Mark Steyn Christmas Show

This is objectively pretty lame, but for some reason, I love Mark Steyn's Christmas shows.

Live from Montreal!

Lionel Chetwynd

Andrew Klavan, Mark Steyn, and Leonard Cohen

Just a really worthwhile show to watch...

Munk Debates

Steyn

In the old days, back in the Medieval university, professors established their careers in two ways: first, by public lecture. If nobody came to listen, they were doomed. Second, by debate. With their knowledge of their field and their ability to think directly challenged, and the chance of public humiliation. The modern thesis examining committee is a vestige of the second practice. These were no doubt unpopular among academics themselves, but they had the great benefit of serving as an objective check. No wonder they have been abolished. Another example of Adam Smith's timeless observation: when people of the same trade get together, for whatever reason, they will immediately conspire against the public interest. The modern practice has devolved into something which now has no protections against the corruption of an academic field, or academics generally; everything is decided by fellow profs. There is the thesis committee; there is the tenure committee; there is the “peer review”of publications that are highly formulaic. There are points for the number of times one's articles are cited—by other academics. There is nothing to see that the general public's needs or interests are being served, although the general public is expected to pay through the nose for it all.

As a result, smart operators can create their own subject, tailor it to their interests, and never be challenged. New, often silly, fields are appearing all the time, and once thy are created, the door is shut to any new or better ideas in that area. Human progress and human knowledge is hindered, not advanced, by this. All in the interests of an entrenched and wealthy group of practitioners.

Farage

Happily, the Internet may be changing that. We may be going back to the old ways. First, by making public lectures widely accessible, thanks to MOOCs, TED Talks, EdX, Coursera, and their ilk. There is now, for the first time in a long time, an actual advantage to being a good lecturer, a good teacher. Second, by reviving the art of public debate, the results widely available on YouTube at any time. Here in the bracing air of public debate is where good ideas really thrive, and bad ideas come to die.

You want to watch a really good recent debate? Try the Munk Debate on refugee policy here. The Con side was represented by an all-star team of Nigel Farage and Mark Steyn, both wonderful to listen to. Getting both of them on stage, the one flown in from Europe, the other from the US, was quite a coup. They dominated, and won handily by audience vote.

But then, I think the representatives of the Pro side were less stellar: Louise Arbor, and a relatively unknown New York Art History professor, Simon Schama. Not sure they were the best spokespeople available, although I can easily believe they were the best the Munk people could find willing to go toe to toe with the devastatingly effective Steyn and Farage.

Mark Steyn on the Future

I disagree with Mark Steyn.

October 21 was Back to the Future day: the day to which Marty McFly and Doc Brown time- travelled in the 1989 movie Back to the Future II. Steyn points out all the many ways in which the future as forecast in the movie is more advanced than the reality we live with, and concludes that Western Civilization is running out of steam. The future, it seems, isn't what it used to be.

Wrong. First off, predictions, expecially by experts, are almost always wrong. This is because the most likely thing is always continuity, but nobody will listen to you or pay you as an expert if you do not predict major change. So the future is always more futuristic in the telescope than through the window. Remember monorails? Flying cars? Personal jet packs?

Given that the experts are wrong, it seems silly indeed to take your predictions from a popular movie. The purpose of this movie is to entertain, not to make accurate predictions. “Jaws 19”—very funny. Making the future as different as possible from the present is obviously the best option for entertainment value. How could anyone take the predictions as serious?

Steyn goes on to argue that, if someone were taken by a time machine from 1890 to 1950, they would be stunned by all the changes. Cars, planes, electricity, telephones, indoor plumbing, radio, maybe TV. But jump them another 60 years to 2010, and thinks would still look pretty much the same as they did in 1950. Cars, planes, electricity, telephones, indoor plumbing, TV.

He's right, but I'd say looks here are deceiving. Historically, the first things we tackled were the big machines, large engines such as are needed for transportation or manufacturing, because those were the easiest things to build. They did not require as much precision. But, being big, they were and remain the most visible.

Since about the 1940s, we have moved on to the small things: printed circuits, transistors, lasers, computers, software, nanotechnology, DNA sequencing, GMOs, and so forth. These are less immediately visible, being small, but they are probably more important. The green revolution is close to eliminating starvation worldwide. GMOs will go further. There is serious talk, at least, of extending lifespans indefinitely. That would be a big change, surely? The Internet and the accessibility of multimedia to everyone will probably be more significant than the invention of the printing press; quite possibly than the invention of writing. 

Videophone, as predicted in France circa 1900.

Last week I went to buy a new phone, and was surprised to discover that I no longer had the option to buy an “ordinary cell phone” of the old Nokia variety. All the phones on offer were smart phones, with touch screens, cameras, massive memories, Internet connections, and apps available of all sorts. But they cost less than the cell phone I bought two years ago. And when I was teaching IT just five years ago, “smart phones” were not even predicted by the text we used. It talked instead of “Personal Digital Assistants.”

When I went to put in my old SIM card, I found it no longer fit. For the new phone, I needed either a micro SIM or a nano SIM. When I brought my old SIM card to the connectivity provider, the clerk laughed to see something so old fashioned. But I was using it in a phone I bought only two years ago!

I agree with Steyn that there are bad signs for the future of Western Civilization. But I don't think technology is where the problem is manifesting.

Mark Steyn on Canadian Self-Hate. Or Something

Anyway, it's Mark Steyn, and it's brilliant.

Joe McCarthy vs. Jennifer Lynch: The Smackdown

Believers in basic freedoms really owe it to themselves to hear what Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn had to say recwently before a Parilamentary Committee investigating Canada's Human Rights Commissions.

Joe McCarthy never came near the sort of things these commissions have done. Think Star Chamber.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Mark Steyn Speaks

Ever wonder what Mark Steyn sounds like?

Every word this man utters is worth publishing.