
Show Notes
Reza Aslan on why Iran is winning, and why the idea of nationalism may be the next great illusion to fall. | Subscribe to Futurology! https://linkin.bio/futurology/
What does it mean for a nation to fight a war it cannot win? Iranian scholar and author Reza Aslan joins Nathan Gardels to cut through four decades of American self-deception about Iran. In this episode, Aslan argues that the war in Iran has done exactly what decades of intelligence had predicted: silenced dissent, entrenched hardline power, and destroyed the slow-burning possibility of reform taking root in Iran. He makes the case that Iran is not an unhinged theocracy, but a completely rational actor facing a waning global superpower mired in a “cosmic war mentality.
Subscribe to the Berggruen Institute on YouTube to be the first to listen to new Futurology episodes:
https://www.youtube.com/@Berggrueninst
Catch up on the Futurology conversation with full episodes on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyYCSKWs8iYgjg-mhu-EuhTrG0-adrb0c
Apple Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/futurology/id1821718921
Spotify
Mentioned in this Episode:
No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam — Reza Aslan (Book, 2005)
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth — Reza Aslan (Book, 2013)
God: A Human History — Reza Aslan (Book, 2017)
Where to find Resa Aslan:
Show ideas and feedback? Email:
Learn more about the Berggruen Institute
Follow Futurology!
Instagram: / futurologypod
Twitter/X: / futurologypod
Tiktok: / futurologypod
Facebook: / berggrueninst
LinkedIn: / berggrueninst
Bluesky: / futurologypod
Credits
Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch
Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos
Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney
Theme Music: Marcus Bagala
Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson
Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.
More from Futurology
Hypocrisy, the old line goes, is the tribute vice pays to virtue. For eighty years, the powerful at least bothered to pay it, citing human rights, national security, and democracy as reasons for starting wars and undercutting liberties. Now the veneers have been stripped, and the next generation is not accepting business as usual.
Machines are starting to act like humans. Does that mean they’re conscious? The problem is we haven’t been able to prove how or why humans are conscious yet either. So why would we be able to offer any answers about AI?
Democracy counts people, not plants. Humans are only a sliver of life on this planet, but today, we're the only ones who get a vote. What if we gave rights to rivers and standing to trees?
Somewhere around the Enlightenment we decided that thinking was what made us human. We built our schools, careers, and sense of worth at the altar of intelligence. Now machines are passing us on that rubric, which leaves two possibilities: we were replaceable all along, or we picked the wrong standard to live by.
Relying on machines to coordinate our lives was just one step toward decentering humanity’s role in the world. Flights, banking, trade, food production... But as we start merging our actual decision-making with digital entities, exactly which pieces of humanity are we leaving behind? And how might we bring those pieces back?