The Atlas Society Presents - Objectively Speaking

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 310th episode of Objectively Speaking as she sits down with returning guest Doug Casey to talk about his latest co-authored book, "The Preparation: How To Become Competent, Confident, and Dangerous," which lays out a four-year, sixteen-cycle alternative to a college path that now averages $140,000 and too often delivers ideology, debt, and obsolete...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 309th episode of Objectively Speaking as she sits down with returning guest Gad Saad to discuss his book, Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind, and its blistering critique of maladaptively irrational altruism that has gripped our culture. Building on themes from his earlier work on the spread of destructive ideas, Saad argues that a miscalibrated sens...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 308th episode of Objectively Speaking, where she is joined by returning guest Batya Ungar-Sargon for a conversation about her latest book, "The Jews and the Left," which examines how one of the most consequential alliances in American political life—between Jews and the progressive movement—has come undone, and what its unraveling reveals about anti...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 307th episode of Objectively Speaking, where she sits down with the Chairman of the Liberty Justice Center, Sara Albrecht, to talk about the organization's recent legal victory over the Trump Administration’s tariffs before the U.S. Supreme Court. Can the President unilaterally impose sweeping taxes on Americans without Congress's approval—and what...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 306th episode of Objectively Speaking as she sits down with by New York Times #1 bestselling author Gregg Hurwitz to discuss the real-world rise of political violence, radicalization, and what he calls the "horseshoe of nihilism": the point where the far left and far right bend toward each other and meet in a shared rejection of meaning, a "No Lives...

What is tort law actually for and when does it stop protecting individual rights and start undermining them? Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 305th episode of Objectively Speaking as she sits down with the lead author of the American Tort Reform Foundation's annual Judicial Hellholes report, Lauren Sheets Jarrell, as part of our mini-series on tort reform to discuss the relationshi...

Who are “We the People”? Are we a collective body whose majority will is sovereign, or are we individuals whose inalienable rights government exists to secure? In Our Republican Constitution: Securing the Liberty and Sovereignty of We the People , Randy Barnett argues that America’s founding charter was designed not as a license for democratic majorities, but as a bulwark protecting the rights of...

Join Atlas Society Senior Scholars Stephen Hicks and Richard Salsman for the 303rd episode of Objectively Speaking, where the duo discuss whether today's "post-liberal" New Right is genuinely charting new philosophical territory, or simply repackaging the same critiques of reason, individualism, and capitalism that have long animated the postmodern left. Drawing on recent work by figures like Jame...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 302nd episode of Objectively Speaking, where she is joined by James (Jim) R. Copland to discuss his book "The Unelected: How an Unaccountable Elite is Governing America," which explains how unaccountable agents have taken over much of the U.S. government apparatus. This episode is part of our mini-series on tort reform to discuss why a combination o...

What if the latest science forced us to rethink human nature from the ground up? Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 301st episode of Objectively Speaking as she is joined by author Jonathan Leaf to discuss his book, "The Primate Myth: Why the Latest Science Leads Us to a New Theory of Human Nature," which examines groundbreaking research in neuroscience and genetics to propose a bold...

What are the most powerful arguments against free speech, and why do they all fall short? For our 300th episode, The Atlas Society is excited to welcome back one of America’s foremost civil liberties advocates, Nadine Strossen. Co-author of War on Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech—And Why They Fail, Strossen examines the flaws in pro-censorship arguments and offers a compelling defense of th...

What is irrational self-interest? What is enlightened self-interest, and why do so many people get it wrong? Using a jaw-dropping real-world story of pardons and political operatives, join Atlas Society Senior Fellow Robert Tracinski for the 299th episode of Objectively Speaking, where he explains why rational, long-term thinking is the true foundation of a free and civilized society and how irrat...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 298th episode of Objectively Speaking, where she is joined by Ted Frank to discuss how an unchecked plaintiffs' bar uses litigation as a weapon—driving up costs, chilling research and development, and punishing the risk-taking that fuels progress in medicine, technology, and beyond. This episode is part of our mini-series on tort reform to discuss w...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 297th episode of Objectively Speaking, where she is joined by author Priscilla West to talk about her book, "The New Face of Woke Education," which exposes Social Emotional Learning (SEL) as a toxic brew of psychology and sustainability aimed to promote collectivist propaganda in modern classrooms. Priscilla West worked as a refinery engineer, trade...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 296th episode of Objectively Speaking, where she meets with acclaimed ghostwriter and author Joshua Lisec to talk about his book, "Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them)," which argues that communism, socialism, Marxism, and similar radical ideologies are not philosophies but recurring tactics of terror that st...

Join Atlas Society CEO for the 295th episode of Objectively Speaking, where she sits down with returning guest Michael Shermer to talk about his 2024 book "Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational," which presents an overarching review of conspiracy theories―who believes them and why, which ones are real, and what we should do about them. Returning to Objectively Speaking, Shermer is no...

What does it truly mean for a nation to act in its rational self-interest on the world stage? Join Atlas Society Senior Scholar Richard Salsman, Ph. D., for a discussion on why America is right to adopt self-interested foreign-military policies, as captured in the phrase “America First.” The U.S. national interest entails preserving liberty and capitalism. Salsman explains how this egoistic princi...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 293rd episode of Objectively Speaking, where she sits down with podcast host and Bitcoin advocate Natalie Brunell to discuss her new book "Bitcoin is for Everyone: Why Our Financial System is Broken and Bitcoin is the Solution."  A journalist, podcaster, and longtime friend of The Atlas Society, Brunell joins Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman to m...

‍It was March 2016—only 10 short years ago—when Jennifer Grossman reported for her first day on the job as CEO of The Atlas Society.   Usually the one asking questions on Objectively Speaking , Grossman will swap seats with longtime friend of The Atlas Society, Naomi Brockwell, President and Founder of the Ludlow Institute , a nonprofit dedicated to protecting privacy in the digital age. Naomi wil...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 291st episode of Objectively Speaking as she sits down with Uyghur rights advocate and political leader Salih Hudayar, Foreign Minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile, to discuss China’s persecution of the Uyghur people, the fight for East Turkistan’s independence, and efforts in the international community to confront authoritarian repre...

All political labels are abused—some more than others. When should a label be abandoned, and when not? In contemporary American political journalism, liberal is one such contested word. In the 290th episode of Objectively Speaking, Stephen Hicks will discuss its value and prospects.

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 289th episode of Objectively Speaking, where she is joined by Professor Richard Vedder to talk about his book, "Let Colleges Fail: The Power of Creative Destruction in Higher Education," which makes the case that higher education must embrace market discipline—learning from the private sector, ending federal control of student loans, questioning acc...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 288th episode of Objectively Speaking, where she sits down with the President and CEO of Laitram, LLC, as well as Board Chair for Atlas Society, Jay Lapeyre to discuss the moral foundations of a free society and the values needed to sustain it. In an age of deep polarization and growing skepticism toward freedom itself, what core values can still un...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 287th episode of Objectively Speaking, where she is joined by professor Anna Krylov to discuss the dangers when institutions dedicated to truth-seeking come to prioritize ideology over scientific rigor, and what that means for the future of science. How did institutions dedicated to truth-seeking come to prioritize ideology over scientific rigor, an...

Join Atlas Society CEO Jennifer Grossman for the 286th episode of Objectively Speaking, where she sits down with sociologist Musa al-Gharbi to discuss his book "We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite," which examines the history and political economy of the symbolic professions from the interwar period through the present, tracing how journalists, academics, activists,...