UChannel Podcast

I have been listening to the UChannel Podcast for a while now and I have really come to think that it is the most interesting thing that you can have on your music player: There may be better resources available for any given one of the topics it touches upon, but I do not think there is any one resource that gives as good an overview of the thought of the most influential thinkers in a great variety of fields.

The podcast is simply a collection of talks, debates and speeches at some of the world's top universities, and I have to say that I delete most of the episodes as they come in. A daily 1-2 hour intense talk or debate in a field that is foreign to me is just more than I can handle, so I just listen to the ones that piqued my interest by their title and/or description.

I cannot say that I agree with the speakers very often, but nearly all of them are obviously extremely smart people who have thought very hard about the problems that confront them, and where I disagree it is almost always because I think that their axioms are wrong factually or morally. Those talks actually tend to be the most interesting to listen to because they challenge my thinking and at the very least serve as a warning about dangerous ideas in the leaders of the mainstream of certain fields.

I recommend you subscribe and form your own opinion, but let me offer a sentence or two about a few of the episodes that I digested and that especially impressed me in one way or the other:

• "Commodity Prices, Capital Flows and the Financing of Investment" — it is instructive how completely self-absorbed the metadiscussion of the supernational bureaucratic elites is. Self-absorbed and mind-blowingly wonky. And utterly convinced in their own omnipotence to fix the problems and guide the little, brittle brains of the commoners. This leads me to...
• "The UN and American Interests" — I do not think that John Bolton is a particularly nice person, but he certainly is not the primitive, divisive cowboy that the European press made him out to be just because he is critical (or really, rather inimical) to the UN. Of course, the debate about him had to be made about character [assassination] because arguing for the UN on merit is obviously an unenviable position. In this fascinating talk he lays out the reasons for his disillusionment with the UN. His case against that organization seems rather compelling to me, which certainly has nothing to do with confirmation bias.
  
• "The Danger of Weaponizing Outer Space" — one of the most interesting talks I ever heard and one that I cannot do justice in a few sentences. The takeaway is that the danger is not 'space weapons' but 'space-related weapons', weapons that take down satellites or create spatial denial by scattering NEO with debris.
• "The Secret War With Iran" — an Israeli journalist speaks about the ongoing struggle of the west to maintain the containment of the Persian theocracy. Very open about disclosure of his sympathies, he is still strikingly even-handed. Highly recommended.
• "The War for Wealth" — you can get the German out of Prussia, but you can't get Prussia out of the German. I still think that this kind of thinking is rather indicative of the European leaderships' mode of thought, so weep for our future. A scary must-listen.
• "Why spy?" — a proud stalwart of the CIA speaks on espionage. Highly interesting and obviously rather well-informed. I think he is well inside the bi-partisan mainstream of American wonks when he lionizes, among other things, a two-year mandatory national service, strong cooperation between foreign and domestic intelligence services and having the CIA independently conducting quasi-military, violent operations in foreign countries. Oh boy.
• "A Conversation with Alvaro Uribe Velez" — Velez seems honestly invested in the long-term good of his country, but he also seems strongly invested in having that prosperous Columbia governed by himself and people in his trust.
• "American Foreign Policy after the Bush Administration" — Francis Fukuyama is a very intelligent, educated, affable, eloquent and soft-spoken man, but he is also a man who is maneuvering deftly into a spot where he may be of interest to the leaders of the upcoming Democratic period. I guess the contrition that would fit the realized consequences of his ideas so far would be all too bad for business for a public intellectual.
• "Homeland Security: A Military or Civilian Responsibility?" — a DoD man speaks on 'homeland security'. The speaker sells himself very well and gives a fascinating window into the mind of an (seemingly sincere and well-meaning) bureaucrat in the military-security-industrial complex.
• "Do schoolchildren and students know how to research?" — 'Those who can't, teach.'