The Political Orphanage

Alex Mayyasi of NPR's Planet Money joins me to explore some of the stranger forces shaping the economy. Why did the federal government create a legally mandated raisin cartel? Why are so many American corporations technically from Delaware? Should companies exist solely to make money? And are there times when price controls actually work?

We also dig into Baumol's cost disease—the counterintuitive reason that as society gets richer, childcare, healthcare, restaurants, haircuts, teachers, and live performances can become increasingly expensive. Plus: how rising labor costs might be contributing to the loneliness epidemic, and how Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz helped invent the modern television business.

His book: "Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life"

Are we racing toward an AI-powered golden age—or building something we won't be able to control? Justin Robert Young joins to explore the emerging philosophical divide over artificial intelligence: accelerate innovation and reap potentially enormous benefits, or slow down before we unleash risks we don't understand. We discuss OpenAI and Anthropic, the politics of AI regulation, competition with China, whether the AI boom is a bubble, the strongest case for the AI doomers, and the possibility that advances in AI could transform medicine, work, and even human aging. Plus: Justin explains why the best way to prepare for the AI revolution is surprisingly simple—start asking it dumb questions.

Dr. Steve Fuller of Warwick University says the meaningful split in society is not Leftwing vs. Rightwing, but rather Upwing vs. Downwing. Both have radically different attitudes to both risk and human nature, which informs their policy decisions and the direction they want to steer society.

SUPPORT THE SHOW! www.patreon.com/andrewheaton

Dr. Fuller's book at: www.mightyheaton.com/featured

Referenced in the show today:

TPO: "Was Abraham Lincoln Leftwing or Rightwing?" https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/hyrum-lewis

"Transcendant Man" – Documentary by Ray Kurzweill about the Singularity https://www.amazon.co.uk/Transcendent-Man-Ray-Kurzweil/dp/B016V7WCLA

ATA: The Bioethics of Gattica – Discussed on Alienating the Audience https://alienating.libsyn.com/gattaca

ATA: How Cryonics Works – Interview on Alienating the Audience https://alienating.libsyn.com/we-can-freeze-you-how-cryonics-works ORIGINAL AIR DATE: August, 2023

Healthcare in America is more expensive than anywhere else in the world—but what are other countries actually doing differently? Physician and Slice of Life MD author Sally Primus joins me to tour healthcare systems from Germany and Britain to Japan, Australia, and Estonia. We look at single payer, private insurance, wait times, doctor shortages, drug prices, bureaucracy, and the strange economics of American healthcare—and ask which ideas the United States might actually want to steal.

Donald Trump has renamed Lake Ontario "Lake America" for federal purposes—but can a president actually rename a place, or only change what the government calls it? Andrew Heaton traces the strange history of who gets to control language, from ancient river names that survived Romans and Normans, to Cardinal Richelieu's Académie française, to Noah Webster, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and America's long refusal to appoint an official authority over English. Along the way: French language purism, loanwords, bad translations, official English, and why language usually belongs less to governments than to the people who actually speak it.

The DSA recently released a policy platform establishing the goals of their political movement. In this episode we got through the main planks of that document, namely the bits about "socialism" and "democratic." We likewise go through a few articles and interviews of prominent DSA members to get an idea of what, in their own words, they're actually up to. (Spoiler: it's socialism.)

The Save Our Bacon Act, now repackaged into the Farm Bill, would upturn state rights in favor of federal prohibitions on animal cruelty laws. It's being pushed, in large part, by Chinese-owned conglomerates irritated by federalism.

Lewis Bollard is the Farm Animal Welfare Managing Director at Coefficient Giving on Substack. He joins to discuss the Save Our Bacon Act, and the economic tradeoffs of better animal welfare against higher meat prices.

Senate switchboard number: (202) 224-3121

Prior Episode: "Big Ag's Meat Ethics"

What is The Odyssey actually about beyond a clever guy trying to get home? Classicist Isabella Reinhardt joins to dig into the poem's deeper themes of civilization, hospitality, identity, belonging, and what it means for a warrior to return from war.

Then we turn to adaptation itself, and the choices involved in translating an ancient epic for a modern audience. Using Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey as our case study, we ask what an adaptation is free to change, what it has to preserve, and at what point a new version stops being The Odyssey at all.

"All the Gods Suck Except Circe"

https://alienating.libsyn.com/all-the-gods-suck-except-circe

It's not that America won't spend money on mass transit, it's that we piss it away when we do. Our transit system is a mess, with a lot of problems in spending, procurement, NIMBYism and good 'ol fashioned idiocy.

Will Poff-Webster is the Director of Infrastructure Policy at the Institute for Progress, where he works on energy, transportation and housing policy.

Should you trust experts—or trust yourself?

Richard Hanania, author of Kakistocracy: Why Populism Ends in Disaster joins to discuss why populism has become one of the defining forces in modern politics.

We discuss whether elites really deserve their bad reputation, why expertise and institutions matter, where academia and the media have genuinely failed, and whether movements built around "the wisdom of ordinary people" inevitably drift toward conspiracy theories, corruption, and bad governance.

Why has trust in the news collapsed—and is it really all the media's fault? Tangle founder Isaac Saul joins for a candid conversation about the incentives driving modern journalism, from clickbait and audience capture to ideological groupthink and the collapse of local news. We explore whether readers are rewarding the very coverage they claim to hate, why viewpoint diversity matters inside newsrooms, whether AI poses a real threat to journalism, and what it would actually take to rebuild public trust. It's a nuanced discussion about media, incentives, and why fixing the news may require fixing ourselves first.

Is Rumpsringa real? Are Amish people happier than you? Let's visit Amish country! Heaton visits Muhlenberg County, Ohio, to investigate America's unique subculture of pacifistic, techno-phobic Anabaptists.

We meet Marcus Yoder, the Executive Director of the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center, and talk to him about all things Amish. Why do they have weird beards? Why eschew buttons, automobiles, and smartphones? And, crucially… are they onto something?

Brian Dunning of the Skeptoid podcast returns to The Political Orphanage for a spirited pushback episode on the modern non-profit industry. In a previous conversation, we argued that sprawling tax-exempt organizations can become bloated, unaccountable, and more interested in perpetuating themselves than solving problems. Brian arrives armed with skepticism, data, and counterarguments. Do non-profits actually dodge property taxes? Are giant charities a public good or just corporations with better branding? And when does cynicism about institutions become its own kind of ideological blind spot? This episode dives into philanthropy, incentives, tax policy, and the uneasy overlap between altruism and bureaucracy—with plenty of disagreement along the way.

This interview was edited for purposes of clarity and brevity. When I significantly alter an interview I make the uncut version available, just in case: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1szkeykHYAmerFXpeDTww2o_uHyLsj1_2/view?usp=sharing

Why did the United States become a stable republic while so many revolutions ended in dictatorship?

The answer lies in two men pivitol to the Revolution: George Washington... and Oliver Cromwell.

A century before George Washington, Cromwell fought a king in the name of liberty, overthrew the monarchy, and then—step by step—became everything he opposed.

Washington would later face many of the same temptations: an unpaid army loyal to him, politicians begging him to stay in power, even a proposal to become king.

This is the story of two revolutionary generals, two republics, and why America stayed on the path of democracy instead of descending into a military junta.

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What if history isn't a string of great man biopics or a struggle between conservatives and progressives? What if it's a battle of disciplinarians against drunks and harlots? Thaddeus Russell comes on to talk about his book, "A Renegade History of the United States."

The Founding Fathers were all children of the Enlightenment, and they agreed on kicking King George out, but they never agreed on how to run the country.

Seth Radwell, author of American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation joins on to discuss these two halves of our Founding, and how they are ultimately complimentary.

Jeffrey Rosen is a legal scholar and the President of the National Constitution Center. He's the author "the Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America."

Zuby is a British rapper who spent his childhood on a Saudi Aramco compound—a sprawling corporate community complete with schools, recreation, housing, and services. We discuss what it was like growing up in a place where one company effectively functioned as the local government, and whether company towns deserve their bad reputation.

Then the conversation takes an unexpected turn. Having also lived in Dubai, Zuby reflects on how one of the world's most diverse and immigrant-heavy societies manages to maintain remarkably high social trust, low crime, and social cohesion. What can Dubai teach us about community, culture, and governance? And what assumptions do Westerners make about diversity that may not hold true elsewhere?

It's a conversation about company towns, global cities, social trust, and the strange places that challenge our political priors.

Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing, built the modern automobile industry, and amassed one of the greatest fortunes in American history. Then he decided to conquer the Amazon. In this installment of our series on company towns, we explore Fordlandia—the bizarre Midwestern utopia Ford attempted to build in the Brazilian jungle. It had golf courses, square dancing, vegetarian cafeterias, anti-soccer policies, and enough cultural arrogance to power a small nation. It also had malaria, jaguars, vampire bats, riots, crop failures, and one of the most spectacular corporate disasters ever conceived. Join Heaton for the strange, hilarious, and cautionary tale of what happens when industrial genius collides with nature, culture, and the limits of human planning.

HEAR THE FULL EPISODE: www.thepoliticalorphanage.com

George Pullman built his employees a sparkling company town with clean homes, parks, libraries, luxury trains, and some of the best living conditions in the country—but demanded obedience in return. When recession hit and workers rebelled against wage cuts and paternalistic control, the conflict exploded into one of the most violent labor crises in American history. Featuring Eugene V. Debs, federal troops in Chicago, luxury sleeper trains, class warfare, and a rogue alligator loose in South Chicago, this is the story of how America nearly tore itself apart over the question: can capitalism become humane without becoming authoritarian?

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Robert Owen was a factory owner, a social reformer, the father of British socialism… and possibly the nicest company-town tyrant in history.

Long before Karl Marx called for revolution, Owen tried to build a kinder version of capitalism: humane factories, universal education, shorter work days, and workers treated like human beings instead of expendable machinery.

His model industrial town at New Lanark became world famous, attracting kings, intellectuals, and even the Tsar of Russia.

But success convinced Owen he could go further. So he sold everything and moved to Indiana to build a socialist utopia from scratch. What followed was a chaotic experiment involving communal child rearing, endless committee meetings, militant intellectuals, religious clashes, labor shortages, and eventually… the ghost of Thomas Jefferson.

In this episode, Heaton travels to Scotland to explore the strange rise and catastrophic collapse of Robert Owen's alternate-universe socialism—and asks whether history might have looked very different if Owenism, rather than Marxism, had become the dominant socialist tradition.

What if your landlord was also your boss, mayor, bartender, and moral hall monitor? This week, Andrew Heaton talks with Brian Brushwood about the strange history of company towns—from industrial utopias to corporate feudalism—and the thin line between benevolent planning and creepy social engineering. Then they venture into Walt Disney's original vision for EPCOT: not a theme park, but a living futuristic city under a climate-controlled dome, where corporations tested new technologies on actual residents. Was Disney imagining a dazzling city of tomorrow, or accidentally inventing a family-friendly version of Brave New World?

Mike is a twenty-year police officer and current sergeant supervising a squad of violent crime detectives. After Andrew's recent conversation with Naomi Brockwell about surveillance, encryption, and the slow erosion of privacy in the digital age, he reached out to offer respectful pushback from the other side of the badge.

How much surveillance power do police actually have? What do warrants, metadata, and phone tracking look like in practice versus online panic? And are privacy advocates sometimes overlooking the realities of violent crime investigations? A nuanced, surprisingly civil conversation about policing, technology, civil liberties, and where the balance ought to be.

"Leftwing" and "Rightwing" don't mean the same thing anymore–the battle lines are redrawing. The twentieth century was about economics: low taxes or big government. The twenty-first century will be a fight over something else.

Historian and political theorist Stephen Davies joins to discuss his book "The Great Realignment" and the reshaping Western politics, and the collapse of the old left-right order.

For decades, intellectuals warned that overpopulation would trigger famine, ecological collapse, and mass death. Instead, humanity may now face the opposite problem. In this episode of The Political Orphanage, Andrew Heaton talks with Dean Spears about his book After the Spike and the surprising reality of global depopulation. Why are birth rates collapsing across the developed world—and increasingly in the developing world too? What happens to economies, innovation, retirement systems, and civilization itself when populations begin to shrink? Along the way: Paul Ehrlich's failed predictions, the legacy of the Population Bomb era, why people stop having kids when they get richer, and whether humanity should actually be worried about a future with fewer humans.

Jeffrey Deskovic spent sixteen years in prison, from ages 17 to 32. Wrongfully convicted of raping and murdering a teenager. After obtaining exoneration he became an attorney, and now heads The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, which aims to free similarly falsely imprisoned innocents, while also pursuing policy changes aimed at stopping those injustices from happening in the first place.

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How can we make America safer and save money to boot? What approaches don't work and what can we steal from other countries? Jennifer Doleac is the executive vice president at Arnold Ventures in charge of criminal justice, and the author of "The Science of Second Chances, a Revolution in Criminal Justice."

Is it a charity or a tax loophole? That's what Steve Hodge, President Emeritus of the Tax Foundation, is concerned with. And if there are effectively large corporations, which get tax breaks due to superior branding, how much money is the government leaving on the table, and how does that warp the economy?

Naomi Brockwell is the President and Founder of the Ludlow Institute, a non-profit dedicated to advancing freedom through technology. She is a privacy advocate and expert, who has come on to scare us about online privacy, and how the government can bypass the Constitution through private companies' data.

The Supreme Court is significantly less partisan than advertised. And there are three blocs in it, not two parties. In her new book "Last Branch Standing" Sarah Isgur demystifies the Supreme Court, gives a basic primer on everything from certiorari to judicial philosophies, and identifies the threats to the courts independence, and possible solutions.

Why now? Why did the United States go to war with Iran this year, as opposed to last year, or ten years ago? Michael Tint is a data scientist and aerospace expert, and is here to talk about the Iran War–and why it's a different sort of conflict.

The World's Smartest Podcast Network returns to discuss:

Universities dumping peripheral majors in favor of practical ones

The trials, tribulations, and musical comeback of Afroman

Lindy West, and Millennial Feminism

TURNER'S COMEDY SPECIAL, "Turner Sparks: Buttoned Up and Unhinged: https://www.angel.com/watch/shared/f0106e78-f95b-4aad-91dd-65c43cf80c38

Sociopaths and narcissists are both drawn to politics. How do we spot folks with faulty moral compasses before they get elected, and what do we do when they slip by?

Bill Eddy is a therapist, lawyer, and mediator. He is the Director of Innovation at the High Conflict Institute. He is the author of over twenty books on high-conflict behavior and how to manage it, but we will be discussing the most pertinent of these works, "Why We Elect Narcissists and Sociopaths and How We Can Stop."

Randall Liberty is the Commissioner for Maine's Department of Corrections, overseeing the state's entire prison system, after previously serving as a warden, and a sheriff. He's largely responsible for implementing the "Maine Model," and shifting the state's prison resources away from punitive emphases to rehabilitation.

Part V of Prison Week

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What's prison wine taste like? How's trade work? Where do people get the ink for prison tattoos? If someone sees you cry in the slammer, do you get beaten up? If they beat you up, can you whittle your toothbrush down and shank 'em later? And, crucially, how is prison debate different than high school debate, if at all?

How hard is it to raise kids when you're inside a penitentiary? How do you maintain relationships in general? In this episode, Part III of Prison Week, we head to the Maine Correctional Center's Women Prison to interview a resident.

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www.thepoliticalorphanage.com

In Part II of Prison Week, we meet prison teachers, visit the computer lab, and check out Anime in the prison library. The "Maine Model" is focused on rehabilitation and trying to get residents prepped for life on the outside. It's a method contrasted to older penitentiary models in the United States, which focus primarily on punishment and deterrence.

In this special, host Andrew Heaton visits the Maine Correctional Center for a day to speak with residents, corrections officers and administrators. About life in prison in general, and the "Maine Model," focused on rehabilitation specifically.

Part I of "Prison Week"

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Brink Lindsey is the Senior Vice President at the Niskannen Center. He is the author of "The Permanent Problem: The Uncertain Transition from Mass Plenty to Mass Flourishing." You can find it at mightyheaton.com/featured

Brian Brushwood is by trade a magician, but of late has become a security expert. The FBI flew him to Quantico to brief agents on how scams work, and he's become a popular speaker and consultant for large corporations on how to shield against sophisticated scams. The host of "World's Greatest Con" joins to advise Heaton on how not to get screwed.

On YouTube at: https://youtu.be/_5PnMjvxTDg

When was the last time the United States actually declared war?

Why did it stop officially declaring war, if nonetheless bombing folks?

And when is the president authorized to attack another country without explicit congressional authorization?

What is the War Powers Act, and why did it piss of Nixon?

All that and more in this history and constitutional deep dive.

The Supreme Court just struck down Donald Trump's sweeping emergency tariffs, but this case is about far more than slinkies and sombreros. When Congress passes an ambiguous law, does the president get broad discretion, or only the specific powers clearly granted to him? We unpack the Major Questions Doctrine, Justice Roberts' loaded-gun theory of taxation, Gorsuch's blistering concurrence calling out judicial inconsistency, and the surprising dissents from Kavanaugh and Thomas. This is an episode about tariffs — but it's really about who holds the power to tax, and whether the Constitution still means what it says.

Burning Man is a giant, 80,000-person party in the desert, complete with a crazy amount of neon, bicycles, and narcotics. Grover Norquist is a powerful Republican, alternately famous or infamous for compelling GOP leaders to pledge never to increase spending, who attends Burning Man every year. He joins the podcast to talk about Burning Man, influential secret societies, his foray into standup comedy, and of course, taxes.

Original air date Sep 5th, 2019

Jonathan Hillis is the founder and caretaker of Cabin, a network of co-living spaces which link up and vet members in other communities via blockchain technology. His "neighborhood" of intentional living is in beautiful Texas Hill Country an hour outside of Austin, where he lives with friends in a hub-and-spoke model of private accommodation surrounding communal social spaces.

He's the former CTO of Coinbase, and you can see how his tech background influences his obsession with scalability (we talk about Metcalf's Law, and the optimum size of "one sauna teams") as well as the non-financial elements of blockchain to that end. It actually reminds me a bit of Neil Stephenson's Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities or "burbclaves" in Snow Crash.

Cabin strikes me as a kind of libertarian commune (though neither Hillis nor myself ever uses the term). It's big scattered geographic network of modular co-ops you can plug into and out of. Vetting community members is a big thing in communes, and Cabin relies on blockchain technology and somethin akin to personal Yelp reviews to allow people to skip up from Austin, TX to like-minded communities in Santa Fe or Portland, or wherever.

He joins to discuss his model, and what day-to-day life is like living in an intentional co-living community.

If you wanted to live with a bunch of buddies in a house, how would you do it? What are the mechanics of setting up, financing, and socially maintaining a commune? Samwise Rodriguez runs a commune—which combines their skills as a philanthropist, entrepreneur (and to some extent, as a polyamorist). This week we explore: how do you build your own commune?

What happens when Trump leaves office? Do the Republicans reform or catalyze?

Jeff Flake is the former Executive Director of the Goldwater Institute, Ambassador to Turkey, and representative and then Senator from the great state of Arizona. He is also a Knight of the Kingdom of Sweden.

He joins to discuss what a post-Trump Republican Party will look like.

Colin Woodard posits that America is not really a country, it's a dozen or so distinct nations with their own cultures and ideologies which are constantly battling for supremacy. His new book "Nations Apart: How Clashing Regional Cultures Shattered America." In it he argues that

argues that deep-seated cultural divisions, stemming from different colonial settlement patterns, are the root cause of modern American political polarization, inequality, and threats to democracy. The book uses historical and data-driven analysis to show how these regional cultures clash on issues like gun control, immigration, and abortion, and proposes a renewal based on the unifying ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

"America is Eleven Different Countries"

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/america-is-eleven-different-countries/id1439837349?i=1000646222225

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Rudyard William Lynch is the host of WhatifAlHist, a popular history channel on YouTube.

He joins to discuss how the origins and circumstances of America's regions permanently imprinted on its cultures and political outlooks.

Colin Woodard's Map: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-11-nations-of-the-united-states-2015-7

Rudyard's Map: https://preview.redd.it/cultural-map-of-america-done-by-whatifalthist-on-youtube-v0-7clddg9nunpa1.jpg?auto=webp&s=663b38b9434bdf7791fac983f0d5e5beb643b779

Relevant Book: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, by Colin Woodard

What did people in the Dark Ages think about economics? Why did poverty exist, and how do you alleviate it? To find out, I took my time machine to 1282 and 1314, to speak to barflies and a priest.

Fr. Richard Kirby is a fourteenth century prior of Whitby Abbey and formerly the sacrist of St. Mungo's. He is a specialist in Just Price Theory, and joins the show to discuss how his fellows in the Dark Ages approach economics.

Clayborne Carson is the Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education institute, and hand-picked by Coretta King to publish the letters of his late husband. He's one of the foremost historians on MLK and his legacy. He joins to discuss King, color blindness, and the three approaches of the Civil Rights movement.

Or... how to host a party if you have Asperger's.

Nick Gray is an entrepreneur and an author living in Austin, Texas. I met him roller skating. He started and sold two successful companies: Flight Display Systems and Museum Hack. His YouTube and short videos have been seen by over 55 million people. He's been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and New York Magazine called him a host of "culturally significant parties."

Leading him to write the book, "The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: a step-by-step handbook that teaches you how to build big relationships by hosting small gatherings." You can find that book, as all books discussed on this program, by going to mightyheaton.com/featured.

Nick Gray's PersonalWebsite.org and PersonalWebsites.net

Nick Gray's Patron View donor database

Nick Gray's Website and Blog

Patron View Patron Leaderboards

The 2-Hour Cocktail Party by Nick Gray

Friendship Recession

How did Venezuela become an economic basket case? Not socialism. Or capitalism. Venezuela is a textbook example of a petrostate in the thrall of the Paradox of Plenty, or "the Dutch Disease."

Bonus: Norway's Big Bucket of Oil Money

https://www.thepoliticalorphanage.com/p/bonus-norways-big-bucket-of-oil-money

Why Trump Wants Greenland

https://www.thepoliticalorphanage.com/p/why-trump-wants-greenland

What Happens when the Ayotallah Falls

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-happens-when-the-ayatollah-falls/id1439837349?i=1000724729486

College students are increasingly registering as disabled–particularly at high-end universities, which often entails longer test times and extensions on papers. Does the growing rate of accommodation mean American universities are simply better at identifying disabilities; evidence of students and their families gaming the system for advantages; or a cultural shift wherein students increasingly believe they are disabled, but aren't?

Dr. Andrea Jones-Rooy (a former university educator) and Michael Ira Kaplan (a parent) weigh in.

Our Annual Christmas Comedy Special. In which, our intrepid heroes must save Christmas from a debauched algorithm, navigate treacherous honeypots, and escape a federal penitentiary in this modern yuletide spy epic.

Happy Holidays!

Starring:

Andrew Heaton

Josh Jennings

Andrew Young

Austin Bragg

Justin Robert Young

Kourtni Beebe

Brian Brushwood

Anna Gorisch

Brett Weaver

Brian Sack

Jack Helmuth

Former Cracked.com editor Jason Pargin explores the subject of how social media makes us insane and warps the universe we're in, in his new book "I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom." He joins to discuss.

Sarah Isgur is a senior editor at SCOTUS Blog, host of the Advisory Opinions podcast, and a contributor at ABC News. She is the author of the forthcoming book "Last Branch Standing," which available for pre-order on Amazon. She joins to discuss the recent oral arguments before the Supreme Court on whether or not the Trump administration can invoke IEEPA to levy emergency tariffs.

Freddie deBoer is a writer, academic, and cultural critic. He is a widely-read author on Substack, an old-school Marxist, who has previously been on the program to explain what Marxists actually think.

He's struggled with mental health issues and frequently discusses the intersection of culture and mental health. And he has a new book out which explores those issues, his debut novel, "The Mind Reels."

LINK: "What Do Marxists Actually Think?"

https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/what-do-marxists-actually-think

The real story of Thanksgiving is stranger, darker, and far more interesting than what you learned in kindergarten (or college).

It's a tale of slavery, plagues, ecological engineering, diplomacy, betrayal, and realpolitik—and yes, an actual feast where everyone sucked down eel while negotiating an alliance that would hold for fifty years.

We dive into the world of Tisquantum—better known as Squanto—a kidnapped teenager who crossed the Atlantic twice, lived among Spanish friars and English merchants, and returned to find his entire people gone. Only to reinvented himself as one of the most cunning political operators in early America.

Thousands of people need kidneys, right now. They are either on the precipice of death, or suffering through dialysis and low quality of life. Jeremiah Johnson of the New Liberal Podcast joins to discuss the End Kidney Deaths Act, introduced to the House by Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, and Democratic Rep. Josh Harder of California.

Tim Sandefur joins to discuss individualism in American culture. In this fun (but weird) conversation, we go through zombie shows, Westerns, and Star Trek, while invoking Hobbes, Ayn Rand, Epicurus, the Stoics, Plato and Aristotle. He is the author of the new book "You Don't Own Me: Individualism and the Culture of Liberty."

Past Sandefur chats:

ATA: The Last Policeman

https://alienating.libsyn.com/the-last-policeman

ATA: Let's Fight About the Undiscovered Country

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lets-fight-about-the-undiscovered-country/id1488171922?i=1000485799630

ATA: Is Life Worth Living in a Perfect Utopia?

https://alienating.libsyn.com/is-life-worth-living-in-a-perfect-utopia

ATA: Cold War Kirk vs. Picard the Moral Relativist

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cold-war-kirk-vs-picard-the-moral-relativist/id1488171922?i=1000456934729

Theater critic Clive Kripson of BBC Bolton joins to review "Shutdown: The Musical" in what is now the longest-running revival of the landmark Broadway favorite.

Legal and geographic quirks sometimes create "Terra Nullius"—land which no sovereign nation lays claim to. Literally, No Man's Land. In this weird geographic episode, we explore: Iceland, the Oklahoma Panhandle, Kowloon Walled City, Liberland, and the Kingdom of North Sudan.

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton offered two contrasting visions of what America should be and how the Constitution applies to it. Jeffrey Rosen is a legal scholar and the President of the National Constitution Center. He's the author "The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle over Power in America."

Can comedians ethically perform standup for a despotic regime without endorsing it? Recently the Riyadh Comedy Festival invited furor when some comics schlepped to Saudi Arabia to perform–at great expense–while others declined in protest of supporting human rights abuses. Turner Sparks and Michael Ira Kaplan join to discuss.

Space Tractor: And Other Short Stories, by Josh Jennings

https://www.amazon.com/SPACE-TRACTOR-Science-Fiction-Stories-ebook/dp/B0FJPDYMH8/ref=sr_1_5?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.zZeSAsnZLKSRxIo27_gcMnoklebwF1XE2-ktnBUZV6g0qkMExX8quDXpYFpppH_3e3LCflI4shlhv14uVcYX3v5kKwSxg-MAnHxFe_K4Enhl1N_fUVXYpy8MSYmhsEj4jdx1GXV95xe1mT1mGDJZdA.5O7WtgRE8WN-Z8xMnveA8g0rrXobxvheK2IS9TrnWq8&dib_tag=se&qid=1760124093&refinements=p_27%3AJosh+Jennings&s=digital-text&sr=1-5&text=Josh+Jennings

Okay, so what constitutes "cruel and unusual"? Why was it okay to brand horse thieves in the face in old timey days, but it's barbaric now?

In the final installment of this year's Judge Week, we go over the history of cruel and unusual punishments; what scared the English into outlawing it in their Bill of Rights, and how America interpreted it for the first century of the Constitution. Then, landmark decisions which have further modified, narrowed, and evolved what constitutes as "cruel" in the United States.

Pornhub ceased operating in the Lone Star State after Texas implemented an age verification law. Pornhub, and other adult websites, said the compliance was too onerous, and the potential fines too staggering. In response, the Free Speech Coalition sued Texas in court for an injunction to block the law, on the grounds that by burdening protected (if offensive) speech it violated the first amendment. Texas responded by saying that requiring age verification online is no different than asking to see ID at a brick-and-mortar porno theater.

In this episode we visit the Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, and the full history of American jurisprudence regarding pornography and protected speech.

Ronnie London is general counsel of FIRE, and joins to discuss.

In Mahmoud v. Taylor the Supreme Court affirmed parents rights to remove their children from LGBTQ material used in public schools.

The Court ruled that opt-outs preserve separation of church and state, and protect parental rights.

The Dissent maintains that exposure is not the same thing as indoctrination, and opt-outs are at best going to be an administrative nightmare, at worst a religious veto on acceptable content.

Anastasia Boden of PLF joins to discuss.

In Trump v. Casa the Supreme Court ruled that district judges cannot issue "universal injunctions" against the federal government… Well, what the hell does that mean? The ruling comes in regard to Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship. Is the Trump administration accurately "rediscovering" the true meaning of the Constitution, or just twisting and mangling it to make sure nobody here illegally can confer citizenship on their kids? Tim Sandefur of the Goldwater Institute joins to discuss.

Xi Xinping, the leader of China, has dramatically consolidated power and extended his reign indefinitely. What does he think and what does he want? Steve Tsang is the Director of the SOAS China Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He is the author of "The Political Thought of Xi Xinping," and joins to discuss.

Rudyard William Lynch is the host of WhatifAlHist, a popular history channel on YouTube.

He joins to discuss how the origins and circumstances of America's regions permanently imprinted on its cultures and political outlooks.

Colin Woodard's Map: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-11-nations-of-the-united-states-2015-7

Rudyard's Map: https://preview.redd.it/cultural-map-of-america-done-by-whatifalthist-on-youtube-v0-7clddg9nunpa1.jpg?auto=webp&s=663b38b9434bdf7791fac983f0d5e5beb643b779

Relevant Book: American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, by Colin Woodard

Alain Bertaud is a feted urbanist, who before becoming a professor at NYU, worked in city planning in communist China, as well as on projects in Algeria, Cuba, and his native France. He joins to discuss what work and results look like in top-down command economies.

Alan Bertaud from City Week:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/sim-city-was-79663680?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Is AI biased towards a particular viewpoint, and if so, how does it affect national sentiment and elections? Maxim Lott has built an AI tracking website that charts the political orientation of Large Language Models, and watches their development in real time. He joins to discuss.

Maxim's Website: trackingai.org

Maxim's Substack: https://maximumtruth.substack.com/

Political Compass Quiz: https://www.politicalcompass.org/test

I flew to New Hampshire to check out the primaries, and to visit this historically independent-minded state to see how independents think. In this episode we see a Nikki Haley concert, and get invited to a Libertarian Clubhouse.

TPO: Don't Screw This Up, New Hampshire (Feb, 2020) https://five.libsyn.com/show/episodes/view/13086767

Donald Trump has been removed from the ballot in Colorado and in Maine, on the grounds that he is an insurrectionist ineligible to hold office under the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court will hear an appeal from the Trump campaign in the following weeks.

Anna Gorisch comes to discuss the specifics and impacts of this case, and what will be of issue to the highest court in the land.

Live from Des Moines, Iowa, Heaton transforms into a 'thinky travelogue' guide, unraveling the mysteries of state-by-state primaries, and the often confusing blend of direct democracy and representative democracy that characterizes American politics.

This episode isn't just about the mechanics of the caucus; it's an exploration of the philosophical underpinnings of the American political system, drawing parallels between ancient Greece and Rome, and our modern-day practices.

TPO: Glen Weyl on How Weighted Voting Could Actually Work https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/glen-weyl

Hey gang, I will be joining Jen Briney and Justin Robert Young for a live show of our podcast "We're Not Wrong" at 7:00 PM at the Share Brewing Company in Manchester, NH, this Saturday, January 20th. If you're in the area, this is a great alibi--come on out!

Zach Weinersmith is the author of "A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through?"

He joins to discuss the legal and economic feasibility of building settlements on Mars or the Moon

SUPPORT THE SHOW! www.patreon.com.andrewheaton

Robert Zubrin: Want to Build a Moon Base

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-98-i-want-to-build-a-moon-base-guest-robert-zubrin/id1439837349?i=1000434628317

Robert Zubrin on Mars

https://alienating.libsyn.com/turns-out-were-all-probably-martians

How to Make Money on Mars

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alienating-the-audience/id1488171922?i=1000470956981

Lori Garber: Space Billionaires vs Space Bureucrats

https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/space-bureaucrats-vs-space-billionaires

Greg Lukianoff is the President of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and along with Rikki Schlott, is the author of "The Cancelling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust, Destroys Institutions, and Threatens Us All--But There Is a Solution."

Get the the book: www.mightyheaton.com/featured

TPO: Greg Lukianoff discussing his last book, "The Coddling of the American Mind." https://omny.fm/shows/something-s-off-with-andrew-heaton/ep-19-the-coddling-of-the-american-mind-guest-greg?in_playlist=something-s-off-with-andrew-heaton!podcast

TPO: "The Enemies of How We Know Stuff" with Jonathan Rauch

https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/the-enemies-of-how-we-know-stuff

TPO: "This Comedy Club Owner Un-Canceled Louis C. K."

https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/getting-canceled-diet-death-penalty

TPO: "How to Be A Better Vulcan" (Logical Fallacies)

https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/logical-fallacies-main-feed

New York Times columnist David Brooks believes a basic breakdown in interpersonal skills is the origin of our current political rancor. His new book, "How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply And Being Deeply Seen" aims to fix that. He joins to discuss how to better connect with people, and its implications.

Support the show! www.patreon.com/andrewheaton

Buy the book: www.mightyheaton.com/featured

Highlights from Christmas comedy specials of years gone by. Enjoy!

Deed restrictions allow you to make contractual obligations with other homeowners–often, dead ones. How do deed restrictions and HOA's drive up housing costs and hurt density? How do we allow private contracts to exist without running into the downsides of neighborhood covenants.

Chris Gannon works with the American Institute of Architects on their Housing Committee. He joins to discuss.

Chris Moody and his wife called their telecom provider, to ask that their Internet service be scrapped, and replaced by a landline. They do not have cell reception on the mountain where they live, so eschew wifi and the world wide web in favor of a single hardwired phone inside their home. Chris joins the show to discuss how the change affected his lifestyle and happiness, and offer advice on what others can do.

REFERENCES:

TPO: Would You Shut Down the Internet If You Could?

https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/would-you-shut-down-the-internet-if-you-could

The Atlantic: Life Is Really Better Without the Internet, by Chris Moody

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/home-internet-landline-amazon-smartphone/676070/

Reason: Essentials for Van Life, by Chris Moody

https://reason.com/2023/11/09/17-essentials-for-van-life/

Funny! "When Life was Simple" from Harry & Paul

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqE9TS4jsJM

How to Grayscale Your Phone

https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-enable-grayscale-on-iphone/#:~:text=Setting%20up%20grayscale%20on%20your,Color%20Filters%22%20in%20your%20settings.

Juries have the ability to vote "not guilty" even when it's clear the accused violated established law.

If a jury judges a law as unjust and refuses to convict, is that a needed recourse within our judicial system, or contrary to objective and universal justice?

Attorney Paul Townsend joins to discuss.

How many nuclear bombs do we actually need to sufficiently scare an enemy? How many is too many? If we agree to reduce our stockpiles… how can we trust that the other guy really did? Travis Halleman is an expert on nuclear deterrence, and joins to discuss.

Links:

Who Actually Survives a Nuclear War: https://www.patreon.com/posts/who-actually-war-71978682?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=postshare_creator

Ward Wilson: Everything You Know About Nukes is Wrong

https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/ep-133-everything-you-know-about-nukes-is-wrong-guest/id1439837349?i=1000440171975

Political Orphanage Primer on Foreign Policy: https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/liberals-realists-and-the-real-cause-of-war

Mark Galeotti - https://warontherocks.com/author/mark-galeotti/

Cenk Uygur is a flame-throwing progressive pundit, host of The Young Turks, co-founder of Justice Democrats, and author of "Justice is Coming: How Progressives Are Going to Take Over The Country And America Is Going to Love It." He joins to discuss his book, polemics, and his possible presidential run.

"Was Abraham Lincoln Leftwing or Rightwing?" https://podcasts.apple.com/gr/podcast/was-abraham-lincoln-leftwing-or-rightwing/id1439837349?i=1000613342722

Cenk's book at: www.mightyheaton.com/featured

Gene Epstein is the founder and moderator of the Soho Forum, a debate society, and is the former Economics editor at Barron's.

He joins to discuss the nature of trickle down economics, its proponents and detractors, and the biggest factors in political economy which lead to inequality.

LINKS :

Soho Forum https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-soho-forum-debates/id1485021246

What happens when your religious, ethnic, and political identities converge into a mega identity? Dannagal Goldthwaite Young is the author of "Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive our Appetite for Misinformation." She joins to discuss identity, and how it leads to misinformation.

Her book at: www.mightyheaton.com/featured

Previous appearance: "Late Night Comedy vs. The Outrage Industry" https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/late-night-comedy-vs-the-outrage-industry

Robert Sapolsky is a professor of biology and neurobiology at at Stanford University, and the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant. He is the author of "Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will." He joins to discuss the case against free will, and its societal implications.

Robert's Book at www.mightyheaton.com/featured

Socrates Sketch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2QrrYug_VQ&t=35s

The Emperor Claudius

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/emperor-claudius-killed-a-whale/id1596616667?i=1000546859060&l=ru

Michael Glennon is the author of "National Security and Double Government." He joins to discuss the growth of America's national security apparatus, and how it functionally upends Madisonian democracy while leaving constitutional rhetoric in tact.

Support the Show! Patreon.com/andrewheaton

Glennon's book at: www.mightyheaton.com/featured

LINKS:

Charles Cooke on Abolishing the FBI https://www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-charles-to-75324382?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Ron Paul on Foreign Policy and the Deep State https://www.patreon.com/posts/40187874/

Randy Barnett is one of America's foremost jurists, and a professor at Georgetown Law. He joins to discussed unenumerated rights, in the context of the 9th and 10th amendments.

SUPPORT THE SHOW! www.patreon.com/andrewheaton

Randy Barnett's books at: www.mightyheaton.com/featured

Law Episodes Collection: https://www.patreon.com/collection/140707

Depending on whether society treats people primarily as individuals or as identity groups has deep ramifications for worldviews, government policy, and the long-term health of society. Yascha Mounk is the author of "The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in our Time." He joins to discuss.

Book at: www.mightyheaton.com/featured

"When Wokes and Racists Actually Agree on Everything" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg

Antipathy towards communism tends to come from its consequences–liberal democracy and markets have yielded greater prosperity, so we should embrace them over socialism. Michael Malice posits a different argument–that regardless of consequence, the Soviet Union and allied communists were evil from the get go, and should be remembered and condemned for it. He is the author of "The White Pill: A Tale of Good and Evil." He joins to discuss.

Michael's book at: www.mightyheaton.com/featured

"Adults Are Talking with Andrew Heaton" on YouTube Adults Are Talking with Andrew Heaton | Ep 1 "Adults Are Talking with Andrew Heaton" on Twitter: https://twitter.com/i/status/1704993914900406574

REFERENCED EPISODES: "Who Actually Survives a Nuclear War?" https://www.patreon.com/posts/who-actually-war-71978682?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=postshare_creator

"How to Destroy a Country in Four Years: Cambodia" https://www.patreon.com/posts/how-to-destroy-55904459

Emmy-award winning journalist John Stossel joins the Political Orphanage to talk about journalism and politics. Stossel's career spans work on ABC News, Fox Business, and Reason TV. He's the winner of five national press award and 19 Emmies. His YouTube show, Stossel TV, appears every Tuesday.

Buck Shwartzmore for 7th Floor Fire Marshall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdcRCj9QBtg&t=1s

Guy Standing stipulates that we should not think of property as either being private or state controlled, but ought to think of a third category: the commons. The commons is something wholly distinctive from either, and ought to be preserved. He joins to discuss this concept, outlined in his book, "Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto For Sharing Public Weath."

Support the show! www.patreon.com/andrewheaton

Book at: www.mightyheaton.com/featured

What's life like for a high schooler who's home town gets invaded by a foreign army? Ali Ali was living in historic Babylon, in Iraq, during the War on Terror. He joins to discuss what an invasion is like, what life is like in a lawless state, and his interpretations of the United States as an immigrant to it.

https://abzu.blog/

How do energy experts approach energy? Are there good sources and bad sources? What should we try to abolish and what should we lob subsidies at?

Dr. Michael Webber is a professor of Energy Resources and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of more than 500 scientific articles, columns, and books, including op-eds for the New York Times and Scientific American.