EconTalk
Russ Roberts in long talks with scholars, mechanisms and judgments traceable to papers
1:22:48Most of Gaza Has Already Abandoned Hamas, and the Disarmament Window Is Opening
Alkhatib, a Gaza-born policy scholar, uses four layers of opposition, two polls and demographic data to argue that most Gazans turned against Hamas long ago and that Hamas may be forced into a phased disarmament; host Russ counters with a pessimist's reminder that disarming is political suicide for Hamas.
1:11:50The UFO boom is not an astronomy question, it is a question of belief
When the evidence stops at testimony, whether the universe is crowded becomes a matter of faith. The further science advances, the rarer extraterrestrial life looks in the observations; when we talk about UFOs, what we are really talking about is ourselves.
1:13:36The Industrial Revolution's Hidden Driver: Parliament Untangled Property Rights, Not Technology
The hidden cause of the Industrial Revolution was the Glorious Revolution of the century before: Parliament used legislation to untangle overly complicated property rights, which let investment in agriculture and infrastructure happen at all, and which created the precondition for a return on technical innovations like the steam engine.
1:21:11Death Is the Last Enemy, Not the Final Word: A Former Senator on Borrowed Time
Ben Sasse, a former senator with late-stage pancreatic cancer, gives this interview on borrowed time: his tumor has shrunk by more than 80%, but the disease may not be curable. He calls death ‘the last enemy, but not the final word’, and traces executive overreach back to legislative retreat.
1:27:41Palestine Is Not a National Cause but a Self-Reproducing Symbol-Extraction Machine
Stop treating Palestine as a single national cause — inside the Middle East's power structure it is a machine that converts suffering into an asset for every party involved: no centre, no king that could be killed, and no way out except clarity at the personal level.