The Atlas Society Presents - Objectively Speaking

Guillaume Verdon, founder of Extropic and known for effective accelerationism, shares insights on the intersection of technology and personal liberty. He discusses the pitfalls of centralized AI and advocates for a decentralized approach to foster innovation. Verdon delves into the Kardashev scale, emphasizing sustainable energy for civilization's growth. He highlights the dual nature of AI, addressing misinformation while promoting equitable access to technology. The conversation also explores the timeline for launching innovative chip technology and the importance of individual agency in shaping AI's future.

Join Atlas Society founder and Senior Scholar David Kelley, Ph.D., along with Senior Scholar and Professor of Political Economy at Duke, Richard Salsman, Ph.D., for a special webinar exploring how influential ideas often fail to persuade when their terms are misunderstood, emotionally charged, or used unequivocally. "Intellectual influencers often fail to convince others of the truth of their concepts and principles when their targets don’t 'hear' what’s meant--or hear its opposite. Connotation (felt meaning) doesn’t always track denotation (literal meaning). Examples include atheism, selfishness, capitalism, power, equality, liberal, democracy, and progressive. Ideally, we define our terms and don’t equivocate, but each is likely amid today’s conceptual confusion, epistemological nominalism, and moral emotivism. People 'talk past each other' or dismiss debates as futile--'mere semantics.'"

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 253rd episode of Objectively Speaking (formerly The Atlas Society Asks), where she interviews the CEO of the American Culture Project, John Tillman, about his work with the American Culture Project and Illinois Policy Institute, along with the moral case for celebrating entrepreneurial heroes. John Tillman is the CEO of the American Culture Project, an organization that attracts, educates, and mobilizes independent voters around the ideas of freedom and opportunity. He is also the chairman of the Illinois Policy Institute, one of the most influential state-based think tanks in the country, and a leader in the free-market, public-policy arena. 

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 252nd episode of The Atlas Society Asks, where she speaks with Topher Field, one of Australia’s leading and most recognized Libertarian political commentators and human rights activists, about his book "Good People Break Bad Laws: Civil Disobedience in the Modern Age." Best known for his work on the front lines of the protests and pushback against draconian Covid lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia, Topher Field has been awarded 3 times by the Australian Libertarian Society, won 14 awards for his documentary Battleground Melbourne, is the host of The Aussie Wire, author of the book "Good People Break Bad Laws," and is a renowned public speaker and communicator of freedom.

Join CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 251st episode of The Atlas Society Asks where she interviews author, filmmaker, business executive, and retired National Champion gymnast, Jennifer Sey. Listen as the duo explore Sey's journey from elite gymnastics to corporate leadership and outspoken activism, exposing abuse in gymnastics (Chalked Up, Athlete A), fighting COVID lockdowns (Levi’s Unbuttoned), and her latest work on women’s sports. Jennifer Sey is an author, filmmaker, business executive, and retired National Champion gymnast. In her 2008 menor, Chalked Up, she exposed the abusive coaching practices in gymnastics, later producing the Emmy-award winning Netflix documentary Athlete A, which shed light on the crimes of Larry Nassar and the widespread abuse of athletes in the Olympic movement. As a fearless advocate for free speech, Sey also took a stand agains COVID-19 lockdowns, a battle she chronicles in Levi’s Unbottoned: The Woke Mob Took My Job but Gave Me My Voice. Today, she is the founder and CEO of XX-XY Athletics, a brand dedicated to defending women’s sports, and the director of the upcoming documentary Generation Covid, which examines the devastating impacted of prolonged school closures on children.

Join Atlas Society Senior Scholar Stephen Hicks and Senior Fellow Robert Tracinski Wednesday for a special webinar exploring academic freedom and how the government uses federal/state funding to exert control over higher education.

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 249th episode of The Atlas Society Asks where she interviews former Anheuser-Busch executive Anson Frericks about his book Last Call for Bud Light: The Fall and Future of America's Favorite Beer, in which he tells the inside story of how Anheuser-Busch suddenly became enamored with stakeholder capitalism, DEI and ESG. Anson Frericks, a former president at Anheuser-Busch—formerly the home of America’s most popular brewery—watched as the company unraveled at the hands of globe-trotting financiers and progressive middle management. This culminated in the evaporation of $30 billion in market cap after releasing an advertising campaign starring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Drawing on his own experiences in corporate America, Frericks offers insight into how businesses should focus on shareholder capitalism and the people who buy their products and what may happen when they don’t.

Join Atlas Society International Strategy Director Isidora Kolar for the 248th episode of The Atlas Society Asks where she interviews Stephen R. Soukup about his book "The Dictatorship of Woke Capital: How Political Correctness Captured Big Business," exploring the Left’s long march through American Institutions, culminating in its capture of Big Business, and a strategy to prevent corporate America from becoming an economically powerful extension of the “woke” college campus. Stephen R. Soukup is the senior commentator, Vice President, and Publisher of The Political Forum, an “independent research provider” that delivers research and consulting services to the institutional investment community with an emphasis on economic, social, political, and geopolitical events likely to have an impact on the financial markets in the United States and abroad.

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 247th episode of The Atlas Society Asks, where she sits down with author and health policy scholar Sally Pipes to talk about her latest book "The World's Medicine Chest: How America Achieved Pharmaceutical Supremacy--and How to Keep it," which details how America became the world’s leader in biopharmaceutical innovation and argues how efforts by Democrats and Republicans to impose price controls on prescription drugs will have disastrous consequences. Sally Pipes is president, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Drawing on her decades of experience as a health policy scholar, Pipes has written numerous books, including "The False Promise of Single-Payer Health Care," "The Way Out of Obamacare," and "False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All."

The news of the day is filled with tariffs and trade wars, not just aimed at China but at our biggest and friendliest trading partners like Canada. Is trade bad? Did it hollow out manufacturing and make us poorer? Are other countries "ripping us off"? Or is it the trade war that's killing the economy? In preparation for the release of The Atlas Society’s newest publication, "The Pocket Guide to Free Trade," later this year, we invite you to join Atlas Society Founder and Senior Scholar David Kelley, Ph.D., and Senior Fellow Rob Tracinski for a discussion about how trade is a vital necessity of prosperity and essential to economic freedom, and why barriers to international trade are mostly arbitrary and destructive.