When is too much freedom too much?
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
03/18/21
•35m
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Q. What do Donald Trump and the Ayatollah Khamenei have in common with Rihanna?
A.They have all been banned from social media. Social media has become the lifeblood of modern culture. But it has evolved in ways which reward excessive outrage excessively and which encourage hyper attention to the immediate—untethered from traditions, knowledge, and values. One result is rising anger, increasing polarization, and easy manipulation of public opinion and of elections.
Should online speech be regulated? If so, by whom? Is it good public policy to ask Silicon Valley executives to self-police? Whose values should drive decisions about what is allowed and what is banned?
Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, is widely considered one of America's leading legal scholars on freedom of speech and has written extensively about the evolution of that fundamental freedom in the digital age. In this week’s New Thinking for a New World podcast, he wrestles with the challenges of social media.
Previous Episode
"Expect to have very violent reactions after the pandemic"
March 11, 2021
•30m
Europe has had a bad few years. The struggles between North and South mostly over economics, between East and West mostly over values. Brexit, which shifted the locus of power eastward and distracted European leaders from any possibility of a more positive agenda. The pandemic, which among all its other impacts led to interrupted borders in a Europe that prided itself on having no borders. Tensions with the Americans, the Russians, the Chinese, and overall a sense that Europe is largely irrelevant to what happens elsewhere in the world.
Pierre Lellouche, former French parliamentarian and minister, worries that bad is likely to get worse. Listen as he discusses how Europe got stuck between the United States and China, the future of democracy, and the tragedy of social movements focused only on race and gender.
Next Episode
Casas Muertas
March 25, 2021
•34m
Venezuela has been in a death spiral for years. The country have been devastated by political repression and economic depression; its people suffer from huger, malnutrition, shortages of food, medicine and, perhaps worst of all, opportunity. The numbers tell the story: 9 million malnourished, 90% of the country’s 28 million live in poverty, and more than 5 million have fled.
David Smolansky, our guest for this episode of New Thinking for a New World, is one of those who have fled. He was chased from his elected post of mayor of El Hatillo municipality and avoided jail only by seeking political asylum in the United States. Listen as he imagines how his country can—he believes, will—go from a failed, kleptocratic state to a prosperous democracy.
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