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The Good Fight

Can We Build a More Rational World?

The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk

News

4.7 • 963 Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2021

⏱️ 71 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Steven Pinker dares to believe that human beings are better off than ever before in human history. A world-renowned linguist, Pinker has dedicated his career to unveiling the ways by which we express our human nature through our language, behaviors, and beliefs. In an era often plagued by fatalism, Pinker maintains a radical and unwavering dedication to his belief in humanity's steady improvement.   In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Steven Pinker sit down to discuss why we need to look to "nature" as well as "nurture" to understand the human condition, how to build institutions untainted by human biases, and whether human beings are inherently irrational.  Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight. If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone. Email: goodfightpod@gmail.com Twitter: @Yascha_Mounk Website: http://www.persuasion.community Podcast production by John T. Williams and Rebecca Rashid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Sign up to the economist for in-depth curated expert analysis of world events and topics

0:06.2

ranging from business and culture to science and technology.

0:10.1

You'll get the weekly digital edition, online only articles,

0:13.6

curated newsletters on politics, the markets, science, culture and China.

0:18.3

And full access to The Economist Podcast Plus.

0:21.6

The Economist is independent journalism for independent thinking.

0:25.6

Go to Economist.com and get your first month free. Ronald Reagan famously said some years ago we declared war on poverty and poverty one.

0:39.0

That's actually not even true within the United States that rates of poverty among elderly people have plummeted.

0:45.7

The poverty rate among African Americans has gone down.

0:49.0

And it's thanks to measures like Social Security and Medicare and the earned income tax credits.

0:55.0

And now the good fight with Yasha Monk.

0:59.0

I have to say that watching Donald Trump leave the White House a few days ago was one of my great pleasures so far in 2021. It's important for us to remember how meaningful a moment that was.

1:17.0

Many liberal democracies around the world do not manage to see of authoritarian populists once they win office.

1:25.0

It is rare for them to lose an election through free and fair votes.

1:30.0

It is rare for them to exceed to that vote as Trump had to, not exactly willingly, but was forced to hear.

1:39.0

And so we should not understate that achievement.

1:42.0

Now, of course, there's a lack of state that which is to say that people who care about the rules and norms of liberal democracy

1:55.0

have to win most elections, so ideally every election, against illiberal authoritarian challenges.

2:02.0

Those who want to take over the system

2:04.3

only have to win a couple of times

2:06.2

and concentrate power in their own hands

2:08.7

to have a tremendous influence

...

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