The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

Today's guest is Stimson Center Senior Fellow Emma Ashford, a foreign policy analyst who has written widely on post–Cold War strategy, the Middle East, and the limits of American power. An adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Security Studies Program, a columnist at Foreign Policy, and a former Cato Institute staffer, Ashford is the author of First Among Equals: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World. She talks with Nick Gillespie about the incoherence of President Donald Trump's Iran strategy and the surprising and disturbingly ineffective continuity of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.   Previous appearance: "Did Bombing Iran Make America Safer?" June 24, 2025   0:00—What is the U.S. objective for war in Iran? 5:32—Is Vice President J.D. Vance an anti-interventionist? 7:21—Trump's foreign policy rhetoric and history 13:26—Is there a continuity in post–Cold War foreign policy? 19:56—Was President Joe Biden an outlier on foreign policy? 22:16—U.S. involvement in Ukraine 24:13—Are we sending messages to China and Russia through Iran? 30:05—Does Trump have a de-escalation strategy in Iran? Producer: Paul AlexanderAudio Mixer: Ian KeyserThe post How the Iran War Could Backfire appeared first on Reason.com.

This week, guest host Zach Weissmueller is joined by Jacob Siegel, a journalist and author of The Information State, a sweeping examination of how power has shifted in the digital age from traditional democratic institutions into a new system of governance shaped by technology, media, and elite coordination. Siegel traces the emergence of what he calls the "information state," where control is exercised not primarily through laws or elected bodies but through digital infrastructure, platform moderation, and public-private partnerships between government agencies and tech companies. He argues that this system took shape in the aftermath of the war on terror, accelerated during the Obama era through the alignment of Silicon Valley and the political class, and expanded in response to populist movements under the banner of combating disinformation. Along the way, Siegel connects concepts like hybrid warfare, mass surveillance, and the "whole-of-society" approach to the way information is now managed domestically. Weissmueller and Siegel discuss how these dynamics played out during Russiagate and the COVID-19 pandemic, why attempts at information control often backfire, and how the collapse of traditional media has given rise to a chaotic new information ecosystem. They also explore the limits of technocratic governance, the role of platforms like X in disrupting centralized control, and what the next phase of the information age might mean for democracy, expertise, and individual autonomy.   0:00—What is the information state? 10:11—Technocracy and the Obama administration 21:07—The "whole-of-society" approach 27:26—War and technocracies 37:32—Limitations of information control 50:41—Russiagate 1:02:39—Alternative media 1:12:18—Mitigating the effects of information state   Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:https://reason.org/jobs/associate-producer/https://reason.org/jobs/producer/ Producer: Paul AlexanderAudio Mixer: Ian KeyserThe post The Rise of the Information State appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is the Niskanen Center's Brink Lindsey, whose connection to Reason magazine goes back decades and who for years worked at the Cato Institute. His new book is called The Permanent Problem: The Uncertain Transition from Mass Plenty to Mass Flourishing, and it raises important questions about life in the 21st century. Thanks to capitalism, he argues, we've essentially conquered poverty, but are progress and growth slowing down? People in advanced economies are increasingly pessimistic about the future, populism is on the rise, and many social indicators are trending in a negative direction. Nick Gillespie talks with him about how to restore economic and cultural dynamism, his intellectual journey, and what a brighter future might look like.   0:00—Introduction 0:56—Mass abundance and prosperity 6:20—The effects of globalization 12:05—Mass affluence and pessimism 15:01—Slowing rates of innovation 24:10—Capitalism and its cultural contradictions 31:06—Fears of conformism and elites 39:42—Declining fertility rates 48:52—Religion and community 59:08—Does Lindsey consider himself a libertarian?   Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:https://reason.org/jobs/associate-producer/https://reason.org/jobs/producer/ The post How Capitalism Lost the Working Class appeared first on Reason.com.

In a precedent-setting verdict this week, a Los Angeles jury held Meta and YouTube responsible for addicting a young woman to their services and exacerbating her mental health struggles. The jury recommended the two companies pay $6 million to the plaintiff, now 20, identified in court documents as Kaley or KMG. The verdict came a day after a New Mexico jury found that Meta harmed the mental health of children, failed to protect them from sexual predators, and violated state law. In this special bonus episode of The Reason Interview, Nick Gillespie talks with tech journalist Taylor Lorenz, founder of User Mag, who covered the Los Angeles trial. She recounts testimony from Kaley's deposition describing physical and psychological abuse from her parents. Lorenz argues that Kaley's unstable home life was a more significant factor in her mental health issues than social media use. Kaley even used Instagram to complain about her mother, who at one point would communicate with her daughter only through the app. Lorenz and Gillespie discuss rising cultural and political calls for regulation of social media, pending legislation such as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), and how Meta and other major players are simultaneously defending themselves in court while pursuing regulation that may benefit them at the expense of free speech. Previous appearance:"Taylor Lorenz Makes Sense of Online Culture for the Rest of Us," February 26, 2020   0:00—Observations from the trial 1:56—The plaintiff's mental health and history of abuse 6:34—Mark Zuckerberg's testimony 7:04—Is social media becoming the cultural scapegoat? 10:19—The impact of this verdict on setting legal precedents 13:15—KOSA 14:47—How sexual content drives regulation efforts 16:33—Are companies liable for not enforcing age verification? 17:56—What are the privacy threats with age verification? 19:05—Why more regulation stifles competition 21:48—Do younger generations value free speech?   Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:https://reason.org/jobs/associate-producer/https://reason.org/jobs/producer/ Producer: Paul AlexanderAudio Mixer: Ian KeyserThe post Taylor Lorenz: Is Social Media Responsible for Bad Parenting? appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is the legendary Stewart Brand, who has spent decades shaping how we think about technology, the environment, and the future. He first came to prominence in the 1960s as a Merry Prankster and the co-creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, the counterculture bible that helped inspire personal computing, the hacker ethic, and the modern environmentalist movement. Since then he's launched the Long Now Foundation, championed nuclear power and deextinction, and pushed us to think in 10,000-year time horizons. He's also been the subject of two biographies (From Counterculture to Cyberculture and Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand) and an excellent documentary called We Are As Gods. In his new book Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One, the 87-year-old Brand argues that the real work of civilization isn't flashy invention but the long, patient care of complex systems. He talks with Nick Gillespie about what that means and whether his vision of planetary stewardship conflicts with libertarian values of individualism, creative destruction, and decentralized power. Previous appearance: "We Are As Gods: Stewart Brand & The Fight to Bring Back Woolly Mammoths," March 31, 2021   0:00—Introduction 1:19—Maintenance as the hidden foundation 7:09—Mastery of tools and understanding systems 12:00—Interchangeable parts and individualism 20:54—The importance of manuals 27:04—Environmentalism and techno-pessimism 32:45—Government efficiency and the political system 42:54—How Brand is maintaining his legacy   Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:https://reason.org/jobs/associate-producer/https://reason.org/jobs/producer/ Producer: Paul AlexanderAudio Mixer: Ian KeyserThe post Why Civilization Needs Better Manuals appeared first on Reason.com.