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Subscribe to Elucidations:       Episode post here. Transcription by Farjan Halim. Matt Teichman: Hello and welcome to Elucidations, an unexpected philosophy podcast. I’m Matt Teichman, and with me today (once again) is Greg Salmieri, Senior Philosophy Scholar at the Salem Center, at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s here to discuss free speech, “cancel culture,” and “academic freedom.” Greg Salmieri, welcome back to Elucidations for the fourth time. ...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       Note: this was recorded in November of 2022. Full transcript here. In the latest episode of Elucidations, Greg Salmieri (University of Texas) joins us once again, this time to discuss freedom of speech. Click here to download Episode 154 of Elucidations. Free speech talk has been in the air, on the internet, for the past decade. But what exactly is going on with freedom of speech? Do I have the right to criticize my alderman’s second term on my blog without getting thrown in jail? Do I have the right to publish cartoons that make fun of venerated religious figures without being physically attacked? Do I have the right to tell my work colleagues who I voted for in the last election without getting fired? Do I have the right to express an opinion on whether R2-D2 or BB-8 is the superior Star Wars droid, without getting kicked out a group chat I have going with my friends? Which of these things is a right and which isn’t? What even is a right? ...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       Episode post here. Transcription by Prexie Magallanes. Matt Teichman: Hello and welcome to Elucidations, an unexpected philosophy podcast. I’m Matt Teichman, and with me today is Witold Więcek, Consulting Director for Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago, and he’s here to discuss statistics and academic research. Witold Więcek, welcome. ...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       Episode post here. Transcription by Gavin Leech. Matt Teichman: Hello and welcome to Elucidations, an unexpected philosophy podcast. I’m Matt Teichman, and with me today is Sam Enright, editor-in-chief of The Fitzwilliam, which is an online publication about Ireland, policy, philosophy, and literature. He is also a non-resident fellow at the policy think tank Progress Ireland and an Emergent Ventures fellow. And he’s here to discuss lifelong learning. Sam Enright, welcome. ...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       Note: this episode was recorded in March of 2025. Full transcript here. In the latest episode of Elucidations, Sam Enright (Progress Ireland, The Fitzwilliam) instructs us in the delicate art of learning forever. Click here to download Episode 153 of Elucidations. If you’re one of those people who responds well to formal education, chances are you’ve spent 10-20 years of your life as a student. When you finally graduate, it can feel jarring, like you’re kissing all this efficient infrastructure for mastering difficult skills goodbye. How are you going to keep learning, without a teacher you can pester with questions in the classroom, without regular feedback on homework assignments, and without exams? Sam Enright is here to tell you that just because you’re moving into the next phase of your life, that doesn’t mean you need to turn your back on the learning experience. ...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       Note: this episode was recorded in March of 2024. Full transcript here. This time around, Matt talks to Luca Gattoni-Celli about why it’s so expensive to buy a house. Click here to download episode 152 of Elucidations. In the 80s, people from all sorts of socioeconomic backgrounds were able to afford apartments and houses in places like New York City, San Francisco, or London. Now, on the other hand, even many wealthy people are getting priced out of the city. And indeed, the issue is no longer specific to urban areas: the problem of seemingly infinitely increasing real estate prices would appear to be creeping into the rest of the US, and into many other areas that were typically regarded as affordable in the recent past. ...

Hello, party people. This is a blog post explaining how to connect to the University of Chicago VPN using Network Manager and openconnect from an Arch Linux machine with no desktop environment installed. Prerequisites This post assumes an “I run Linux on my computer” level of tech-savviness. If you don’t know what any of those words mean, or if this post employs concepts that you don’t understand but would like to, please feel free to get in touch with me and I’ll be happy to write a follow-up post explaining whatever you’d like to know about. ...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       Episode post here. Transcription by Prexie Miranda Abainza Magallanes. Matt Teichman: Hello and welcome to Elucidations, an unexpected philosophy podcast. I’m Matt Teichman, and with me today is Shruti Rajagopalan, Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, Fellow at the Classical Liberal Institute at New York University School of Law, host of the Ideas of India podcast, which I recommend you check out, and author of the Get Down and Shruti substack, which I also highly recommend you check out. ...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       Note: this episode was recorded in August of 2022. Full transcript here. In the latest Elucidation, Matt talks to Witold Więcek about the difficulties that come up for researchers who would like to draw upon statistics. Click here to download episode 151 of Elucidations. ...

Subscribe to Elucidations:       Note: this episode was recorded in April of 2023. Full transcript here. In this episode, Matt sits down with Shruti Rajagopalan (Mercatus Center) to talk about what the future holds for India. Click here to download episode 150 of Elucidations. We often have a tendency to think of the current economic and geopolitical situation as simply the way things are. Especially for people who grew up in the United States over the past 50 years, the fact that it is an economic and military superpower sorta feels set in stone. But in this episode, Shruti Rajagopalan encourages us to take the long view, regarding the current state of the US as just one phase in a decades or possibly centuries-long economic development life cycle. First, the country logs a certain number of decades as a manufacturing hub, under conditions of minimal top-down interference from regulatory bodies. This enables it to build wealth, which eventually pushes it away from being a manufacturing economy, but it’s a race against the clock. With economic growth comes a rise in average life expectancy, plus a lower birth rate, which together can lead to large aging population. Once the aging population increases, the country’s economy needs to be strong in order to accommodate all the caregiving that an aging population makes necessary. ...