The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk and Dan Williams discuss the impact of AI on society, education, and politics.

Dan Williams is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sussex. He writes the Conspicuous Cognition newsletter, which brings together philosophical insights and scientific research to examine the forces shaping contemporary society and politics.

In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Dan Williams discuss whether AI is a genuinely transformative technology or just another tool, how the temptation to outsource thinking to AI may be eroding the cognitive skills of young people, and why the political battles we are actually having about artificial intelligence are not the important ones.

This podcast was recorded at a live event in partnership with Halcyon International School.

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Podcast production by Jack Shields and Leonora Barclay.

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Yascha Mounk and Malcolm Gaskill debate what the Enlightenment got wrong about the so-called age of credulity.

Malcolm Gaskill, Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia, is the author of seven books, including Witchfinders, Between Two Worlds, and The Ruin of All Witches.

In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Malcolm Gaskell discuss how premodern people understood the boundary between the natural and supernatural worlds, why historians are right—and wrong—to complicate the Enlightenment's story of progress, and what the persistence of superstition tells us about human nature.

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Podcast production by Jack Shields and Leonora Barclay.

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Yascha Mounk and James Marriott explore what happens when a civilization turns its back on books.

James Marriott is a London Times columnist and the author of the Substack Cultural Capital, covering society, ideas, and culture. He is the author of The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate Society.

In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and James Marriott discuss whether the decline of reading is as severe as the data suggests, whether television or social media is more to blame, and why this is bad news for democracy.

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Podcast production by Mickey Freeland and Leonora Barclay.

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Yascha Mounk and Eliot Cohen delve into the lost meaning of “strategy” and why Trump's Iran gambit went off the rails.

Eliot A. Cohen is the Arleigh Burke chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His latest book is The Strategist: How to Think About War and Politics.

In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Eliot Cohen discuss what genuine strategic thinking requires, why America's war with Iran represents a failure of strategy rather than of military capability, and what Winston Churchill's wartime memoranda reveal about what good strategy actually looks like.

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Email: leonora.barclay@persuasion.community

Podcast production by Jack Shields and Leonora Barclay.

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Yascha Mounk and David Deming discuss how artificial intelligence will transform research, teaching, and the economic foundations of higher education.

David Deming is the Danoff Dean of Harvard College and an economist. He writes a Substack called Forked Lightning and hosts a podcast called The Context Window.

In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and David Deming discuss why AI may force universities into a new era focused on community and virtue rather than knowledge or expertise, whether the business model of American higher education is facing existential or merely serious pressure, and how professors and students should rethink learning and assignments in an age when AI can do much of the traditional academic work.

If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following ⁠⁠this link on your phone⁠⁠.

Email: leonora.barclay@persuasion.community

Podcast production by Jack Shields and Leonora Barclay.

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X: ⁠⁠@Yascha_Mounk⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠@JoinPersuasion⁠⁠

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