
COVID Cover-Up, Nuclear Fear & Innovation | With Matt Ridley
Matt Ridley joins Alex Buxeda to talk about sex, why COVID most likely came from a lab and why the idea was suppressed, why the West turned against nuclear power, and why renewables deliver a poor energy return. They also talked about how cheap energy sparked the Industrial Revolution, why patents hurt innovation, and his upcoming book, The Rational Pessimist. 0:00 Teaser: the lab leak evidence and censorship 1:44 Intro 2:08 What is sex and why did it evolve? 4:58 Sexual selection: was the big brain for seduction? 6:01 Costly display and the handicap theory 7:35 Why is nuclear so unpopular in the West? 9:22 Biofuels, organic lettuce and energy return 10:39 Medieval wheat vs. modern farming 13:09 The hidden cost of backup for renewables 14:06 Germany's multi layered energy 'transition' failure 14:59 Follow the money: why renewables win politically 17:33 Energy, matter and living standards 18:26 Plants, cows and lions: the energy surplus 19:37 Cooking as an energy innovation 22:05 What really caused the Industrial Revolution? 24:17 Culture or energy? The steam engine and heat-to-work 26:28 Mitochondria, fire and energy return 28:02 COVID origins and the book "Viral" 29:17 The first clues pointing to a lab leak 30:27 Why the lab leak theory was censored 32:17 The blockers of 2020 33:27 Why the media didn't investigate 33:54 The evidence for a lab leak 35:13 A catastrophe the world won't face 36:02 Accountability and news that goes stale 39:05 Why no one wants to revisit the pandemic 39:43 The cost-benefit of lockdowns 40:37 Do patents help or hurt innovation? 43:21 Why "intellectual property" is a misnomer 44:39 Shakespeare and a world without copyright 46:32 Copyright for 70 years after death 47:06 Simultaneous invention: the light bulb 48:25 Would we have search engines without Google? 49:33 Inevitable looking back, unpredictable looking forward 50:41 Napster and the music industry 51:24 The Munk debate: are our best days ahead? 53:17 The Rational Pessimist 54:17 Stoicism vs. Freud 55:24 The price of denying human nature 56:09 Why understanding ourselves matters 57:24 The evolution of virtue 57:55 Today's "endarkenment" 58:35 Closing Support Schweizer Monat: https://schweizermonat.payrexx.com/pay?cid=77cf037a
