The Development Paradox | Interview: Ronald Bailey

Jonah Goldberg has been chewing over how to reduce the number of gray hairs in Congress for some time now. Unfortunately, the best that he and The Remnant team have come up with is shaving the heads of all the senior senators, which, seeming somewhat impractical, led Jonah to call in an expert. Science correspondent and longtime friend of the show Ronald Bailey joins the merry band today to set us all straight on RFK Jr., vaccines, MAHA, DOGE, libertarianism, bad analogies for government, transhumanism, gerontocracy, term limits, libertarian Shangri-La, Francis Fukuyama, institutions, economic growth, Thomas Jefferson, invention, and Benjamin Franklin. Show Notes: The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a nonpartisan perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including the Saturday Ruminant, audio versions of all our articles and newsletters, and Jonah’s twice-weekly G-File—⁠click here⁠. Instructions on how to set up your members-only feed can be found here, and if you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other things. He is also a bestselling author, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When he is not writing the G-File or hosting The Remnant podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things. The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings. Music 0:00 [upbeat interlude playing] Music 0:14 Well, ladies and gentlemen, uh, Music 0:16 could I please have your attention? Can you dig it? Jonah Goldberg 0:27 Greetings, dear listeners. This is Jonah Goldberg, host of the Remnant Podcast, brought to you by The Dispatch and Dispatch Media. It's a rare treat for me. I literally have today one of my oldest friends, I used to work for, I've remained friends with since... I, I don't wanna put a date on it, but like mid-1990s or something like that. We have had many, many, many arguments and intense conversations about political philosophy, libertarianism, all sorts of other things, um, politics. Um, I am of course referring to Ron Bailey, the longtime science correspondent for Reason. Also in... when I knew him, a, uh, television producer who taught me a lot of what I know about, uh, how to make television. He's the author of several books. The last time he was on, I think, can't remember if it was during COVID or... But he, he also came on with Marian Tupy to talk about 10 global trends every smart person should know. He also wrote a book called The End of Doom. He wrote a book called Liberation Biology and other things. So Ron Bailey, welcome back to The Remnant. Interactive transcripts are available to Premium members. Join to follow along with the audio. Join Now More We Think You’d Like