Show #479 – November 23, 2019

Guests: Chuck Marohn; Bret Weinstein

 

Chuck Marohn, Mr. Strong Towns, is with me once again to talk about his newest book, A Bottom Up Revolution To Rebuild American Prosperity.

In the past, Chuck and I have discussed some of the projects in which he has been involved to help cities change the way they think about planning with an eye toward sustainability, fiscal prudence, and a way to make our lives more enjoyable.

Now, Chuck looks at complexity and adaptive systems with an eye towards incremental improvements that begin to expand organically instead of big bold plans that lead to a sprawling infrastructure that discourages small business and bankrupts our cities.

We’re at a point in our history where we need to hear the truth and take action.

My second guest is someone I learned about in a podcast about two years ago in a dazzling conversation with Sam Harris.

At the time, Bret Weinstein had been “ousted” as a valued and popular professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington for his objection to a change the college made in their decades old tradition of a “Day of Absence”. What ensued from a letter he wrote turned into chaos.

If you hadn’t heard or read about it, you can find out about what happened on line; but, I reached out to Bret because I had a philosophical issue on which I had been pondering since April when I last had Inga Thompson on the show; and, I believed Bret would have a well reasoned and deep understanding of the issue.

Fraught with deep visceral and often beyond contentious upset – the question is whether transgender athletes should compete with cisgender athletes – especially at the elite level.

It all came to a head for me when Rachael McKinnon crushed the field at the UCI World Track Championships and subsequently tried to also crush any dissent that she should be treated the same way in sport as she is in life.

But, the nagging question that I couldn’t shake was, is it fair?