emily Yoffe, a member of Persuasion's Board of Advisors and a contributing writer at The Atlantic, has spent years giving thoughtful advice and chronicling the strange turn in our culture. One of the country's best writers and most fearless reporters, she knows better than just about anyone else how to skewer the growing self-righteousness in our intellectual discourse.In this week’s episode of The Good Fight, Yascha Mounk and Emily Yoffe sit down to discuss the hallmarks of cancelation, why intent matters, and how we can recover our capacity to converse freely.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: goodfightpod@gmail.comWebsite: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca RashidLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Trump's presidency, Brexit, and the mishandling of a global pandemic have made Douglas Alexander deeply concerned about the "powerful weaponization of nostalgia." As a former leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Alexander fears that a dissolution of old class identities will open the way to an even bigger attachment to tribal identities. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Douglas Alexander discuss the power of identity politics around the world, whether voters still believe in political competence, and how to bridge the "empathy gap" threatening democratic societies around the world. Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: goodfightpod@gmail.comWebsite: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca RashidLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesConnect with us!Spotify | Apple | GoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasion Youtube: Yascha MounkLinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We like to think the right argument could persuade our friend or uncle of our point of view. But what if our personality helps to determine how we see the world? Dr. John Hibbing, a professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, believes that psychology, rather than culture or economic circumstances, explains much of our politics.In this week’s episode of The Good Fight, Yascha Mounk and John Hibbing sit down to discuss the drivers of our political beliefs, why a longing for cultural security helps to explain the rise of Trumpism, and how to get on with those who are wired differently from us.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: goodfightpod@gmail.comWebsite: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca RashidLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesConnect with us! SpotifyAppleGoogleTwitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasionYoutube: Yascha Mounk  LinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What transforms reasonable people into an angry mob? Why are we so eager to dismiss those who disagree with us as inherently evil? These are questions which Jonathan Haidt has spent his career trying to answer. One of the world’s most influential social psychologists and a member of Persuasion's Board of Advisors, he argues that a lot of recent cultural shifts are encouraging emotional fragility rather than resilience. A professor of ethical leadership at NYU's Stern School of Business, Haidt seeks to employ moral psychology to promote dialogue rather than division.In this week’s episode of The Good Fight, Yascha Mounk sits down with Jonathan Haidt to discuss psychological differences between the left and the right, the human tendency to discriminate in favor of the in-group, and how to build a less tribal culture and country.Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight.If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone.Email: goodfightpod@gmail.comTwitter: @Yascha_MounkWebsite: http://www.persuasion.communityPodcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca RashidLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices