News

On this week’s episode of The Great Antidote podcast with Juliette Sellgren, she is joined by guest Russ Roberts.

Incentives + education for low-water landscaping Air conditioning units and sprinklers are still humming across most of the U.S. as the dog days of summer start to wind down. For the driest areas in America, sweltering days with soaring temperatures mean high rates of water use. And the future will likely bring even more demand […]

How prediction markets can make the world more rational Ifwe are going to improve public discourse, we must at the outset confront a tricky question: What if people prefer their polarized beliefs? If they are going to line up behind their preferred ideas no matter the facts, we aren’t going to get very far by […]

Building a better nuclear industry requires global allies The US Department of Energy (DOE) wants to help colonize space, and they want to do it with nuclear energy. Late last month, DOE released a notice that they are seeking information about the challenges and feasibility of using reactors to power future missions. The goal is to design […]

On this week’s episode of The Great Antidote podcast with Juliette Sellgren, she is joined by guest Terry Anderson. In their discussion, Juliette and Terry cover free-market environmentalism, good and bad examples of environmental policy, and how to save the earth.

The current system for personal savings is broken and in need of a new option. It tells young and lower-income Americans not to save or invest unless you are ready to save for retirement or other government-approved goals.

These charts display the results of a recent CGO/YouGov poll measuring how people viewed tech companies, their impact on their lives, and the prospects of breaking them up.

Policymakers worry about the impact on workers from robots and other automation techniques. COVID-19 has pushed many companies to consider automating or embracing robots for public health. Workers worry that after the pandemic, they’ll find a robot in their place. Those fears are overblown. After all, it took a global pandemic for many companies to embrace automation. […]

Senior Research Fellow Will Rinehart joined Jim Lokay on The Final 5 (Fox 5 DC) to break down the President’s recent executive order on TikTok and WeChat, and how that could alter how the government handles private business.

In this week’s episode of The Great Antidote podcast with Juliette Sellgren, she is joined by guest Benjamin Powell. In their discussion, Juliette and Benjiman cover sweatshops, the global economy, economic policy, and more.

On August 6, the White House gave TikTok’s parent company in Beijing, ByteDance, 45 days to sell off the social media app or face a ban in the United States. Senior Research Fellow, Will Rinehart argues against an outright ban in the U.S. in this Daily Caller op-ed.

Wednesday, July 29 marked the 10-year anniversary since the controversial implementation of SB 1070. Commonly called the “show-me-your-papers” law, supporters argued that it would reduce crime in communities. But has SB 1070 actually made Arizonans safer? New evidence suggests it has not.

On this week’s episode of The Great Antidote podcast with Juliette Sellgren, she is joined by guest Adam Thierer. In their discussion, Juliette and Adam cover entrepreneurship, technology, evasive entrepreneurship, Adam’s book Permissionless Innovation, and more.

What can we learn from the first stimulus checks? August recess is set to begin this week for the House and next week for the Senate, and lawmakers are still negotiating on an aid package meant to help businesses, states, and individuals cope with the economic effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While they may […]

William Rinehart at Utah State University discusses the news about big tech companies testifying before the House on antitrust, politics, and censorship.

On August 1, 2020, Senior Research Fellow William Rinehart had a conversation on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal with host Jesse J. Holden about last week’s big tech antitrust hearing implications.

On this week’s episode of The Great Antidote podcast with Juliette Sellgren, she is joined by guest Aaron Ross Powell. In their discussion, Juliette and Aaron discuss libertarianism, the optimism of libertarian principles, and how to make the world a better place.

A new poll released today by the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University (CGO) administered by YouGov breaks down how American’s feel about big tech, if the companies should be broken up, and who they trust with their personal information.

But that doesn’t mean platforms are biased This is the second installment in a series, find the first here. We hear a lot about “censorship” by online platforms. A certain vocal segment of right-of-center politicians and commentators regularly accuse Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms of bias against Republicans. Indeed, the Trump Administration recently issued […]

New polling sheds light on why we should be skeptical about the techlash The CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are testifying before Congress today in a hearing billed as crucial for the future of both antitrust law and Big Tech’s relationship with Washington. Putting these companies under the glare of a national spotlight […]

They belong in school Recent reports have exposed just how bad life is for the children who find themselves in detention centers along our southern border. The New York Times has described filthy conditions lacking food and basic health care. Investigations have uncovered overflowing toilets, extreme heat, bedbugs, and days without showers. At a detention center in Clint, Texas, “the […]

Eli Dourado and Josh T. Smith analyze the most recent changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in their contribution to The Hill.

For computers to serve us, they must understand human contexts Power relationships can be deceptive, even those with inanimate objects. Who is in charge, you or your computer? I am old enough to remember booting up a DOS or Linux computer straight to a command line. The black screen displayed some apparently random symbols followed […]

On June 16, former presidential hopeful Andrew Yang took to Twitter to call out Facebook, Yang asks an important question, “How much of that value are users seeing?” Normally, economists use prices and quantity of sales to measure how much value a sector creates. Since social media services are said to be free, it is confusedly […]

He wants social media companies to pay you for the data you produce. But loopholes abound, it’s too expensive, and other plans like it have failed, argues Will Rinehart in his latest op-ed in WIRED Opinion.

Public officials across Utah working desperately to fight off the pandemic, as it continues to touch nearly every aspect of our lives, have decided to turn to tech.

The “personal transporter” promised to change cities back in 2001. It didn’t. But its demise should be a warning for today’s urban mobility disrupters.

The virtual future of work is closer than we think Inthe pre-COVID-19 world, the idea that remote meetings are second-best was pervasive in traditional corporate thinking. But insisting in-person is better is a flawed approach. It ignores the societal, economic, social, and mental benefits of remote work. It also downplays the functionality and promise of […]

And it may be a long-term trend More people have been working from home over the past few months than ever before in modern history. In the wake of COVID-19, government restrictions and company policies alike have been put in place to encourage social distancing by requiring workers to clock in from their home office […]

On this week’s episode of The Great Antidote podcast with Juliette Sellgren, she is joined by guest Ben Jones. In their discussion, Juliette and Ben cover the history of the death penalty, the criminal justice system, and the future of crime and punishment policy in the United States.