Freedom to Think
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Freedom to Think
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Narrated by:
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Susie Alegre
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By:
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Susie Alegre
About this listen
Without a moment's pause, we share our most intimate thoughts with trillion-dollar tech companies. Their algorithms categorise us and jump to conclusions about who we are. They even shape our everyday thoughts and actions—from who we date to how we vote. But this is just the latest front in an age-old struggle.
Part history and part manifesto, Freedom to Think charts the history and importance of our most basic human right: freedom of thought. From Galileo to Nudge Theory to Alexa, human rights lawyer Susie Alegre explores how the powerful have always sought to get inside our heads, influence how we think and shape what we buy. Providing a bold new framework to understand how our agency is being gradually undermined, Freedom to Think is a groundbreaking and vital charter for taking back our humanity and safeguarding our reason.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
Since the end of World War II, democracy's sweep across the globe seemed inexorable. Yet today, it seems radically imperiled, even in some of the world's most stable democracies. How bad could things get? In How Democracy Ends, David Runciman argues that we are trapped in outdated 20th-century ideas of democratic failure. By fixating on coups and violence, we are focusing on the wrong threats. Our societies are too affluent, too elderly, and too networked to fall apart as they did in the past. We need new ways of thinking the unthinkable....
By: David Runciman
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The Snapping of the American Mind
- By: David Kupelian
- Narrated by: Michael Bowen
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
In The Snapping of the American Mind, veteran journalist and best-selling author David Kupelian shows how the progressive Left - which today dominates America's key institutions, from the news and entertainment media, to education, to government itself - is accomplishing much more than just enlarging government, redistributing wealth, and de-Christianizing the culture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My first ever.
- By Jeanne Samson on 07-13-16
By: David Kupelian
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To Save Everything, Click Here
- The Folly of Technological Solutionism
- By: Evgeny Morozov
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 88
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Story4 out of 5 stars 87
In the very near future, smart “technologies and big data” will allow us to make large-scale and sophisticated interventions in politics, culture, and everyday life. Technology will allow us to solve problems in highly original ways and create new incentives to get more people to do the right thing. But how will such “solutionism” affect our society, once deeply political, moral, and irresolvable dilemmas are recast as uncontroversial and easily manageable matters of technological efficiency?
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5 out of 5 stars
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The about face shift in view I've been looking for
- By McKane on 03-18-15
By: Evgeny Morozov
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The Marketing of Evil
- How Radicals, Elitists and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom
- By: David Kupelian
- Narrated by: David Kupelian
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 111
Americans have come to tolerate, embrace, and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents' generation - from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion on demand to extreme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade schoolers. Does that mean today's Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says veteran journalist David Kupelian.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This should be recommended reading.
- By E. Giuetti on 08-01-17
By: David Kupelian
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System Error
- Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot
- By: Rob Reich, Mehran Sahami, Jeremy M. Weinstein
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
In no more than the blink of an eye, a naïve optimism about technology’s liberating potential has given way to a dystopian obsession with biased algorithms, surveillance capitalism, and job-displacing robots. System Error exposes the root of our current predicament - how big tech’s relentless focus on optimization is driving a future that reinforces discrimination, erodes privacy, displaces workers, and pollutes the information we get- and outlines steps we can take to change course, renew our democracy, and save ourselves.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent on tech. Weak on political speech.
- By Kindle Customer on 11-05-21
By: Rob Reich, and others
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The Death of Right and Wrong
- Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Values
- By: Tammy Bruce
- Narrated by: Tammy Bruce
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story5 out of 5 stars 37
A woman of contradictions, "a gun-toting, lesbian, feminist, voted-for-Reagan activist", Tammy Bruce is standing in line to become the next Ann Coulter. The "left wing" is engaged in an enormous conspiracy to make moral values relative, to undercut pride and patriotism in our country, to destroy Christian ideology at any cost, to pollute the minds of our youth by means of leftist professors who rewrite history, and to hijack the justice system through morally bankrupt trial lawyers.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A thoughtful analytical review of moral relativism
- By Book and Movie Lover on 07-26-04
By: Tammy Bruce
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Suicide of the West
- How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Jonah Goldberg
- Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,401
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,265
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,243
Only once in the last 250,000 years have humans stumbled upon a way to lift ourselves out of the endless cycle of poverty, hunger, and war that defines most of history. If democracy, individualism, and the free market were humankind’s destiny, they should have appeared and taken hold a bit earlier in the evolutionary record. The emergence of freedom and prosperity was nothing short of a miracle.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Put some gratitude in your attitude
- By Amazon Customer on 04-25-18
By: Jonah Goldberg
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The Smallest Minority
- Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics
- By: Kevin D. Williamson
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 244
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 210
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 209
Listener beware: Kevin D. Williamson - the lively, literary firebrand from National Review who was too hot for The Atlantic to handle - comes to bury democracy, not to praise it. With electrifying honesty and spirit, Williamson takes a flamethrower to mob politics, the “beast with many heads” that haunts social media and what currently passes for real life. It’s destroying our capacity for individualism and dragging us down “the Road to Smurfdom, the place where the deracinated demos of the Twitter age finds itself feeling small and blue.”
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5 out of 5 stars
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Brutally honest, accurate and relevant
- By Sean on 09-19-19
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The Science of Good and Evil
- Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule
- By: Michael Shermer
- Length: 2 hrs and 21 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4 out of 5 stars 69
In The Science of Good and Evil, psychologist and science historian Michael Shermer explores how humans evolved from social primates into moral primates, how and why morality motivates the human animal, and how the foundation of moral principles can be built upon empirical evidence. Along the way he explains the implications of scientific findings for fate and free will, the existence of pure good and pure evil, and the development of early moral sentiments among the first humans.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Read by author
- By Gregory A. Townsend on 04-16-23
By: Michael Shermer
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Sapiens
- A Brief History of Humankind
- By: Yuval Noah Harari
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55,969
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 47,829
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47,508
Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Should be required reading
- By Blue Zion on 12-22-18
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The Tyranny of Clichés
- How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Jonah Goldberg
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 733
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 655
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 648
According to Goldberg, if the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist, the greatest trick liberals ever pulled was convincing themselves they’re not ideological. Today “objective” journalists and academics and “moderate” politicians peddle some of the most radical arguments by hiding them in homespun aphorisms.
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4 out of 5 stars
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I enjoyed it...and I'm a Democrat!!
- By Private. on 05-14-12
By: Jonah Goldberg
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Battlefield America
- The War on the American People
- By: John W. Whitehead, Ron Paul - foreword
- Narrated by: Eric G. Dove
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 239
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 210
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 212
In Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the follow-up to his award-winning book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead paints a terrifying portrait of a nation at war with itself and which is on the verge of undermining the basic freedoms guaranteed to the citizenry in the Constitution. Indeed, police have been transformed into extensions of the military, towns and cities have become battlefields.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic.
- By jack on 07-02-15
By: John W. Whitehead, and others
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The New Breed
- What Our History with Animals Reveals About Our Future with Robots
- By: Kate Darling
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
There has been a lot of ink devoted to discussions of how robots will replace us and take our jobs. But MIT Media Lab researcher and technology policy expert Kate Darling argues just the opposite, and that treating robots with a bit of humanity, more like the way we treat animals, will actually serve us better.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The book is interesting, and makes good points, but Kate darling forgot about slavery in history
- By jeremy on 10-24-21
By: Kate Darling
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The Secret Knowledge
- On the Dismantling of American Culture
- By: David Mamet
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 313
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 270
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 269
For the past 30 years, David Mamet has been a controversial and defining force in theater and film, championing the most cherished liberal values along the way. In some of the great movies and plays of our time, his characters have explored the ethics of the business world, embodied the struggles of the oppressed, and faced the flaws of the capitalist system. But in recent years Mamet has had a change of heart.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Mamet's Rubicon
- By Kirk on 08-13-11
By: David Mamet
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The Better Angels of Our Nature
- Why Violence Has Declined
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 36 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,350
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,500
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,453
Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I'd kill for another book this good
- By Eric on 11-11-11
By: Steven Pinker
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Red Pill, Blue Pill
- How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us
- By: David Neiwert
- Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 83
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
Conspiracy theories are killing us. Once confined to the fringes of society, this worldview now has adherents numbering in the millions - extending right into the White House. This disturbing look at this alt-right threat to our democratic institutions offers guidance for counteracting the personal toll this destructive mindset can have on relationships and families. Author David Neiwert examines the growing appeal of conspiracy theories and the kind of personalities that are attracted to such paranoid, sociopathic messages.
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2 out of 5 stars
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little basis in logic and reality
- By Alex Martin on 08-27-21
By: David Neiwert