The Emergent Order Podcast

The Emergent Order Podcast

On this episode of the podcast, John Papola has a conversation with his friend Congressman Justin Amash. Justin is a lawyer and politician who has served as a U.S. Representative of Michigan.

Papola and Amash dive into the inner workings of Congress, through the lens of Amash’s experience from the inside. They talk about partisanship, process, and what the future of American politics looks like.

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On this episode of The Emergent Order Podcast, John Papola has a conversation with Dr. David Thomas. David is an economist and professor with the research area of public health economics and business cycles. He is also a serial entrepreneur.

John and David talk about a wide variety of topics as they dive into Thomas’ long and winding career through silicon valley, and into economics academia.

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The Emergent Order Podcast

On this episode of The Emergent Order Podcast, John Papola chats with Johan Norberg. Johan is an author and lecturer with expertise in entrepreneurship, global trends, and globalization around the world.

Papola and Norberg examine a common question asked in America: Should the United States be more like Sweden? They also discuss Sweden’s response to COVID-19.

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Macroeconomics Roundtable, with George Selgin, James McClure, Steve Horwitz, Lars Christensen, and Scott Sumner

On today’s episode of the podcast, John Papola welcomes George Selgin, James McClure, Steve Horwitz, Lars Christensen, and Scott Sumner for a long and winding macroeconomics roundtable discussion.

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George Selgin

On today’s episode of the Emergent Order Podcast, John Papola has a conversation with Lou Perez. Lou is the hilarious Head Writer and Producer of We The Internet TV, a stand up comedian, and part of the comedy duo Greg and Lou.

Papola and Perez talk about the craft of being funny, with a particular focus on dealing with controversial ideas and polarizing topics.

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On this episode of the podcast John Papola speaks with the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Good Food Institute, Bruce Friedrich. Bruce is also a TED Fellow whose TED 2019 Talk has been viewed millions of times.

The two discuss Friedrich’s journey to founding the Good Food Institute, and how he uses innovation and market forces to make food practices better for consumers.

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The Emergent Order Podcast

Communicating Big Ideas Through Comedy with Andrew Heaton

On this episode of the podcast, Papola has a conversation with Andrew Heaton. Andrew is a comedian, author, and political satirist. He hosts his own podcast called The Political Orphanage which is about comedy and news, as well as a science fiction podcast titled Alienating the Audience.

In this long and winding conversation, they discuss everything from big ideas in comedy, to their time working together on EconPop, to their favorite Star Trek episodes.

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Inside The Utopia Experiment With Dylan Evans

On today’s episode of the podcast, John has a conversation with Dylan Evans. Dylan is a technologist, futurist, AI expert, and the author of The Utopia Experiment. His book chronicles the true story of Dylan conducting an experiment of the same name in an attempt to simulate a post-apocalyptic society.

John and Dylan discuss the experience, stopping to take many interesting tangents along the way including religion, AI, and free will.

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The Emergent Order Podcast

On this episode host John Papola has a long and winding conversation with Steven Horwitz. Steven is an author and economics professor at Ball State University. He has written extensively on Hayek and Austrian economics, monetary theory and history, and American economic history.

The two discuss Steve’s career, including his most recent article Libertarians Who Dismiss Social Justice are Mistaken, and the concept of “Bleeding Heart Libertarians”. They also dive into where Classical Liberalism fits in the left/right political spectrum.

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On today’s episode of the podcast, John Papola interviews Professor of Economics at George Mason University and New York Times Bestselling author, Bryan Caplan. Caplan’s bestseller is a graphic novel called Open Borders, which Papola is currently in the process of adapting into a film.

The two discuss the creation of Open Borders as well as go over some of the contents of the book including the history, economics, and philosophy of immigration. They also discuss how to convey big ideas, especially to people with dissenting opinions.

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On this episode of the podcast, host John Papola goes solo for his first ever YouTube livestream to have a conversation with his viewers. He spans many topics including the origins of Emergent Order, his time at Spike TV, storytelling, and why he’s obsessed with all things Apple.

On this episode of the podcast John Papola speaks with Greg Lukianoff. Greg is the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE. He is also an author, and co-authored the book The Coddling of the American Mind (based on the article of the same name).

Papola and Lukianoff discuss the free speech crisis on college campuses, and the cultural practices that led us to this issue. The two cite many great books on the topic along the way, and talk about how Greg’s most recent book came to be.

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On this episode of the podcast John Papola has a conversation with Lord Matt Ridley. Matt is an author of books, columns, reviews, articles, and blogs. His book The Rational Optimist was particularly influential on Papola’s worldview.

The two talk about the perspective of the rational optimist through the  lens of today’s pandemic-stricken world. Matt is an Honorary Life President of the International Centre for Life and a Member & Lord Temporal of the House of Lords.

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This podcast episode features a long and winding conversation between John Papola and Scott Sumner. Scott is an economist, the Director of the Program on Monetary Policy at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and the author of popular economics blog The Money Illusion.

The two take a deep dive into monetary policy and macroeconomics, framing the conversation with the current state of the COVID-19 outbreak, and the economic aftermath. They begin with the simple question of what money really is, and then take a fascinating path to more complex subjects such as interest rates, inflation, and quantitative easing.

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Today’s episode of the podcast features a conversation between John Papola and his good friend Arthur Brooks. Arthur, an author and social scientist, was formerly the president of the American Enterprise Institute. He is now a professor at Harvard. Arthur Brooks was also the subject and star of Papola’s feature documentary, The Pursuit.

John and Arthur discuss Brooks’ research on happiness, with a specific focus on how to be happy later in your life. They also talk about other expertise of Arthur’s, such as how to avoid a culture of contempt and how your intelligence changes as you age.

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On today’s episode of the podcast, John has a conversation with a serial entrepreneur VC named Sean Sheppard, who is currently the Co-founder of GrowthX and GrowthX Academy. He is also the lead instructor at the latter.

Sean’s storied career in tech makes for an insightful conversation with Papola, in which they discuss everything from Sean’s time spent as a “teenage arms dealer”, to his current role training future tech workers. They even touch on Sean’s stint as a professional golf player.

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This episode features a conversation between John Papola and Peter Gray, who is an evolutionary psychologist and research professor of psychology at Boston College. Gray is well-known for his book Free to Learn in which he argues that we must trust children to guide their own learning and development in order for them to thrive.

Peter and John discuss the worlds of developmental and evolutionary psychology, the way that the education system has changed, the origins of school, and much more. The conversation surrounds Peter’s personal experience with the education through his son, which is what led him to studying development and education.

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On today’s episode John Papola has a long, philosophical conversation with Tara Smith, PhD. Professor Smith is a moral philosopher and philosophy professor at the University of Texas. She also holds the BB&T Chair for the Study of Objectivism.

John and Tara dig into Objectivist philosophy, the belief system created by author and philosopher Ayn Rand. They discuss some of the pillars of the philosophy, human nature, and the complicated relationship between objectivism and religion.

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This episode features a conversation between John Papola and Michael Kollo. Michael is a thinker, writer, and podcaster in the Artificial Intelligence space, hosting a show called “The Curious Quant”.

The two discuss everything from economics to the morality of artificial intelligence. Kollo’s thoughts on the topics are colored not only by his podcast, but also by his career in factor pricing, portfolio construction, and risk management.

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On this episode John Papola has a conversation with former President and CEO of both BB&T and the CATO institute, John Allison. Allison’s time at the helm of BB&T included the 2008 financial crisis, in which the bank never saw a quarterly loss.

The two discuss John Allison’s career in banking, and his experiences in growing BB&T from a small regional bank into one of the largest in the country. He and Papola also discuss the values and philosophy that have guided his career. This philosophy is broken down into 10 values: reality, reason, independent thinking, productivity, honesty, integrity, justice, pride, self-esteem, and teamwork.

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This episode is a conversation between John Papola and John Kiehl. Kiehl is a musician, arranger, and the co-founder of Soundtrack New York. Soundtrack is a legendary recording studio that has worked with esteemed directors such as Ron Howard and Martin Scorcece.

The two discuss John Kiehl’s long career in the music industry and the lessons that he’s learned along the way. They talk about the challenges of balancing the left and the right brain as an artist, how to be successful in the industry, and the importance of utilizing people with industry experience.

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On today’s episode John Papola talks to author, economist, and New School professor Anwar Shaikh. Anwar is a political economist whose work offers a synthesis of the economic analysis in Smith, Ricardo, Marx, and Keynes. He is also a well-known critic of neoclassical economics, particularly of the Theory of Perfect Competition.

John and Anwar delve into many topics, such as the Theory of Perfect Competition, Say's Law of Markets, and the morality of advertising. The two agree on some things and deeply (but respectfully) disagree on others, making for a very entertaining and informative conversation.

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On this episode, John Papola chats with Founder/President/CEO of the Independent Institute, David Theroux. David also founded the C.S. Lewis Society of California. The two collaborated on both seasons one and two of the web series “Love Gov”.

John and David take a deep dive into the history and ideas of natural law, the pre-modern/postmodern debate, and the idea of emergent order. This episode is accompanied by a hefty reading list, as Theroux talks about the many books that have shaped his worldview.

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Today’s episode is a conversation between John Papola and Lynn Harsh, the Vice President of Strategy at the State Policy Network. Lynn is also a member of SPN’s Leadership and Development Initiative Team as well as the Creative and Strategic lead for the SPN Annual Meeting. She co-founded and was previously CEO of Washington State’s Freedom Foundation where she was a frequent public speaker and wrote over 200 op-eds, articles, and research projects.

The two talk through Lynn’s career from educator to policy wonk. Her passion for policy brings up topics such as prohibitionism, educational bureaucracy, free range parenting, and much more.

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On today’s show John has a conversation with George Mason University Professor of Economics and Philosophy Peter J. Boettke. In George Mason’s Mercatus Center,  Boettke holds the positions of Vice President of Advanced Study and Director of the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

The conversation tracks Peter’s impressive career in economics as the two dig into the economic ideas and figures that he’s studied along the way. John and Peter also take a dive into the great debate between capitalism and socialism through the perspectives of Karl Marx and Ludwig Von Mises.

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On this episode Papola interviews his good friend William Hurley, or “Whurley” as he’s more commonly known. Whurley is a serial entrepreneur and multi-patent holding innovator who’s most recent work is Strangeworks a quantum computing company.

Whurley and John talk through the many businesses Whurley has started in his storied career including Chaotic Moon Studios and Honest Dollar. They share interesting and sometimes hilarious stories of things that’ve happened along the way.

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On today’s episode of the podcast, John Papola talks to serial entrepreneur and founder of Vital Farms, Matt O’Hayer.

Matt has started numerous businesses and today shares his entrepreneurial stories with John. The two also discuss conscious capitalism, responsible chicken farming, and universal basic income.

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On today’s podcast episode John Papola converses with journalist and founder of the Free Range Kids Movement, Lenore Skenazy. You might know better as “The World’s Worst Mom.”

The two discuss The Free Range Kids Movement which Lenore started shortly after her breakout column “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone” went viral. Lenore shares insights from her impressive journalism career and she and John discuss their lives as parents.

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On today’s episode of the podcast John Papola has a conversation with UT professor of innovation, 3Com founder, co-inventor of ethernet, and the namesake of Metcalfe’s Law: Bob Metcalfe.

The two dive into Metcalfe’s current career at the University of Texas as well as discuss his past experiences witnessing the earlier days of Silicon Valley. Bob’s stories surrounding his winding career as an entrepreneur and innovator also give us a look into the underlying technology that lead to his co-invention of ethernet. 

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In this episode of the podcast, John Papola and Jon Taplin discuss philosophy, literature, and life lessons learned throughout Taplin’s extensive and varied career.

Taplin has done everything from going on the road as a tour manager with Bob Dylan, to producing movies (including once being a key part of a massive Disney deal), to being one of the entrepreneurs behind the first video on-demand service: Intertainer. He then took these experiences into his career as an educator and author.

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On episode four our host, John Papola, speaks with author, academic, and historian Deirdre McCloskey. McCloskey describes herself as “a literary, quantitative, postmodern, free-market, progressive-Episcopalian, Midwestern woman from Boston who was once a man.” Needless to say, this is a very interesting and wide-ranging conversation!

Papola and McCloskey unpack economics and philosophy from Deirdre’s unique, historical point of view — including what she’s learned about economic planning. Deirdre also shares the story behind her two great transformations: From Marxism to Classical Liberalism; and from male to female. 

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On episode three of the Emergent Order podcast, John interviews Jeff Sandefer, an oil industry veteran, entrepreneur and educator. Sandefer describes the personal and professional journey that led him to establish the nonprofit Acton Academy school network.

In this episode we will also unpack Sandefer’s views on the education system as a whole and why The Acton Academy works, with an emphasis on how Acton embodies bottom-up systems.

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On the second episode of the Emergent Order podcast, John Papola interviews entrepreneur, author, and Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey. Papola and Mackey discuss the evolution of Whole Foods Market, from its humble beginnings in Austin, TX to its current role in the Amazon corporate ecosystem. 

This episode also includes an in-depth discussion of Mackey’s conscious capitalism movement and what it really means to be a “good” capitalist. The two Johns also discuss the making of the film At The Fork, a collaboration between Whole Foods Market and Emergent Order.

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On the first episode of the Emergent Order podcast, John Papola interviews economist, author, and host of the EconTalk Podcast, Russ Roberts. John and Russ explore the story behind their first creative collaboration: Fear the Boom and Bust.

This episode also includes an explanation of how the phenomenon known as “emergence” affects our everyday lives, and the relationship between emergence and human nature.

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