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Today, we have an episode about how nobody can read anymore, AI, humans, and why we’re so afraid of the robots with Celine Nguyen, the great author of the Personal Canon substack, and repeat guest Leif Weatherby, who came by to talk about his book Language Machines: Cultural AI and the End of Remainder Humanism.
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Hello!
This is a good episode of the show and about something we’ve been thinking about for a while: What is the role of organized religion going forward and will we see a return to the church as the cruelty of politics, technology, and the general malaise of modern life start to overwhelm us? Our guest, Matt Sitman, has thought a ton of about this. He’s the co-host of Know Your Enemy and on the editorial board of Dissent. He’s written and thought about religion for a long time, including a big story in the New Republic from 2021 about the religious left and a very moving plea from 2017 in Dissent.
We talked about a lot: the Catholic church and its right wing converts, the alienation of tech, Tyler’s theory about whether AI was the antichrist, the need for community, and the question of how we build a moral framework in a time when everyone’s just on their f*****g phones all the time.
Enjoy!
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Today we have back our Consultant of War and the Joe House of the podcast, Patrick Hultgren, to talk about Pete Hegseth, the war crime memes, and we go over our favorite new theory about Trump: He’s spending all his time planning his big new fancy ballroom and doesn’t care anymore what happens with the government, which is why all these cabinet dudes are just doing their own agendas and pardoning random drug lords with no comment at all from the White House. Enjoy a day early!
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Today, we have on Bhaskar Sunkara, President of The Nation and founding editor of Jacobin. We talk about his best sports bets, the Larry Summers email scandal, and what Zohran’s early days and robust popularity might mean for the left. Very lively episode here so please give it a listen!
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Today, we talk about the big cave by the Democrats over the shutdown, whether it actually matters and a little bit about the declining box office numbers across the country and why people no longer seem to be going to the movies.
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We went live at 9PM as the polls closed in New York City and talked about Zohran, voting demographics, Graham Platner, and the “future of the Democratic party.” Enjoy!
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Today we play a game called “I didn’t read that article” in which one of us has read an article and the other one hasn’t and we ask questions about it. Today’s topics are the NBA betting scandal which made front page news last week and a new feature in Harper’s about the “Gooniverse” of young, pornography addicted young men.
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We’re both back this week to talk about the No Kings protests, the space comedians take up in political commentary these days. Do we really want Andrew Schultz and other comedians to be the new pundits?
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On today’s episode, Tyler talks to Joshua Wheeler about his brilliant debut novel, The High Heaven. Focusing on a UFO cult survivor who is obsessed with NASA, the novel spans her entire life and decades of American history. Josh talks about his literary influences, how his working class upbringing in New Mexico shaped his work, and the state of contemporary fiction. Tyler also asks Josh about his obsession with Smokey Bear and his sprawling collection of Smokey memorabilia.
Hello!
Today we’re talking the media business, the news that Bari Weiss will now be the Editor in Chief of CBS News, and what we think will happen during a period of inevitable fracturing and consolidation. Our guest is longtime listener and excellent reporter Maxwell Tani of Semafor.
Enjoy!