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.
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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.
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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!
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Today, we have on Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees international and a longtime humanitarian and emergency operator. He has served in senior appointments in two U.S. administrations. He was the director of USAID’s Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance in the Obama administration and also worked in the Biden administration.
Jeremy has been sounding the alarm about the famine in Gaza for a number of months, and has done a series of really helpful explainer threads on Twitter that have gone viral. We’ve invited him on the show today to help us understand the starvation crisis that is now in full swing.
Tyler and I both learned a ton in this episode about how famines happen, the infrastructure for aid, and the political obstructions in the way. In the end, we both came away somehow feeling both appropriately horrified but also not as nihilistic as we did before we talked to Jeremy. A really important episode of the show.
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Today, we talk about what the hell ICE is wearing out in the streets of American cities, “operator cosplay” which is the phenomenon of yahoos dressing up like they’re in special forces, and we talk a whole lot about ICE’s policy of wearing masks in public. We also continue our long search for the pod’s Joe House and bring on Kang’s college roommate, a veteran Green Beret who explains what ICE is wearing and why.
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Today we talk about how the Epstein story and Schrodinger’s client list has fractured the right and whether this might finally be the thing that ol’ Donny Trump can’t wriggle out of. And we talk about climate change and the floods on the east coast as Tyler puts back on his environmental studies professor hat. Enjoy!
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Today, we talk a bit more about Zohran and go through our best and worst case scenarios for his reign in New York City. How will he deal with intensive media scrutiny? Will his immense political talent carry him through inevitable crises? And how will his victory change the Democratic party on the whole?
Enjoy!
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Today, we have on Leigh Claire LaBerge, a professor at CUNY and the author of Fake Work: How I Began to Suspect Capitalism is a Joke, a funny and touching look back at what it was like to be young, naive, and have your whole life in front of you in 1999. We talk about the late 90s, the need for a bit of humor on the left, and start off with a few Zohran takes. Enjoy!
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Today, we welcome a guest from across the aisle to talk about what might be happening with the anti-war, anti-interventionist right in the face of Trump’s strikes against Iran. Sohrab Ahmari is the American editor of Unherd and the author of two books and one of the main intellectual forces shaping the ideas of a new right wing. A really great conversation with some interesting insights into what might be happening within Trump’s inner and less-than-inner circles and how influence might be peddled in the White House.
Enjoy!
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