Videos

Controversial things are happening on the campus of the University of Austin (https://www.uaustin.org/) (UATX), the brand new anti-woke university designed to “dare” its students to “think”. Last week, we interviewed UATX’s founding president, Pano Kanelos, (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-pano-kanelos-on-how-to-build) who explained how he was trying to build what he called a 21st century…

Bryan VanDyke’s (https://www.amazon.com/Our-Likeness-Novel-Bryan-VanDyke-ebook/dp/B0CT4GCSKX) new dystopian AI novel, In Our Likeness (https://www.amazon.com/Our-Likeness-Novel-Bryan-VanDyke-ebook/dp/B0CT4GCSKX) , only came out today, but it has already over 1,400 reviews on Amazon and is currently their bestselling science fiction book. So what does our seemingly infinite appetite for dystopian AI literature tell us about ourself, I asked…

There’s a big fight, perhaps even a war, about to break out between Big Tech and governments around the world. It’s been brewing for several years now, but the news this week from France and Brazil suggests that conventional nation-states are increasingly confident of shutting down popular social networks and…

According to the Californian political sociologist Peter Phillips (https://www.sevenstories.com/authors/309-peter-phillips?srsltid=AfmBOopPfhjQegc1Bxz1MR3_XZrr79SnadUmNxz4yaJGAa--fFVSFe--) , American capitalism is facing an existential crisis. In his new book, Titans of Capital (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/760690/titans-of-capital-by-peter-phillips/) , he argues that the concentrated wealth of investment companies like BlackRock and Fidelity not only threatens human rights and democracy, but also the future…

The Anglo-Jewish writer Tanya Gold (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanya_Gold) went on holiday to Auschwitz and didn’t much like what she saw. She writes about the experience in “My Auschwitz Vacation: On Holocaust tourism” (https://harpers.org/archive/2024/09/my-auschwitz-vacation-tanya-gold-tourism/) which ran in this month’s Harper’s. But, as she told me, she would have preferred the piece to have…

Last year, we had a great conversation (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dismal-science-investigates-that-most-dismal/id1448694012?i=1000632752932) with Branko Milanovic, author of Visions of Inequalit (https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674264144) y, about how classical economists like Smith, Riccardo, Marx and Pareto analyze inequality. Our guest today, David Lay Williams (https://twitter.com/LayWilliams?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) , asks the same question - but from the perspective of political philosophers…

Something interesting is happening in downtown Austin. Next month, The University of Austin (https://www.uaustin.org/) (UATX), a new undergraduate college claiming to “be dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth”, opens its well financed doors. Launched as a supposedly “anti-woke” university, UATX has some heavy hitting advisors including Richard Dawkins, Niall…

As the author of the bestselling Master Algorithm (https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/pedro-domingos/the-master-algorithm/9780465061921/?lens=basic-books) , University of Washington professor Pedro Domingos (https://twitter.com/pmddomingos) is one of the world’s most respected (https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~pedrod/) AI experts. So I was a little surprised that his new book, 2040 (https://www.amazon.com/2040-Silicon-Valley-Pedro-Domingos-ebook/dp/B0D81FJBTR) , is a science-fictional satire of American politics & Silicon Valley.…

At the DNC last week, the Warriors coach and former Bulls star Steve Kerr spoke of his excitement at his return to Chicago’s United Center, the home of some his greatest basketball triumphs. According to the Columbia University historian Frank Andre Guridy, (https://x.com/fguridy?lang=en) there’s nothing coincidental about this convergence of…

As one of the victims of Donald Trump’s notorious (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_dismissal_of_inspectors_general) 2020 dismissal of Inspector Generals, Glenn A. Fine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Fine) — a longtime Inspector General of both the departments of Justice & Defense - knows a thing or two about both honest government. In his new book, Watchdogs, (https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/10047/) Fine presents…

“We don’t need no education”, Pink Floyd announced (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_Brick_in_the_Wall) in 1979. “Teachers leave those kids alone”: We don't need no educationWe don’t need no thought controlNo dark sarcasm in the classroomTeachers leave them kids aloneHey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone! But today, almost half a century later, That Was The…

William Deresiewicz is a leading American writer best known as the author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (https://billderesiewicz.com/books/excellent-sheep/) . And so, when Bill and I sat down in Portland for a KEEN ON America conversation, we discussed the crisis…

I have to admit that I’m always a little uncomfortable with non-Jews fetishizing the supposedly unique gifts & accomplishments of the Jewish people. A century ago, Winston Churchill did it. And now George Gilder (https://www.encounterbooks.com/authors/george-gilder/) , the influential tech futurist, picks up that Churchillian mantle in a new edition of…

How to fix American democracy? It’s a question that, over the last couple of years, we’ve been addressing in my Bertelsmann Foundation supported How To Fix Democracy (https://www.howtofixdemocracy.org/) show, now its fifth year. And it is, of course, also a subject much addressed over the years on KEEN ON. My…

Andrew C.M. Cooper (https://www.linkedin.com/in/accooper/) is the author of the new book, The Ethical Imperative: Leading with Conscience to Shape the Future of Business (https://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Imperative-Leading-Conscience-Business/dp/1394274831) . He is also an Associate General Counsel and Head of Patent Acquisitions at Meta. While he didn’t write The Ethical Imperative as a Meta person,…