Francis Foster

So this idea of this personal relationship with God has enormous political and economic effects.

and at the mouth of the rhine in the modern day netherlands becomes an incredibly tolerant society especially after the spanish leave in the at the end of the 1500s and this this idea of tolerance becomes super important but what is moving up and down isn't just books people don't want books are expensive and people don't have time for books all the time but the beginnings of

what are originally called in German news books, but just what's going on in these different cities of the Rhine.

And by the way, has the religion of this city changed since you last sailed past and is now unsafe for you to land?

Or do we want to mock these people in Geneva or in Strasbourg or what have you?

And so these newspapers are quite lively.

They caricature people.

They make sexual and spiritual allegations.

It's as wild as anything on the internet today.

And you combine this idea of free speech and capitalism and you get the beginning of news where you have news outlets that are only accountable to the people who pay for them.

If you start writing about things that people don't trust, don't believe, your audience goes down, and soon your printing costs are higher than your revenue, and you're out of business.

If, on the other hand, you feed your audience, you give them what they want, and hopefully give them a healthy version of what they want, your revenues will grow.

More people will buy your paper.

And this is the beginning of news.

Independent of the state, lively in its perspectives,

accountable to its readers and this idea evolves and changes over time it comes to England in Europe almost last but it it definitely flowers in the early 1600s in the in the Netherlands and in Germany and the Dutch settle and form a colony that they call New Amsterdam which is the modern city of New York

The Dutch ideas of the Rhine River tolerance come here.

And New York has been a decidedly wide open free market of ideas, opinions, and businesses for centuries as a result of the Dutch foundations of the city.

And by the way, Canal Street in downtown literally was a canal until they filled it in.

I mean, the Dutch...