The Narrative Monopoly – Détails, épisodes et analyse

A conversation with Erik Torenberg on all things narrative and the The Narrative Monopoly

Bio

Erik Torenberg is co-Founder and co-CEO of OnDeck, which is on a mission to organize the world's ambition. Co-Founder and Partner of Village Global, an early stage venture fund. Erik was the first employee and on the founding team of Product Hunt. He's also a writer and podcast host. 

Times

• 0:15 - Intro to Erik & breaking into tech
• 6:00 - Status Theory of Narratives
• 9:45 - Meta Narratives & Identity
• 16:00 - Martin Gurri’s Crisis of Authority
• 18:45 - Authenticity & Elon
• 24:30 - The Narrative Monopoly
• 43:15 - Truth & Narratives
• 54:30 - The Current Thing
• 1:00:30 - Lack of meaning
• 1:05:15 - LARPs
• 1:07:30 - Rethinking Higher-Ed

Links

Erik's blog

Erik's twitter

beondeck.com

villageglobal.vc

narrativemonopoly.com

A conversation about free speech with UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh

Topics 

• Computer engineering vs law
• SCOTUS Leak
• Background of free speech
• Twitter and free speech
• Are platforms utilities?
• The Ministry of Truth Disinformation Board
• And more!

Bio (from UCLA Law)

Eugene Volokh teaches First Amendment law and a First Amendment amicus brief clinic at UCLA School of Law, where he has also often taught copyright law, criminal law, tort law, and a seminar on firearms regulation policy.

Before coming to UCLA, he clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court and for Judge Alex Kozinski on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Volokh is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (6th ed. 2016), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2013), as well as over 90 law review articles. He is a member of The American Law Institute, a member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel, and the founder and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog. His law review articles have been cited by opinions in eight Supreme Court cases and several hundred court opinions in total, as well as several thousand scholarly articles.

Volokh worked for 12 years as a computer programmer. He graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in math-computer science at age 15, and has written many articles on computer software. Volokh was born in the USSR; his family emigrated to the U.S. when he was seven years old.

Links

The Volokh Conspiracy,

Free speech videos

narrativemonopoly.com

twitter

Bio

Mark Nelson is a Managing Director at Radiant Energy Fund. He’s one of the world’s foremost authorities on nuclear energy. In his capacity with the fund, he fights to keep Nuclear energy plants open around the world.

Times

• 1:00 - Intro to Mark & Radiant Energy Fund
• 4:45 - Belgium’s 2 nuclear plants & the green plan
• 9:30 - Why nuclear? Nuclear vs other energy 101
• 18:00 - Is nuclear safe?
• 23:00 - Price disparity between nuclear and nat gas
• 28:30 - The argument against nuclear, Mark steel man’s himself
• 34:45 - Coming Russian of nat gas this winter
• 38:45 - NY state closed Indian Point nuclear plant and there will be electricity shortages this winter
• 47:45 - Climate change and intersectionality
• 50:45 - Chernobyl + HBO’s Chernobyl making people fearful
• 54:15 - Nuclear reactors and plants in the United States
• 56:30 - Mark’s political philosophy (not partisan)
• 1:00:30 - The recent saving of a nuclear plant in Illinois
• 1:09:45 - Will Mark and I buy a nuclear plant? How much do they cost?

Links

Mark's twitter

Jeff's twitter

mark@radiantenergyfund.org

narrativemonopoly.com

Bio

Joel Kotkin is the Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, Executive Director of the Houston-based Urban Reform Institute , the author of 10 books including his most recent “ The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class”. And he’s been described as “America’s uber-geographer”.

Times

• 0:15 - Intro to Joel
• 1:30 - The rise of neo-feudalism and what is it?
• 15:30 -  Power vacuumed to the executive branch & federalism
• 19:45 - Wealth inequality
• 24:45 - Hypocrisy is part of the medieval mindset
• 30:15 - Big government benefits big business
• 38:45 - How the pandemic impacted America’s geography / economy
• 44:30 - FAANG M&A
• 50:30 - Closing segment

Links

The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class

joelkotkin.com

Joel's twitter

Joel's podcast

narrativemonopoly.com

Bio

Anthony Pompliano is a bitcoiner, GP of Pomp investments, host of The Pomp Podcast, The Best Business show, author of The Pomp Letter, and last but not least - a veteran of our armed forces.

Times

• 0:55 - Intro to Pomp
• 2:00 - El Salvador & Bitcoin Beach
• 8:10 - Halving
• 10:00 - Btc as medium of exchange vs store of value (vs other assets)
• 14:45 - Inflation & messaging
• 16:15 - The crypto provision in DC is going to become law, enforcement, the ramifications, and what’s going on in DC
• 21:15 - Will DC become friend or foe to btc?
• 25:00 - How would/should the US embrace btc?
• 30:00 - Putting btc on corporate balance sheets
• 33:00 - Elon Musk & btc
• 35:30 - Why is the media attacking btc?
• 37:00 - Pomp on the media
• 51:30 - Cancel culture, trust, authenticity, and society
• 58:00 - The Best Business Show

Links

The Pomp Letter

Pomp's YouTube (Pomp Podcast & Best Business Show)

Nic Carter's "A Peaceful Revolution" (mentioned in the show)

Martin Gurri rejoins The Narrative Monopoly to do a live Q & A on the Callin app cross posted here

Q & A with Martin on: 

• Revolt of the Public documentary??
• History, his piece on CRT
• The efficacy & reach of Crypto distribution vs legacy media
• Cuba, Afghanistan, China

A conversation with world class economist John Cochrane on a wide range of topics

Bio

John Cochrane is the Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author of The Grumpy Economist Blog. Before that John was a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, he’s taught both MBA and PhD programs. And a fellow of the Becker-Friedman Institute, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is a past President and Fellow of the American Finance Association, and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. He’s served as the editor of numerous economics journals. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Physics at MIT, and earned his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of California at Berkeley.

Times

• 0:15 - Intro
• 1:30 - How did John become an economist?
• 4:15 - How has the field of economics changed since John got started in it?
• 7:00 - Are we all Keynesians now?
• 10:15 - What’s going on with inflation?
• 15:45 - Putting modern American life in perspective
• 19:15 - Covid & the incompetence of bureaucracy
• 22:30 - Counter culture
• 28:30 - Woke vs Woodstock
• 33:00 - Central banks getting involved in climate policy
• 38:45 - The role of the Press, the failure of the Press and the 1st Amendment
• 49:15 - The Grumpy Economist & blogging lessons
• 53:30 - r < g (govt debt)
• 59:00 - What & when of a debt crisis
• 1:07:15 - What is John’s specialty? (If there is one)
• 1:09:00 - Closing thoughts

Links

The Grumpy Economist blog

GoodFellows podcast 

narrativemonopoly.com

 A conversation with Max Towey, co-founder and CEO of RocaNews, about the media and state of America

Bio

Max Towey is co-founder and CEO of RocaNews, a company committed to making news easy and enjoyable. He previously worked at a DC think tank where he hosted it’s official podcast Banter. He received an undergrad degree from Notre Dame.

Links

@ridethenews on Instagram

rocanews.com

Max on twitter

Bio

(From Manhattan Institute) - Brian Riedl is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, focusing on budget, tax, and economic policy. Previously, he worked for six years as chief economist to Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and as staff director of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth. He also served as a director of budget and spending policy for Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign and was the lead architect of the ten-year deficit-reduction plan for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

During 2001–11, Riedl served as the Heritage Foundation’s lead research fellow on federal budget and spending policy. In that position, he helped lay the groundwork for Congress to cap soaring federal spending, rein in farm subsidies, and ban pork-barrel earmarks. Riedl’s writing and research have been featured in, among others, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review; he is a frequent guest on NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, and C-SPAN.

Riedl holds a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from the University of Wisconsin and a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University.

Times

• 0:45 - Intro to Brian
• 1:45 - Status of the federal debt and why is it so important
• 6:45 - The insanity of future budget deficits
• 9:30 - Will there be a crash or slow decline?
• 14:30 - When will it happen?
• 16:15 - Entitlements are THE problem and both parties are big spending parties
• 20:30 - Who actually holds the debt?
• 25:45 - Interest rates
• 32:15 - Is American debt too big to fail?
• 35:30 - Can all the millionaires and billionaires pay for the debt?
• 40:45 - How would Brian fix the debt crisis?
• 44:45 - Low hanging fruit
• 49:45 - AARP
• 53:45 - Brian’s closing thoughts

Links

List of Brian's writing

Brian's twitter

Jeff's twitter

narrativemonopoly.com

Bio

Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and is senior editor of FDD’s Long War Journal, a widely read publication on counterterrorism and related issues. His main focus is on jihadism and how al-Qaeda and the Islamic State operate around the globe. 

He has served as a consultant for the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division and has testified before Congress on more than twenty times.

He has constructed dossiers on hundreds of terrorists during the course of his work. He’s been described as one of “the most trusted authorities on the al-Qaeda network because of his encyclopedic knowledge of terrorist biographies.” 

In 2017, as a result of Thomas’s efforts, the CIA declassified and released the vast majority of the files captured in Osama bin Laden’s compound.

Times

• 1:00 - Intro to Tom
• 2:00 - Bin Laden files & al-Qaeda intro
• 7:15 - What was Bin Laden working on at the end?
• 9:45 - The narrative that Bin Laden was “retired”
• 15:30 - What is al-Qaeda?
• 19:15 - Rationale for 9/11
• 22:00 - Abdul Azzam
• 23:15 - Ayman al-Zawahiri’s role and is he still active?
• 27:00 - Media exposure of Zawahiri
• 31:00 - Day to day operations of al-Qaeda & Its history w/ ISIS
• 37:00 - Would al-Qaeda leave us alone if we got out of the Middle East?
• 43:00 - Congressional authorization of war
• 48:45 - What would the world have looked like if we got Bin Laden at Tora Bora?
• 51:15 - Challenging the narrative of “2001 invasion of Afghanistan was a success”
• 52:45 - The Taliban in Afghanistan
• 57:00 - Does the Taliban have the appetite to sponsor another Bin Laden?
• 60:45 - What’s the goal of al-Qaeda?
• 1:02:30 - Final recap of narratives
• 1:06:30 - American elites & leadership

Links

Tom's Long War Journal

Tom's twitter

Jeff's twitter

narrativemonopoly.com