Author: Time To Say Goodbye

Hello!

Tyler is back for today’s episode in which we talk about open container laws in New Jersey, the discourse about the discourse on Kate Middleton and the Royals, and some thoughts on how to get children off their phones and the Internet, more broadly. Jay reveals that his takes are aging at a more rapid rate than he is and Tyler proves his Marxist bonafides by suggesting the most radical plan you’ve ever heard for getting kids to stop staring at some glowing rectangle for hours and hours upon end.

As always, this show only works because of your contributions. We want to keep all the episodes free so if you could find it in your heart to pay $5 a month, you can do so at goodbye.substack.com. That helps us keep the lights on here.

Enjoy!

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Hello!

Today a very special March Madness episode with New York Times and CNN contributor Jane Coaston. We talk about the recent ascent of women’s basketball, the gendered ways in which we always expect good, progressive behavior from women’s coaches and athletes, Caitlin Clark-as-Larry Bird and Caitlin Clark-as-baller, and a bit about NIL and the transfer portal. I’ve wanted to have Jane on the pod for a very long time and this will not disappoint if you want her very good takes on women’s sports.

Tyler will be back next week.

Enjoy!

Jay

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Hello!

Today’s episode is a talk with Vinson Cunningham about his new novel GREAT EXPECTATIONS which came out yesterday and is in bookstores everywhere.

It’s everything you would expect from Vinson: beautiful sentences, long meditations on hoops, the church, and love, and a engrossing storyline that follows a young man who goes to work on the campaign of a certain senator from Illinois during his first presidential run.

BUY IT HERE.

And if you’re in New York City, Vinson will be in conversation with Doreen St. Felix tonight at Greenlight Books in Brooklyn.

Jay

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Hello!

Today, we talk to two people who have been thinking about reporting about AI for quite a long time: Repeat guest Ben Recht, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Berkeley and Karen Hao, a journalist who has written an excellent series of pieces for the Atlantic. We talk to Ben about SORA, OpenAI’s video generator that only exists in trailer form so far and what might happen if it’s actually good. (We don’t think it’ll be good. At least yet.) And then we talk some philosophy.

There’s also a surprise at the start of the show.

And then we talk to Karen about the massive amount of water and energy that AI might consume in the near future and why everyone seems to want massive, cumbersome and expense-heavy giant tools and not the smaller, more streamlined tools that might actually create something of use.

Links:

SORA announcement

Karen’s articles on AI for the MIT Technology Review (really good)

…and her more recent (also really good) work for the Atlantic.

thank you!

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Hello!

On today’s episode, we talk about Aaron Bushnell, the active-duty Air Force twenty-five year old who self-immolated in Washington, D.C., the history of the act and how it has been seen in different eras and different contexts. We compare, for example, how Barack Obama talked about the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor who is credited with sparking the Arab Spring with how much of the liberal commentariat talks about Bushnell (largely in terms of mental health). And we try to make sense of what demands this act places on the public and how it could be understood.

We also talk about this:

We also talk about Jay’s recent article about Pretendianism in the New Yorker and Tyler talks about his own experiences as a minority in the academy.

Some reading:

Wapo report on Bushnell

Article Jay wrote in 2022 about the self immolation of Wynn Bruce

Pretendian article

Enjoy!

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Hello!

Today, we talked about a topic that we’ve been circling around for a while — the minority vote. We now have months of polls all pointing towards the same trends in terms of Black, Latino and Asian voters all moving towards the right for a variety of reasons, most of which are left unexamined by many in the mainstream presses.

That, of course, doesn’t mean that we don’t hear about the “Black vote” or the “Latino vote.” We do read the polling results and see charts detailing the shift. But that second part — the explanation for why — almost never gets voiced for what I imagine is the very simple reason that most campaigns, pundits, and the like don’t really know the answers.

We talk about all that on the show and give our own thoughts about why different groups of people might be leaving the Democrat Party and what implications it might have not just on 2024, but for the future of progressive politics. Can the Dems hold together their coalition by just screaming at minorities that if they don’t show up, they’re going to be living in a fascist state?

Thanks for listening and as always, if you’re receiving this email and haven’t subscribed to the show, we would greatly appreciate your support to help us keep the lights on here.

READING LIST

Article in Slow Boring about the moderate Black voter

Poll of Latino voters shows concerns about inflation and the economy

Recent research showing that Black voter concerns about Climate Change

Is Biden’s Israel policy alienating Black voters?

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Hello!

Today’s episode is an interview with Carrie Sun, whose memoir PRIVATE EQUITY came out yesterday. (Buy it here!) The book is a memoir about the time Carrie spent working as the right hand for one of the country’s most famous billionaire hedge fund managers. We talk about the allure of finance and Wall Street, Ishiguro and restraint in writing, the ways in which political awakenings can sometimes be quite mundane in their origins, and a lot more about this wonderful book. If you’re a fan of everything from Ishiguro to Michael Lewis, this book is worth checking out, especially if you want to see what its like to work in a place where there are daily exploitations, insane expectations, but also sometimes there’s a bag on your desk and there’s a $2000 pair of leggings inside.

Enjoy!

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Hello!

Today, we talk about the Apple Vision Pro and its grim vision for how you should be spending your time. Also, we talk a lot about Jaron Lanier’s most recent essay about the Virtual Reality in the New Yorker, specifically the question he poses about how technology should fit into our lives and whether tech can just create things because they’re cool without affixing their products to some greater mission for humanity.

The Apple Vision Pro doesn’t come with any story about how its going to change everything or even a particularly great series of launch apps that feel revolutionary. It just kinda is a VR headset that asks you to wear it around all the time. Lanier’s essay, as we discuss, asks whether “all the time” technology actually makes sense.

ENJOY!

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Hello!

This week we have on Musa Al-Gharbi, a professor of sociology at Stony Brook University. We talk a lot about “kids these days” and the tendency for all sorts of reactionaries to blame them for everything that’s wrong with this country. Don’t like illiberal attitudes on campuses? Blame the kids. Do you think free expression is at risk? Blame the kids. Feel like democracy is on the brink of collapse? Blame the kids.

(As always, if you’re reading this and not subscribed to our substack or Patreon, please consider supporting the show at goodbye.substack.com. It’s just $5 a month and helps us keep it going.)

Musa’s work is a critical intervention into all this kid blaming and we talk about the actual problem: Adults these days. We also touch on teachers, peer review as gatekeeping, and much more!

Here’s some info on Musa’s upcoming book from Princeton University PRess, which I encourage everyone to pre-order.

A piece he wrote outlining the problem with people saying “the kids these days” are responsible for everything that’s wrong with the discourse.

Referenced in our conversation: Science is a strong-link problem by Adam Mastroianni

A look at the Polarizing Effect of the March for Science on Attitudes toward Scientists by Matthew Motta

A study on the difference between trust in science and trust in scientists by Marcus Mann and Cyrus Schleifer

And Musa’s recent look at antisemitism in America and a lot of the ways in which it is misunderstood.

Enjoy!

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Hello!

This week, we talk about the big Polyamory article in New York Magazine and the proposition that breaking the bonds of monogamy might be a political statement, one that frees both sides from the constraints of marriage. Are we just reinventing ways to justify selfish behavior? And why does every personal decision in the lives of upper middle class, well-educated people need to turn into some movement that promises nothing?

We also continue our ongoing talk about visions of the climate future with a conversation about “Psalm for the Wild Built” by Becky Chambers, which, in turn, led to a longer conversation about surf movies and Tyler’s hobby of fishing at 3 AM in a wetsuit in the cold unruly waters of coastal Maine.

Enjoy!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe