my private podcast channel
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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.
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Hello!
Today we take a break from politics and talk about hobbies and a thing that Tyler coined “hobby inflation” where everything from clay pigeons to green fees to surfboards to knitting tools have all skyrocketed in price since the pandemic. What does this mean to the future of “doing fun s**t” and how does it dovetail with the never-ending rise in the amount of time we spend on our phones?
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Today, we have back on one of our favorite guests, Zena Hitz, a philosopher who teaches at St. John’s College. We talk about Kimmel’s canceling and uncanceling, the history of free speech in a conformist country like America, and the university’s place as the crucible for all discourse refereeing. Is this a good thing or is the modern university uniquely unqualified to hold such importance?
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Hello!
This week we talk about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, what he meant to the GOP and the right, in general, and the space he occupied within the broader political discourse. Our guest this week is John Ganz of Unpopular Front.
*Apologies in advance for a shift in audio in the middle — Kang’s internet kept freaking out and we had to switch from Zencastr to Zoom.
Hello!
This week we talk about the ICE raid of the Hyundai plant under construction in Georgia, the incoherence of the Trump agenda, the threat of national guardsmen being deployed in Chicago, Ezra Klein’s op-ed about the rise of authoritarianism and the lack of preparation within the Democratic party and we even talk some Week 1 NFL. Enjoy!
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Today, we have on a promised guest, Jonathan M Berman, an assistant professor in Basic Sciences at New York Institute of Technology, Arkansas, the co-chair of the 2017 March for Science, and the author of a 2020 book called Anti-Vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement. In light of last week’s turmoil and spate of resignations and firings at the CDC stemming from changes to vaccine policy, we wanted to invite Jonathan on to talk about the anti-vaccination movement and how it’s been turbo-charged by the rise of RFK.
Enjoy!
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Today we talk about Trump’s bid to create a sovereign wealth fund by investing in private companies, the parallels these actions have to his shakedowns of elite universities and Zohran’s attempt to throw up 135 on the bench press. We also talk about the “Badasses,” a group of Democrats who are trying to blend suburban mom vibes with their former careers in the CIA and military.
Enjoy!
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Today, we have on Jessica Dai and Ben Recht to talk about AI culture, Jessica’s prescient article from 2 years ago about alignment and the priorities of AI companies. What do these companies actually want? And who will define what AI culture is going forward? A bunch of frothy people on Twitter or will it just be the priorities of companies like Microsoft, Meta, and Google? If you want to know what “alignment” is and why its so important to the idea of AI, take a listen.
Hello,
This week, we have a long talk with an author we both have admired for a while, Jonathan Mahler. His new book, The Gods of New York: Egoists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990, is a chronicle of how a four year stretch in New York City laid down the groundwork for a new city, one that fully separated itself from its working class roots and any notion of civic unity for a fractured, polarized, and atomized city that gave rise to everyone from Donald Trump to Al Sharpton to Larry Kramer to Spike Lee. Really really good book and a great guest.
Hello!
Today we talk briefly about the Gilded Age (Jay is watching TV again) and what to make of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s statements about Gaza, America First, and foreign interventions. Is she trying to pull together the horseshoe? And will she actually succeed?
Enjoy!