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Reference
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The Tools Changed, And So Was It A Big Deal?
Summary:
The first full protols record i did was probably, like, what it is, burn am conventios two thousand an two. I know that was the first one that i did, completely in the box. A, nixed to everything. Thats that’ interesting. What are the other kind of stuff that that you’re talking about there, with the tools changing, that they were it a big deal? Cause wee talked about the economics little bit. So now, a, om, how did that happen?
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Tha, i know that like a clarity actually, was the first record i used protols on a but i still was still recording tape and then transferring inde protols. And i did that for a while. I don’t know exactly where i abandoned tape, but, like, there was a good chunk of time where i was, ie, kind of doing both and abeing and wanting to make the jump, but never feeling comfortable doing it. Imi, probably it might have been, like, i think the first full protols record i did was probably, like, what it is, burn am conventios two thousand an two, or something like that. That might have been. I know that was the first one that i did, completely in the box. A, nixed to everything. A, and that might have bee the first one.
Speaker 1
Thats that’ interesting. What are the other, what are the other kind of stuff that that you’re talking about there, with the tools changing, that they were it a big deal. So you said that in a way that almost sounded it was on the, it was on thi negative side a little bit, like, well, the tools changed, and this and that happened. And so is that? Are you saying that those types of things made the business model different? Or you talking about the sound? Cause wee talked about the economics little bit. So now, a, om, how did that?The Search Machine - memex on coda
Summary:
In 19 forty five, vannyvert took to the page and dreamed up an imaginary, futuristic solution to the problem of search. The memixs would make search easier. There’d be a keyboard, viewing screens and storage space for all of human knowledge as long as it was on microfilm and could fit into a dust drawer. On the left side there would be all the information in the universe, and it would all have links. And then on the right side you would follow those links for the information you wanted. So the search became about connections within the what you were looking for.
Transcript:
Speaker 4
There was no efficient way for people to pars through all that information.
Speaker 1
But venever was a big believer in the potential of machines.
Speaker 6
The analytical machine, which will supplement a man’s tinking methos, which will siek forit, it will have as great an effect on his grasp of the world and his access to darter and so on, as manipulationo will have as great an effect in that way as the invention of the machine way back took the load off of men by giving them mechanical power instead of the power of their musclesso.
Speaker 1
In 19 forty five, vannyvert took to the page and dreamed up an imaginary, futuristic solution to the problem of search, a machine called memix. The memixs would make search easier. It would look like a desk. There’d be a keyboard, viewing screens and storage space for all of human knowledge as long as it was on microfilm and could fit into a dust drawer.
Speaker 3
On the left side there would be all the information in the universe, and it would all have links. And then on the right side, you would follow those links for the information you wanted.
Speaker 1
So the search became about connections within the what you were looking for.Make: the basics
Summary:
Everybody’s on their own journey and people learn at different speeds. So for me, i chose the i’m actually not going to think about automations for years. But then i just remember, like, solving my own problems here, having some fun. That’s what gave me hope for learning make.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Into the really, really teky things. But then i just remember, like, solving my own problems here, having some fun. Nd, i think that’s what it’s really all about. Everybody’s on their own journey and people learn at different speeds. So for me, i chose the i’m actually not going to think about automations for years. I think people in our space, we’re doing that for a little while, before, at least i ever thought about using it with any sense of purpose. And then when you start getting into some problems that no one else around you is helping with you, then are almost forced to figure it out, either yourself or to ask for help. And like, different personalities approach things differently. So for me, it was, ok, i’ll figure this out and maybe pay some other people along the way to learn how to do this thing. Hos solution was, i want tog talk to a computer to solve this problem instead of a person. Maybe i’ll talk through computer at a person over upwork or fiveor to augment those skills about like cotos to people that are putting out youtube content, putting in tatorials, like just helping other people as much as they can. That’s what gave me hope for learning make. Cause it can be a pretty big lift the first time you open it up. So let’s zoom out, like ten thousand foot view. What does make used to be in tagr mat?
Speaker 1
Can we just commit here to just never calling it integramat again, or just calling it mad going forward. Yes, its it’s a strach rate.
Speaker 2
It like when youThe Bulwark Podcast
Summary:
Hiterly sikes here, there’s really never been a better time to help support the mission of the bulwark to bring sanity and a non tribal lens to our national politics. Now we’re
Transcript:
Speaker 3
Hiterly sikes here, there’s really never been a better time to help support the mission of the bulwark to bring sanity and a non tribal lens to our national politics. Now we’re notI Don’t Like the Allowed Censorship
Summary:
“We’re still the kids who used to be. I put my hand on the stove to see if I still bleed and nothing hurts anymore,” he says. “I went to Japan for two to three months, right? And it’s Pete Davidson bragging about being in bed with my wife.”
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Oh, like Twitter and so on. Twitter. That has us to do. Drink champs that hurt you. That drink champs, uh, that no one took it down, took down your conversation. Oh, it didn’t hurt you. Man, you got to be honest about the pain.
Speaker 1
We’re still the kids who used to be. I put my hand on the stove to see if I still bleed and nothing hurts anymore. I feel kind free. No, I’m, do you think? You know, I, I went to Japan for two to three months, right? The day I had Sunday service, my kids are supposed to be there and my kids would know where to be found. And I text Kim and said, where are my kids? We get into an argument and then I get a text from a number I don’t know. And it’s Pete Davidson bragging about being in bed with my wife.
Speaker 2
Then just fucking with you.
Speaker 1
Well, at that point, it’s like they’re trying to put me in jail or put a friend of mine in jail because then I’m going toThe Puzzle of the Universe
Summary:
The puzzle is basically like alerting the creator that we exist. Or maybe the puzzle is just to just break out of the system and just, uh, you know, stick it to the creator in some way. So this is like a touring test for intelligence from Earth. Like the creators, uh, I mean, maybe this is like trying to complete the next war in a sentence.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
So this is like a touring test for intelligence from Earth. Like the creators, uh, I mean, maybe this is like trying to complete the next war in a sentence. This is a complicated way of that. Like Earth is just, is basically sending a message back.
Speaker 1
Yeah, the puzzle is basically like alerting the creator that we exist. Or maybe the puzzle is just to just break out of the system and just, uh, you know, uh, stick it to the creator in some way. Uh, basically like if you’re playing a video game, you can, um, you can somehow find an exploit and find a way to execute on the host machine, uh, in your arbitrary code. Uh, there’s some, uh, for example, I believe someone got a Mario, a game of Mario to play Pong just by, um, exploding it. And then, um, creating a basically writing, writing code and being able to execute arbitrary code in the game. And so maybe we should be, maybe that’s the puzzle is that we should be, um, uh, find a way to exploit it. So, so I think like some of these synthetic ais will eventually find the universe to be some kind of a puzzle and then solve it in some way. And that’s kind of like the end game somehow.Annotator
Key takeaways:
The reconstruction of a video is difficult, but it can be done.
The annotation of a video is a way to ensure accuracy.
The reconstruction and annotation of videos is an interesting process that can be done by humans.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
And how difficult is the reconstruction? It’s difficult, but it can be done. So there’s the overlap between the cameras and you do the reconstruction and there’s perhaps there’s any inaccuracy. So that’s caught in the annotation step.
Speaker 1
Yes. The nice thing about the annotation is that it is fully offline. You have infinite time. You have a chunk of one minute and you’re trying to just offline in a super computer somewhere, figure out where were the positions of all the cars of all the people. And you have your full one-minute video from all the angles and you can run all the neural nets you want. And they can be very efficient, massive neural nets. There can be neural nets that can’t even run in the car later at test time. So they can be even more powerful neural nets than what you can eventually deploy. So you can do anything you want, three-dimensional reconstruction, neural nets, anything you want just to recover that truth and then you supervise that truth.
Speaker 2
What have you learned? You said no mistakes about humans doing annotation because I assume humans there’s a range of things they’re good at in terms of clicking stuff on screen. Isn’t that how interesting is that you have a problem of designing an annotator where humans are accurate, enjoy it? Like what are they even the metrics or efficient or productive, all that kind of stuff?
Speaker 1
Yeah, so I grew the annotation team at Tesla from basically 0 to 1000 while I was there. That was really interesting. My background is a PhD student researcher. So growing that kind of an organization was pretty crazy.Is There a Lot of Longing for It?
Summary:
I could write a few lines of code that catch these bots. If you are a sophisticated actor, you could probably create a pretty good bot right now using tools like GPTs. And so I think yeah, it’s quite plausible and it’s going to be hard to defend. There was a Google engineer that claimed that the Lambda was sentient. Do you think there’s any inkling of truth to what he felt?
Transcript:
Speaker 1
My impression of it honestly is there’s a lot of longing for it. I mean, yeah, just that’s what I it’s not subtle. It’s my impression of it. It’s not subtle.
Speaker 2
But you have there’s my impression as well, but it feels like maybe you’re seeing the tip of the iceberg. Maybe the number of bots is in like the trillions and you have to like, just it’s a constant assault of bots. And you’ve, yeah, I don’t know. You have to steal man the case because the bots I’m seeing are pretty obvious. I could write a few lines of code that catch these bots.
Speaker 1
I mean, definitely there’s a lot of long fruit, but I will say I agree that if you are a sophisticated actor, you could probably create a pretty good bot right now, you know, using tools like GPTs, because it’s a language model. You can generate faces that look quite good now. And you can do this at scale. And so I think yeah, it’s quite plausible and it’s going to be hard to defend.
Speaker 2
There was a Google engineer that claimed that the Lambda was sentient. Do you think there’s any inkling of truth to what he felt?The Conversation About UFOs Is About to Be More Prominent
Summary:
There’s no telling what spooky things may in fact be true. The question is whether science and reason can generate viral sticky stories that give meaning to people’s lives. Whatever is true ultimately should be captivating. It’s more captivating than whatever is real. We’re so just climbing out of the darkness in terms of our understanding of what the hell is going on.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
The question is, what is the source of the most viral and sticky stories that ultimately lead to a positive outcome? Communism was having grown up in the Soviet Union, even still having relatives in Russia. There’s a stickiness to the nationalism and to the ideologies of communism that religious or not, you could say it’s religious fervor, I could just say it’s great stories that are viral and sticky. I’m using the most horrible words, but the question is whether science and reason can generate viral sticky stories that give meaning to people’s lives. In your senses it does.
Speaker 1
Whatever is true ultimately should be captivating. It’s more captivating than whatever is real. Because reality is, again, we’re so just climbing out of the darkness in terms of our understanding of what the hell is going on. There’s no telling what spooky things may in fact be true. I don’t know if you’ve been on the receiving end of recent rumors about our conversation about UFOs very likely changing in the near term. There was just a Washington Post article and a New Yorker article. I’ve received some private outreach and perhaps you have. I know other people in orbit have people who are claiming that the government has known much more about UFOs than they have let on until now. This conversation is actually about to become more prominent. It’s not going to be whoever’s left standing when the music stops. It’s not going to be a comfortable position to be in as a super rigorous scientific skeptic saying there’s been saying there’s no there there for the last 75 years. The short version is it sounds like the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Pentagon are very likely to say to Congress at some point in the not too distant future that we have evidence that there is technology flying around here that seems like it can’t possibly be of human origin. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do with that kind of disclosure. Maybe it’s just it’s going to be nothing, no follow on conversation to really have. But that is such a powerfully strange circumstance to be in. It’s just what are we going to do with that? If in fact that’s what happens. If in fact the considered opinion despite the embarrassment it causes them of the US government, of all of our intelligence, all of the relevant intelligence services is that this isn’t a hoax. It’s too there’s too much data to suggest that it’s a hoax. We’ve got too much radar imagery. There’s too much too much satellite data, whatever data, whatever data they actually have. There’s too much of it. All we can say now is something’s going on and there’s no way it’s the Chinese or the Russians or anyone else’s technology. That should arrest our attention collectively to a degree that nothing in our lifetime has. Now one worries that we’re so jaded and confused and distracted that it’s going to get much less coverage than Obama’s tan suit did a bunch of years ago. It’s who knows how we’ll respond to that. It’s just to say that the need for us to tell ourselves an honest story about what’s going on and what’s likely to happen next is never going to go away. It’s important.The Pep Talk
Summary:
It’s the flip side of feeling like you are not merely identical to experience. You feel like you’re an agent that is appropriating an experience. There seems to be a rider on the horse or a passenger in the body. People don’t feel truly identical to their bodies down to their toes. They sort of feel like they have bodies and that feels like a self. That feels like me.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
It is the flip side of this feeling of self. It’s the flip side of feeling like you are not merely identical to experience. You feel like you’re having an experience. You feel like you’re an agent that is appropriating an experience. There’s a protagonist in the movie of your life and it is you. It’s not just the movie. There are sights and sounds and sensations and thoughts and emotions and this whole cacophony of experience, a felt experience, a felt experience of embodiment. But there seems to be a rider on the horse or a passenger in the body. People don’t feel truly identical to their bodies down to their toes. They sort of feel like they have bodies. They feel like they’re minds in bodies and that feels like a self. That feels like me. Again, this gets very paradoxical when you talk about the experience of being in relationship to yourself or talking to yourself, giving yourself a pep talk. If you’re the one talking, why are you also the one listening? Why do you need the pep talk and why does it work? If you’re the one giving the pep talk. Or if I say, where are my keys? If I’m looking for my keys, why do I think the superfluous thought, where are my keys? I know I’m looking for the fucking keys. I’m the one looking. Who am I telling that we now need to look for the keys?The Next Most Evident Atom Unit Are Content Creators
Summary:
The next most obvious atomic unit are content creators. Lex Friedman, this random crazy guy, Mr. Beast, Jimmy Donaldson,. Just the two of you alone, add it up, okay? And you guys are going to approach in the next five years, a billion people. The only thing that you guys haven’t figured out yet is how to capture trillions of dollars of value. Yeah, and I think Jimmy is going to build an enormous business.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Then this next wave were the apps, Facebook, QQ, Tencent, TikTok, Twitter, Snapchat, that whole panoply of apps. And interestingly, they were in many ways an atomized version of the platforms. They sat on top of them, they were an ecosystem participant, but the value they created was the same. Trillions of dollars of enterprise value, billions of monthly active users. While there’s an interesting phenomenon that’s kind of hiding in plain sight, which is that the next most obvious atomic unit are content creators. Now let me give you two examples. Lex Friedman, this random crazy guy, Mr. Beast, Jimmy Donaldson, just the two of you alone, add it up, okay? And you guys are going to approach in the next five years, a billion people. The only thing that you guys haven’t figured out yet is how to capture trillions of dollars of value. Now maybe you don’t want to and maybe that’s not your stated mission. Right, right, but let’s just look at Mr. Beast alone because he is trying to do exactly that probably. Yeah, and I think Jimmy is going to build an enormous business. But if you take Jimmy and all of the other content creators, right, you guys are atomizing what the apps have done. You’re providing your own curated news feeds. You’re providing your own curated communities. You’re allowed, you let people move in and out of these things in a very lightweight way and value is accruing to you.The Loops
Summary:
“I think for a while I would kind of buy into that. But right now where I’m right now I just see it as like more universal patterns up like like immaturity and manipulation,” she said. “Whenever I feel guilt, it’s actually a way to not feel sadness.”
Transcript:
Speaker 1
And then she would say you’re so American you’re so superficial like you don’t value hospitality. And I think for a while I would kind of buy into that. But right now where I’m right now I just see it as like more universal patterns up like like immaturity and manipulation. But I think back to your question about the loops. I think that’s what I’m struggling with the most is like I have like rumination and it’s endless and so, so a lot of the rumination is like what could I have done differently like could I have said it more gently could I have from their feelings more. And I guess what I’m trying what I’m starting to understand is that whenever I feel guilt. It’s actually a way to not feel sadness. Because whenever I think like oh I feel guilty if I had just done something differently. Then, then I can tell myself like I could have some control over their behavior. But whenever I say like their behavior is abusive. Then IThe Potential Banality of Large Language Models
Key takeaways:
The use of AI models can limit human creativity and constrain change and transformation by replicating past behavior
Large language models rely on shuffling existing data rather than creating something entirely new
The potential banality of AI may lead to a future that is more like the past, rather than something completely different
AI’s reliance on prediction engines may result in predictable outcomes rather than unpredictable ones
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Let me get to the huffing glue question. I think there’s one version where the system simply top out the technology ends. Fun. I think there’s another one though, which you’re getting at in one of your recent pieces on the potential banality of all this, which is you’re dealing with models trained on what we’ve already said and thought and done that is in a pro-dean genre, imitating way, mimicking it back at us. And so very far from making the future unbelievably different than the past, what it will do is make the future more like the past. It will be a boundary on human creativity and change and transformation. You write far from serving away from a norm. These systems make the future by conservatively iterating the past. Even the apparent creativity of large language models relies on the novel shuffling of a gargantuan deck of cards that already exists. So I think that’s another way of thinking about what might fail here, that instead of being an opening to something totally different, completely unpredictable, it’s actually a narrowing to the completely predictable, literally built on prediction engines.
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. And is there something else going on in our own experience? It’s so clear that we are not just predicting that we’re not just looping, that there is a space of novelty and of potential creativity, of wrestling with possibilities that is so intrinsic to how we operate, that it’s very difficult to imagine collapsing that and leading towards something productive and something interesting. And what does that look like on a culture-wide basis as we get used to enjoying cultural products that are produced by large language models, and the way in which they recirculate? Because you can cynically say, well, that’s already kind of happening. You look at popular music. What is popular music? Is it like incredible acts of generative novelty? No, it’s more like mixes and matches of things and a little bit of action thrown in, a little bit of shifting here. So it’s possible that reshuffling the deck over and over again, the deck is big enough. There’s still going to be enough novelty to entertain us, let’s say. But it’s hard to sort of square that with any more expanded view of what cultural products do for us, or cultural works, great literature, great movies, whatever, that it’s hard to see it simply as an iterative process, that there’s some other dimension to those products. And are we actually getting to a place where we start to recognize that less and less, that it’s sufficient to simply be entertained by the reshuffled deck? Or is it just going to be clear that there is this kind of difference that we’re losing?The Myth of Singularity
Key takeaways:
The technical illegibility and mythical legibility of AI systems creates a dissonance
The field of AI is heavily mythologized
The Singularity is a mythic concept similar to eschatological beliefs
We may be getting trapped in stories about AI that don’t reflect reality
Transcript:
Speaker 2
I don’t think everybody listening is going to love this area because I’ve over time cultivated an audience that likes things to be concrete, but I am always struck by the dissonance between the technical illegibility and the mythical legibility of these systems. In particular, it is the most myth and storied up area I have ever seen or covered. We have however many decades of sci-fi. We have Ultron and Hal and Skynet and the Matrix and Asma’s laws of robotics. Going backwards, we have fantasy and summoning. Then people talk about the golems and the sources of apprentice. I’ve recommended it before, but Megan O’Gibbon’s great book, God Human Animal Machine is all about a lot of the Christian mythology operating in a suburbs away here. Singularity is a very mythic concept, very similar, very eschatological to things you’ll see in raptures and so on. There’s this way in which we don’t understand these systems out well, and then we perhaps understand them all too well. You could argue we’re getting trapped in stories that maybe it doesn’t net out that way at all. Maybe this stuff tops out at a fairly low level, right? It’s a pretty good chatbot, and we’re not able to get to be super intelligences, and we’ve let ourselves stray with however many years of imagining what we could create. But it’s something I’ve appreciated about your work because I notice it just traveling through this world, how myth-dup it is, how much people are operating with stories running in the back of their minds, both consciously and unconsciously, and those stories are creating a lot of interpretive framework because they’re standing in for things we actually don’t yet know how to interpret.
Speaker 1
Yeah, or might not be able to. There’s always a place where we’re dealing with these changing human models and cognitions, and now we know that as the technologies, not just in AI, but technologies get more and more powerful, we were like, what, how do we wrap our heads around this? Well, we got all the science fiction lying around. Well, that makes sense. So there is this problem about self-fulfilling prophecies, about getting caught by narratives that then shape your view so much that you’re not able to see other developments. So we absolutely have to be aware of these things. And a lot of my work has been again, kind of like a two-step process where on the one hand, I’m even more open for the mythological potentials, the specular possibilities, the wild dreamings, than your standard sort of culture critic. And at the same time, it’s like, yes, and we must deconstruct and see what that story is kind of telling us because we are in a place of kind of self-fulfilling prophecies.The Loss of Intelligence in Chatbots
Key takeaways:
The speaker believes that chatbots challenge our informed expectation of agency and consciousness.
Existing in a space of recognizing the strangeness and challenge of chatbots can be helpful.
There are still unexplained phenomena in chatbot systems.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
It’s why I like a quote from you, which is that weird things are quote anomalous, they deviate from the norms of informed expectation and challenge established explanations sometimes quite radically. And that felt very true to me here on two levels. One is one you’re getting at here, which is when you talk about the norms of informed expectation, when we interact with anything that has a facility with language and the ability to work in context that these chatbots do, we assume agency, our informed expectation is there is something we would call a mind on the other side of that. And you can go way too far with that and assume sentience and consciousness, I think you can go not nearly far enough and just say, Oh, this is an auto complete and you’re an idiot, forget it and fooled by it. But it’s why I think trying to exist in a space of this is challenging. This is strange is helpful. But then the other, when you talk about weird things, challenge established explanations, we don’t have good explanations of what’s going on in these systems. And so this world where more and more might get turned over to them is a world where we might lose. And I think this is actually one of the possible coming traumas that people are not quite paying good enough attention to. We might lose a lot of legibility of our own scientists. And you can say in certain areas of science, we already have right, we don’t really understand quantum physics, that kind of thing. But just our kids will have friends who they understand to be friends operating on their phones. But we don’t know why those friends, those inorganic and whatever they are, intelligences operate the way they do that loss of being able to explain the world around us at any level of granularity. That’s more profound than I think people are giving it credit for and deserves more reflection than I think people are giving it.
Speaker 1
No, absolutely. I mean, I couldn’t agree more. I remember the article I read 12 years ago, where that shift became clear to me. Oh, now we’re getting to the place where you can’t explain the outcome because of the complexity, because of the alienness of the operation, because of the density of the data. I mean, I almost felt it like a kind of nausea, because it’s really significant. And most of us, we’re not scientists. We are all used to living in a world where we don’t understand how our phone works. We trust that the guy who makes the phone knows how the phone works. So I don’t worry about it, or I trust that the scientist who’s that I’m reading about knows something. And that kind of trust is obviously shifted more than we might have imagined. But we still kind of operate in that zone so that such a radical shift in scientific production, technological production, wouldn’t hit us personally. But I may not know how the phone works, but Bob knows how the phone works. And then when you know that Bob doesn’t know, and when Bob’s like, I don’t know, what we’re just going to ride this thing, then this is where we get back to the weird, is that that is such a significant shift away from a kind of deep, modern archetype of knowledge and power. Because one of the things that I’ve been tracking is how when people try to talk about or articulate all these very complicated, unnerving, and urgent issues that we’re facing now, when and where they grab for myth. When they look for words like summoning or the golem or these sort of, those things are not insignificant. They might just be, oh, well, we’re just trying to illustrate or have a common cultural signifier for these processes. And I’m like, well, yes and no. I mean, in a way, my whole work, my whole attitude towards technology has always been about finding those mythic dimensions and then taking them seriously, but not literally, but to see the way that they operate and what stories they tell.The Weirdness of AI
Key takeaways:
AI has a quality of uncanniness that challenges set assumptions about how things work
This quality of weirdness is not simply confusing or alien, but has a familiar unfamiliarity to it
One of the most obvious places to look at AI weirdness is in AI safety issues
Transcript:
Speaker 2
So let’s talk about AI, which is a place where I’ve reached for the metaphors of the weird working off of some of your work. And you’ve done a lot of thinking there now about AI and weirdness. So what makes AI weird?
Speaker 1
That’s such a good question. I’ve really been thinking that a lot. I think part of it, if you, you have to go, what is the weird? And one of the ways of thinking about it is that there’s something here that challenges my set assumptions about how things work, that has an additional quality, let’s say, of some kind of uncanniness, something that is not simply confusing or alien, but has a familiar unfamiliarity to it. And I think the most obvious place to look at it is, and the first place while this explained personally. So I was kind of ignored a lot of the AI stuff I’ve known about AI safety issues for a very long time. And I know people are really into it. And just, you know, I knew a little bit about it, but it just didn’t hit me, really. I almost kind of consciously avoided it, because I sort of felt that it was going to be something that was going to take over my imagination and mind. And I was going to have to pay a lot of attention to it. And so when I finally read this book, Farmacow AI, by K. A. Lotta McDowell, which was co-written with GPT-3. And Kay has a really, they are interested in shamanism and ayahuasca in the future of humanity and all these kind of very, very Bay area topics, all woven together in this bizarre braid. And I’m reading the book. And then I’m reading GPT-3. And I can see the way it’s kind of a collage. And then there’s a statement that hits me. And I slip into projecting, constructing an author or a sense of an author that is almost immediately, the drugs pulled out from under it. And I’m left in this space of ambivalence, but particularly about agency. And there’s the sense of like an almost animist sense that there’s something going on here that’s more than just pattern recognition and an algorithm choosing the next best word. And you can intellectually lay that back on and go, okay, this is just a machine. It’s just operating. It’s read the whole internet. It’s just making a really good guess. It just has that feel. And you’re like, okay, but that’s not at all what’s happening kind of emotionally or even spiritually in that response. And that’s just one example. I think it’s a particularly concrete one of where do we locate the agency if we’re really trying to stay in a critical mindset? I mean, some people are just like, sure, I’m just talking to the machine. No problem. I’m just talking to a chat machine. No big deal. Yeah. But if you’re like trying to deconstruct it and at the same time, recognizing its interactive dimension, well, then we’re in this kind of animist space where I’m not so sure if that doll in the corner is actually animated or not. And that’s a very classic site of the uncanny. So there’s that suddenly there’s an uncanniness in the midst of this, you know, highly commoditized major, major world changing machine that is, well, that’s pretty weird.The Power of Podcasting
Summary:
I love that interview because if it had not been for the length of time and the discussion that went on for a while, you wouldn’t have gotten to that moment of revelation. I think in the media that’s played at me is these cartoonish characters. Maybe there’s a little more little complexity here. That’s what I like about podcasts. And also you have the ability to think in real time. In another medium, you need to have what your agenda is and stick to that agenda.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Not. And so that interview was really great, especially the last question I asked, which I didn’t expect to ask. And we talked about it last night was she goes, well, you know, I could have been something else. And I said, what could you view a Ben? And she started to describe a life she’d never live, right? And I thought I was teary. It was like, wow, you know, and again, of course she has responsibility, blah, blah, blah, but she was a kid. She was a kid. Like, in many ways, I have a son who’s older. Then she was at the time. And I love that interview because if it had not been for the length of time and the discussion that went on for a while, you wouldn’t have gotten to that moment of revelation that I think people rethought her. Like, oh, wait a minute, what I think in the media that’s played at me is these cartoonish characters. Maybe there’s a little more little complexity here. And that’s what I like about podcasts.
Speaker 2
And also you have the ability to think in real time. I don’t know whether you’ve ever changed your mind in the middle of a podcast, but this is something that you can’t do in another medium. In another medium, you need to have what your agenda is and stick to that agenda. I think one of the things about the podcast is one of your pockets is called pivot is that you can pivot right in the middle and go, okay, you know what, I, this is a completely different point of view or let’s go off on a different tangent that I wasn’t planning on talking about. I hadn’t thought of that.
Speaker 1
I mean, I was not expecting to talk with you about Monica Lewinsky. What’s interesting is Scott today,The Power of Podcasting
Summary:
I love that interview because if it had not been for the length of time and the discussion that went on for a while, you wouldn’t have gotten to that moment of revelation. I think in the media that’s played at me is these cartoonish characters. Maybe there’s a little more little complexity here. That’s what I like about podcasts. And also you have the ability to think in real time. In another medium, you need to have what your agenda is and stick to that agenda.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Not. And so that interview was really great, especially the last question I asked, which I didn’t expect to ask. And we talked about it last night was she goes, well, you know, I could have been something else. And I said, what could you view a Ben? And she started to describe a life she’d never live, right? And I thought I was teary. It was like, wow, you know, and again, of course she has responsibility, blah, blah, blah, but she was a kid. She was a kid. Like, in many ways, I have a son who’s older. Then she was at the time. And I love that interview because if it had not been for the length of time and the discussion that went on for a while, you wouldn’t have gotten to that moment of revelation that I think people rethought her. Like, oh, wait a minute, what I think in the media that’s played at me is these cartoonish characters. Maybe there’s a little more little complexity here. And that’s what I like about podcasts.
Speaker 2
And also you have the ability to think in real time. I don’t know whether you’ve ever changed your mind in the middle of a podcast, but this is something that you can’t do in another medium. In another medium, you need to have what your agenda is and stick to that agenda. I think one of the things about the podcast is one of your pockets is called pivot is that you can pivot right in the middle and go, okay, you know what, I, this is a completely different point of view or let’s go off on a different tangent that I wasn’t planning on talking about. I hadn’t thought of that.
Speaker 1
I mean, I was not expecting to talk with you about Monica Lewinsky. What’s interesting is Scott today,I Don’t Like the Allowed Censorship
Summary:
“We’re still the kids who used to be. I put my hand on the stove to see if I still bleed and nothing hurts anymore,” he says. “I went to Japan for two to three months, right? And it’s Pete Davidson bragging about being in bed with my wife.”
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Oh, like Twitter and so on. Twitter. That has us to do. Drink champs that hurt you. That drink champs, uh, that no one took it down, took down your conversation. Oh, it didn’t hurt you. Man, you got to be honest about the pain.
Speaker 1
We’re still the kids who used to be. I put my hand on the stove to see if I still bleed and nothing hurts anymore. I feel kind free. No, I’m, do you think? You know, I, I went to Japan for two to three months, right? The day I had Sunday service, my kids are supposed to be there and my kids would know where to be found. And I text Kim and said, where are my kids? We get into an argument and then I get a text from a number I don’t know. And it’s Pete Davidson bragging about being in bed with my wife.
Speaker 2
Then just fucking with you.
Speaker 1
Well, at that point, it’s like they’re trying to put me in jail or put a friend of mine in jail because then I’m going to
The New Era of Political Violence is Here
Summary:
The danger is not organized civil war, but individual americans with deep resentments and delusions. Donald trump knows that in these conspiracies will provoke violence and threats of violence. This happened on january sixth, and is now happening again. It is entirely foreseeable that the violence will escalate further.
Transcript:
Speaker 3
As of last week, you must also believe that 30 career fbi agents who have spent their lives working to serve our country abandoned their honor and their oaths and e tomoro lago, not to perform a lawful search or address a national security threat, but instead with a secret plan to plant fake, incriminating documents in the boxes they seized. This is yet another insidious lie. Donald trump knows that in these conspiracies will provoke violence and threats of violence. This happened on january sixth, and is now happening again. It is entirely foreseeable that the violence will escalate further. Yet he and others continue purposely to feed the danger.
Speaker 2
So as talk about this, you wrote a great piece, which i cited in the bulwark news letter the other day, the new era of political violence is here. And you wrote, the danger is not organized civil war, but individual americans with deep resentments and delusions. And you know, i was really struck by by one of by one paragraph where you talk to one of the original never trumpers. Over the week end, a man is lost o friends and family because of his opposition to trump. And he told me, i’m reading from youpice, and he told me that one of the most unsettling things to him is that these same pro trump family and friends now say they believe the trump broke the law, but they don’t care. They see trump and his crusade, their crusade against evil, the drama that gives their lives meaning, is more important than the law. And some of these people are ready to snap and to resort to violence.
Speaker 1
So talk to me about ye a lot of that came from a discussion i was in on morning joe where we were talking about civil war. And i keep bristling at the term civil war, because when we think of civil war, we think of, you know, the 50 fourth massachusetts going into battle against the kentucky volunteers, or the 30 fifth alabama rifles, or s. You know, it’s not that organized. It’s people like the guy in cincinnati, right where he just spends too much time watching television, too much time staring at a computer screen, you know, donald trump as corrupt fbi agents, the derated my it’s the worst ses orhavit. And he says, ok, my empty life will now have meaning, because i’m going to go shoot a nail gun at ef b i agents. And that, i think, in some ways, is even more dangerous because it’s unpredictable, and the people that are unstable walking around among us. That’s spreading. And it’s becoming like it used to be, say, well, every neighborhood has one guy that already worries about. But, you know, this is like a mass psychosis that is spreading among your friends, your neighbors, your family. The person i was talking to in this case was talking about, you know, his mam who literally som his malingno that she’s going to be violent, but who genuinely believes that, you know, donald trump is on the side of god and jesus christ, and that the people who work against him, including her own son, you know, are doing the work of the devil enand i think, but again, i think this is, this is the result of a long period of decades of people living in an affluent, safe nation that has no great causes in it any more. And they are, you know, in they’re living in places that maybe they are not happy. There is an emptiness and in the peace, i talk about, the spiritual and moral void that they 're trying to fill with great dramas, with great crusades, with great stories of good and evil. And one of the things that i think, to bring this back to liz chaney, is that she has been this kind of unflappable, even kind of icy presence who says, yea, ya, whatever. Look, this is about the constitution and the rule of law. And just keeps coming back to that, you know, kind of tapping the sign that says, this is about the constitution and the rule of law and the future of democracy in america. And she has never let herself get sucked into that crazy drama of ino madness and these nutty theories.The Reaction of the Speech
Summary:
Carthy: I’m not sure very much ever crosses kevin mc carthy’s mind, which strikes me as a vast and flat and arid place. But i think her awareness of history is unusual, because people who are afflicted by presentism that everything is in the next 24 hours. That section of the speech, along with a few others, got a lot of sneering and ridicule from the trumpers and even some of the anti anti trumpers. It shows you how sort of cynical and vacuous and unmoored from the american tradition so many republicans have become," he says.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
I’m not sure very much ever crosses kevin mc carthy’s mind, which strikes me as a vast and flat and arid place. But i think her awareness of history is unusual, because people who are afflicted by presentism that everything is, you know, in the next 24 hours. And that section of the speech, along with a few others, got a lot of sneering and ridicule from the trumpers and even some of the anti anti trumpers. And let me just say again, after a speech like this, to be, you know, among the anti anti trumpers, n you and i have talked about this so many times, it requires such an expenditure of caloric energy to keep trying to figure out how to not be on the side of the anti trumpers, or how to not be on any side, really. But after a speech like this, where she’s basically invoking history and daring you to pick sides, that gets harder and harder. And i think it tells you something that the reaction of the speech in some quarters. It shows you how sort of cynical and vacuous and unmoored from the american tradition so many republicans have become. And that’s painful. And i’m sure it’s painful to you as well. It’s painful to me, because part of te, part of what i always, what attracted me, as a younger conservative, to the republicans, was this kind of respect for tradition and history that, you know, progressives by by their very name, are progressing. They’re looking toward the future. The past, generally, you know, is always inferior. It has to be junked. It has to be overcome. It has to be left behind. And conservatives, by their nature and by by their name, about, you know, in terms of conserving, think about things like tradition and thinking of themselves as part of a present that includes not only a future, but a past.The Right Now Should Use Government to Reward Friends and Punish Enemies
Summary:
The idea is not that we think that croy capitalism is a problem, we want to roll it all back. It’s that we want to retaliate against this individual disfavored company for its political speech. So there’s a lot of examples of of using government power to go after private corporations or private universities. Big, big te companies are a major, major target of all this. But they’re not the only ones. And increasingly now we’re seeing them talk about how the banks have also been coopted.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Of taxation to go after them in a targeted way, because they will not, because they are not doing what we want them to do. As you mentioned, run dosantis with the disney example. Disney voices a political opinion that he does not like, a that that is critical of a state law that he supported and consigned into law. And so in retaliation for the them exercising their first amendment right to having a political opinion and voice it, he comes at disney and tries to strip their various government benefits. The idea is not that we think that croy capitalism is a problem, we want to roll it all back. It’s that we want to retaliate against this individual disfavored company for its political speech. So there’s a lot of examples of of using government power to go after private corporations or private universities. Big, big te companies are a major, major target of all this. But they’re not the only ones. And increasingly now we’re, we’re seeing them talk about how the banks have also been coopted. And so it’s not just the cultural institutions like hollywoo and the mainstreet media any more. It’s really corporate america that they, these conservatives increasingly see as their enemies. And we need to if that means that we need to embrace government over the private sector, then so be it.
Speaker 2
So newsweek’s opinion editor, josh hammer, has sort of boiled this down to its essence, which is really the right now should use government to reward friends and punish enemies, which a, asJoe O’Day on CNN
Summary:
Mitt Romney refused to endorse Mike Lee, a fellow Republican in Utah. Will Marshall: There’s a lot of heavy breathing about Mitt Romney’s lack of party loyalty. But have you noticed something, Will? That rule applies to everyone with one exception, one notable exception, Donald Trump. He says this is on the reason why people are paying attention to the Colorado race.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
All right. So yesterday I wrote about Mitt Romney refusing to endorse Mike Lee and I want to talk about what’s going on in Utah which I think is just a fascinating story. Evan McMullen waging this independent campaign, actually doing way better than anyone thought he was going to be. But of course there’s a lot of heavy breathing about Mitt Romney’s lack of party loyalty. You know, how dare he not endorse a fellow Republican and there was, you know, I mean, there’s a lot of pressure on everybody to get in line, right? You know, it’s like, I will support the Republican nominee no matter who it is. And if you refuse to say that, then you’re obviously a rhino cock, right? But have you noticed something, Will? That rule applies to everyone with one exception, one notable exception, Donald Trump. Okay, so over the weekend, they’re the Republican Senate candidate in Colorado named Joe O’Day, who by the way, is in a competitive race there, goes on CNN and distances himself from Donald Trump. He wants to talk about other things. So Joe O’Day is in this very competitive race. There are pundits out there that think that this may be a sleeper race, that the control of the Senate may actually be determined by a Republican upset in Colorado. I’m not saying that’s going to happen. I’m just saying that this is on, you know, one of the reasons why people are paying attention to the Colorado race.
Speaker 6
So Joe O’Day goes on CNN and says this, Do you think what happened on January 6 should disqualify him from being president again?
Speaker 5
Look, I believe that the January 6 was a black eye on the country. I’ve been very vocal that I thought he should have done more to keep the violence from heading towards the Capitol. Maybe that was violent at the Capitol or tore something apart. They should be held accountable.I really do hate that man
Summary:
Elon Musk: “We’re the top leaders. We’re more influential than the presidents” He says he considers engineering challenges to be opportunities in front of him. The two-hour interview airs tonight on CNN at 10 p.m. ET.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
We are now, we are here, we are one species, we are one race, we’re here, and it’s time, and the leadership is changing because you have Elon as a leader, yay as a leader. And we’re the top leaders. We’re more influential than the presidents.
Speaker 2
So you’re a human being with engineering challenges before you, with a stunt player, with parlor, what’s the hardest thing in front of you on the engineering front?
Speaker 1
That’s the first sentence that any of our species needs to hear when they’re born. You are a human being when engineering challenges, and I consider challenges to be opportunities in front of you. Literally, like, let me see a piece of paper, I need to write that down. That’s the beginning of our new species constitution. I’m gonna do the paper like this, put it in the widescreen, this, this for Ridley. You are, now let me like you are a being with, in, jeering.
Speaker 2
Opportunities or challenges?
Speaker 1
Opportunities. I’m sorry, I don’t spell as good as John Legend. I have opportunities in before you. I like the before, because it can mean, actually it can mean forward or before you. This right here, I’ve always said I’m the top five writer in human existence, but this right here is pushing me to like number four, number three. It’s a good one. Because who would you say is the top, it’s top writer in human existence, we know who it is. That’s subjective.
Speaker 2
Who’s that? It’s factual though.
Speaker 1
It’s like, okay, who’s the top person in tech history? It’s not subjective. Wow. There’s a non subjective answer to both of those. Both of those people have influenced 30% of our existence.Is He a Strategic Thinker?
Summary:
I’m not surprised by the persistence in people accepting the things he is saying about the 2020 election as true, because it has become clear for a while that he has a unique hold on his political base. So that wasn’t a surprise. Some of the actions that he took after the election in 2020 were surprising. You know, except I think that the behaviors around January 6 were something of a failure of imagination by officials.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
For his big lie.
Speaker 1
I’m not surprised by the persistence in people accepting the things he is saying about the 2020 election as true, because it has become clear for a while that he has a unique hold on his political base and the his political base will never blame him for anything. And has adopted his posture that he is being wrong somehow by some hidden hand. So that wasn’t a surprise. Some of the actions that he took after the election in 2020 were surprising. You know, except I think that the behaviors around January 6 were something of a failure of imagination by officials. And what I mean by that is official Washington was expecting that he was going to try to use the military in an actual coup. Right, to stay in office in a in a in a traditional coup. And it was always much like later that he was going to send him up up to Capitol Hill. Now, of course, his folks would argue he didn’t do that. I should note, but that he said peacefully in his speech before they all went up to March on the Capitol during the certification of the next election or the recent election. But, you know, it had become clear that a, you know, he was able to move a fair number of people with his language and be, you know, he doesn’t like to have to take direct responsibility for things and ordering the militaryThe Great Light We Tell Ourself
Summary:
The 20s Weimar Republic was a very liberal democracy. The moderate parties were being dragged by the radicals into alliance with them to prevent the worst case scenario from the other guy. So if you look at, I’m sort of fascinated by the history of this period because it really does speak to how does a democracy break down?
Transcript:
Speaker 1
It wouldn’t have been quite the same atrocity, but obviously the communists in Soviet Russia at exactly this time were committing the Haladomar. So there were very few good guys in terms of good parties. The moderate parties were being dragged by the radicals into alliance with them to prevent the worst case scenario from the other guy. So if you look at, I’m sort of fascinated by the history of this period because it really does speak to how does a democracy break down? I mean, the 20s Weimar Republic was a very liberal democracy. How does a liberal democracy break down into complete fascism and then into genocide? And there’s a character who was very prominent in the history of that time named Franz von Papen, who was actually the second-to-last chancellor of the Republic before Hitler. So he was the chancellor and then he handed over to Schleicher. And then he ended up, Schleicher ended up collapsing and that ended up handing power over to Hitler. It was Papen who had stumped for Hitler to become chancellor. Papen was a Catholic Democrat. He didn’t like Hitler. He thought that Hitler was a radical and a nut job. But he also thought that Hitler being a buffoon as he saw it was going to essentially be usable by the right forces in order to prevent the communists from taking power, maybe in order to restore some sort of legitimacy to the regime because he was popular in order for Papen to retain power himself. And then immediately after Hitler taking power, Hitler basically kills all of Papen’s friends. He’s been out of quote-unquote loyalty, stays on. He ends up helping the Anschlussen Austria. Now, all this stuff is really interesting mainly because what it speaks to is the great light we tell ourselves is that people who are evil are not like us. They’re a class apart. People who do evil things. People who support evil people. People, they’re not like us. That’s an easy call. Everybody in history who has sinned is a person who’s very different from me. Robert George, the philosopher over at Princeton, he’s fond of doing a thought experiment in his classes where he asks people to raise their hand if they had lived in Alabama in 1861, how many of you would be abolitionists? And everybody raises their hand. He says, of course that’s not true. Of course that’s not true.What is wrong or incomplete with the democratic party’s narrative
Summary:
Roland Martin: Democrats were looking for ways to shut up about these issues and to hush them up. When you deny election results, that is not one issue but an attack on the entire system," he says. “It no longer has to be about winning or losing; it’s about holding government accountable” The president-elect will announce his re-election campaign next week in New Jersey.
Transcript:
Speaker 4
Recession deniers, you’re rising crime deniers. Your education, loss learning and reduced test score deniers. That’s why a lot of those women that you talked about are willing to talk to pollsters, are willing to come to the polls and say, look, I’m swinging over. And the issue set is uncomplicated and straightforward. It’s inflation, the economy, it’s crime, it’s immigration, but it’s also education. Parents, a year after Glenn Young can won that. Virginia Raising Jack Charlie really came close to New Jersey. Shannon and Mark, parents are still parents. They’re still upset about what they see as a hangover from all the loss learning and test scores. And they don’t understand why, even though kids are back on campus and in the classrooms, that the left seems to be attacking the curriculum instead of attacking the loss learning issues.
Speaker 2
And of course, the fact that a million people died during that pandemic seems to be completely invisible. Can we come back to that in a moment? I do think it’s interesting how that whole thing has now been turned completely around. So, Kelly Ann Conway trying out, well, you are the real deniers, don’t call us deniers. So former Democratic pollster Mark Penn used the same kind of line. Here’s Penn.
Speaker 5
They did not confront these issues directly in any meaningful way. They became inflation deniers. And that really, I think, is a stupid strategy. We’re going to see whether or not I’m right. And that was probably one of the worst strategies I’ve ever seen in a midterm. Or they were right. They had some tough issues and they decided to completely avoid them.
Speaker 2
Okay. Well, so the email went out. And then here’s Rana, not Romney, McDaniel, the chair of the RNC, also trying out the same new talking point.
Speaker 4
This is not what the American people are caring about right now. And let me tell you what they are worried about. Our commander-in-chief, Joe Biden, going in front of the American people and talking about this and saying, oh, look at these issues with election deniers. Well, here’s what the Democrats are. They’re inflation deniers. They are crime deniers. They’re education deniers. This is literally. Okay. But this is not what the American people are talking about. They’re not tied to one another.
Speaker 2
Okay, Will, you’re not just another pretty face because you’ve picked up the fact that the email went out this weekend, didn’t it?
Speaker 3
We’ve seen this before again and again, how what they do is they take a line and they sort of project it back.
Speaker 2
I mean, you remember we’re both old enough to remember when fake news described disinformation coming from the Russians in the right wing.
Speaker 3
And then of course, what they do is they simply just adapted fake news.
Speaker 2
So they’re throwing out the you people are the real deniers. We’re not the deniers. What do you think?
Speaker 1
Okay. First of all, Charlie, I think it’s kind of a good line. I mean, just like objectively speaking. I will let me let me start by conceding. I think that Kellyanne and Ronna McDaniel and these other people using this line have a point. It is true that Democrats decided pretty early in this election cycle that these were bad issues for them. Talking about crime, talking about the border, talking about an inflation, frankly, was just a loser for them. And so they would try to change the subject away from that. And we’re not going to call this a recession. Technically, it’s not a recession. Democrats were looking for ways to shut up about these issues and to hush them up. I think Republicans have a point there. The problem is that election denial is not the same thing as denying inflation or denying crime. You know, that’s standard political stuff trying to make inflation go away, trying to make border problems go away. When you are denying election results, that is not one issue. That is an attack on the entire system. People who deny election results threaten the foundations of democracy. And when democracy itself is threatened, what happens is government is no longer accountable to you. It no longer has to actually win the election. You just lie about who won the election. When that happens, government becomes completely unresponsive and all the issues, other issues go away. So it is objectively true that election denial is a more important thing, a bigger problem, a bigger threat to our country than any other kind of denial. And I regret, Charlie, I’ll speak for myself that I have not been able to make that sale to make to sell that message, that fact, that truth to a broader public.
Speaker 3
No, I think you’re exactly right.
Speaker 2
It is objectively qualitatively different and much more dangerous. On the other hand, this is an effective way of throwing up smoke and dust, which of course is what people like Kellyanne Conway get paid the big bucks to do. Now having said that though, that they have, you know, unfortunately, one of the reasons why I think this is going to be effective is because I think it does touch on a reality here.
Speaker 3
And Axios is reporting about this new letter from the third way, the center left think tank that’s backed by some of the biggest names in democratic politics, sounding the alarm about some pretty deep-seated flaws based on their own polling from some of these battlegrounds, Senate races. And they write, if Democrats manage to hold on to the House and Senate, it will be in spite of the party brand, not because of it. Despite a roster of GOP candidates who are extreme by any standard, voters see Democrats as just as extreme, as well as far less concerned about the issues that worry them most.
Speaker 2
So then they sort of, you know, break down. This is the kind of thing that, you know, Ruite Tishara and James Carvel have been saying for a long time.
Speaker 3
So third way, and again, these are kind of like your tribe, right? Kind of a little bit. They come up with this brutal bill of particulars and it’s called out of touch on priorities, out of touch ideologically and out of touch on values, and I’d just read a little bit of this. Democrats are under water on issues voters’ name as their highest priorities, including the economy, immigration, and crime. While Democrats maintain a lead on certain issues like abortion and climate change, voters rank those issues as lower priorities, all bad. Voters question whether the party shares essential values like patriotism and the importance of hard work. Only 43% of voters say Democrats value hard work compared to 58% for Democrats. Even in the areas where Democrats are trusted more, including education, it is not clear that voters are sold on Democrats’ ability to get things done. Democrats are benefiting from perception among voters that Republicans are extreme, but they cannot fully reap the gains of this view as voters think Democrats are extreme as well. So first question would be, do you agree with that?
Speaker 1
Yeah, I do agree with it. I agree, and you and I were talking about this last week. Democrats have lost their knack for talking about values and for framing economic issues among others in value terms. So what we have in today’s Democratic Party is a lot of talk about equality, but it’s too much about equality of outcome and not about equality of merit. So for example, if you were talking about the working class of America, you don’t just talk about people being in need and you don’t just talk about sending money and redistributing money. You talk about work. You talk about people who are working hard for a living and what they are owed. You talk about Social Security or Medicare. These are earnedWhat Happened After 2012?
Summary:
My theory worked so well until Donald Trump, where we just had this potty mouth and this id and this angry charlatan. And I think that that’s part of the larger transformation. Paul Ryan on his interview with him sort of touched on that after 2012,. When he and Mitt Romney were defeated and were surprised and the base was surprised that the voters just decided they wanted a different kind of candidate.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Until Donald Trump.
Speaker 2
I was gonna just say until Donald Trump. So what happened? Like, my theory worked so well until Donald Trump, where we just had this potty mouth and this id and this angry charlatan. And I think that that’s part of the larger transformation. And this was something that I think Paul Ryan on my interview with him sort of touched on that after 2012, when he and Mitt Romney were defeated and were surprised and the base was surprised that the voters just decided they wanted a different kind of candidate. They wanted somebody who was going to be truculent. They wanted somebody who was going to be, you know, punch the right people in the face. But you’re right, you know, Donald Trump inverts that whole thing. Remember, we used to say, well, you know, you want to have a beer with Bill Clinton. I mean, I don’t want to have a beer with Donald Trump. Or DeSantis. Right. As you were saying, you know, the people with, you know, the backstage personalities, there’s also another kind of politician that has been successful that I’ve noticed. People who basically don’t have a backstage personality. That’s what I meant. I meant Bill Clinton. No, but I mean, there’s literally nothing there. I mean, there are people who are like sociopaths. I mean, it’s like the one thing. There is no internal life. There is no shame. They’re a little bit pathological. They have no real conscience. They can become anything theyThe Jury Is Going to See the Man in Full
Summary:
The judge gave Trump until last night to decide whether or not he wanted to testify on his own behalf, as he had said with a certain amount of bravado when he was in Scotland. If this jury comes back and does find him liable for rape, this is an extraordinary moment.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
Able to identify her. And this is one of the last things that the jury in this case is going to see. They’re going to see the man in full. And I think that’s what was interesting. You know, you’re talking about, you know, how awful he is. This jury is going to see Donald Trump, the man in full, the insult, the arrogance, you know, the unfortunately, or fortunately, you know, stars have been able to grab and molest women. And in this case, they’re offering essentially no real defense, no defense witnesses. And the judge, I thought, interestingly enough, kind of an interesting judicial troll, gave Trump until last night to decide whether or not he wanted to testify on his own behalf, as he had said with a certain amount of bravado when he was in Scotland. So they’re wrapping up today, it’ll go to the jury. You know, this is not a criminal trial, different standard of proof. I know that our default setting is to be cynical that nothing ever matters. But if this jury comes back and does find him liable for rape, this is an extraordinary moment. I mean, well, I know we’ve kind of been here before, but this is extraordinary. And I guess one of the ways to think about it is think about the other way, that if the jury comes back and finds against Eugene Carroll, I think it probably puts to rest all of the other 20s. I mean, that’s gone. That issue is probably never going to come up again, right?
Speaker 3
On the other hand, if sheI really do hate that man
Summary:
Elon Musk: “We’re the top leaders. We’re more influential than the presidents” He says he considers engineering challenges to be opportunities in front of him. The two-hour interview airs tonight on CNN at 10 p.m. ET.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
We are now, we are here, we are one species, we are one race, we’re here, and it’s time, and the leadership is changing because you have Elon as a leader, yay as a leader. And we’re the top leaders. We’re more influential than the presidents.
Speaker 2
So you’re a human being with engineering challenges before you, with a stunt player, with parlor, what’s the hardest thing in front of you on the engineering front?
Speaker 1
That’s the first sentence that any of our species needs to hear when they’re born. You are a human being when engineering challenges, and I consider challenges to be opportunities in front of you. Literally, like, let me see a piece of paper, I need to write that down. That’s the beginning of our new species constitution. I’m gonna do the paper like this, put it in the widescreen, this, this for Ridley. You are, now let me like you are a being with, in, jeering.
Speaker 2
Opportunities or challenges?
Speaker 1
Opportunities. I’m sorry, I don’t spell as good as John Legend. I have opportunities in before you. I like the before, because it can mean, actually it can mean forward or before you. This right here, I’ve always said I’m the top five writer in human existence, but this right here is pushing me to like number four, number three. It’s a good one. Because who would you say is the top, it’s top writer in human existence, we know who it is. That’s subjective.
Speaker 2
Who’s that? It’s factual though.
Speaker 1
It’s like, okay, who’s the top person in tech history? It’s not subjective. Wow. There’s a non subjective answer to both of those. Both of those people have influenced 30% of our existence.Trump Wants the World to Know How Rich He Is
Key takeaways:
Donald Trump announces his presidential campaign in June 2015
Trump emphasizes his wealth during the announcement speech
The rich and famous image is a key part of Trump’s brand and persona
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Cafe and Trump’s ice cream parlor beside the glass encasement selling Donald Trump neckwear and holding the basket of Donald Trump books. The man himself strode to the crowd, descended a golden escalator and stood at a lectern in front of eight American flags Tuesday. He came bearing a message. I’m really rich, he said. While Governor Scott Walker shops at Coles and while Senator Marco Rubio pushes back against the description of his family fishing vessel as a luxury speedboat in Florida, Governor Jeb Bush tries to give himself some measure of distance from his patrician family. Trump wants the world to know exactly how rich he is. I’m not doing this to brag, he said, after spending five minutes detailing his financials, including claimed assets of $9.2 billion and a net worth of $8.7 billion. So go back to that moment, what you were thinking at that time. Okay, so June of 2015, not knowing what you know now, what were you thinking about Donald Trump as a presidential candidate?
Speaker 1
So there’s this great book that Michael Lewis wrote years ago called Trail Fever. Eventually, it got a new title called Losers. And the thesis of this was he hit the trail in, I want to say 1996, and followed around a cast of B and C and D list Republican candidates for president. And his thesisConcerns about the dangerous rhetoric and potential violence in the current political climate
Key takeaways:
There is a sense among people that the whole system is in danger of collapsing and leading to violence.
Charlie Kirk’s comments about assassinating Joe Biden highlight a two-tiered system of justice.
Dangerous rhetoric and the belief of gaining and maintaining power by any means necessary could lead to an authoritarian message.
Unnatural alliances between different political groups are necessary to navigate the current situation and preserve democracy.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Tim, you know, I’m friends with him and my goodness, it’s just so disappointing.
Speaker 1
And like, yeah, I’ve been talking about this for a while. You have to. And we have to keep talking about it because I think there’s a sense among people that like, if we say that there’s real danger in the whole system, in essence, collapsing in this leading to violence, it’s like, oh, you’re just being a little hysterical, you know? Maybe, I hope so, but I don’t think so because, you know, let’s take Charlie Kirk floating assassinating Joe Biden. I mean, five years ago, if I’d have even said, let’s take Charlie Kirk talking about assassinating Joe Biden, I get a little nervous that like me even saying the word assassinating Joe Biden is going to lead the like a visit from the Secret Service. Well, Charlie Kirk now says this. Let’s say the Secret Service decides to go visit Charlie Kirk. What does the right say? Do they say, well, he never should have implied the assassination of Joe Biden? Or do they say they’re violating this first amendment, right? There’s a two tiered system of justice. And now people float this around all the time. Yeah, that’s right. And the reporter on right side broadcasting has a whole tens of people that watch that in a given moment. But you know, he starts floating. I agree with you to somebody that says, we want to kill them all. And this is just par for the course today. And this is dangerous. This is my message them to I’ll say the left or the center or anybody that’s not on the right is. I think they believe their only option is to gain power and maintain it through any means necessary because as Barbara Walter who wrote the book, how Civil War Start mentions, you know, when kind of groups in the majority become groups in the minority, that’s when civil wars have the highest risk. And so the key is never to give up power. And I am concerned with what that leads to, which is an authoritarian message, an understanding that we have to gain and maintain power at all costs. Because I’ll tell you, if the left does it, they’ll be able to do it. They will have every right to match the rhetoric of the right. I hope they don’t, but they’ll have every right to do it. And so then my message to the left is this is like, look, you guys have a right to be very angry. You have a right to match the rhetoric. I hope you don’t because the only way to get out of this moment is to create these unnatural alliances between the left, the center, and some you don’t like their policies on the right, but therefore democracy, that’s the only way historically.The Danger of Irresponsible Rhetoric on Democratic Institutions
Key takeaways:
The dangerous rhetoric of questioning the legitimacy of democratic institutions can lead to a lack of respect and obedience towards them.
Extreme language that suggests the need for violent resistance is becoming normalized in certain media outlets.
The constant escalation of demonizing opponents without considering the consequences can further divide the country.
Comparisons between the FBI and the Gestapo imply a call to war rather than engaging in dialogue or debate.
Prominent figures like Lindsey Graham and Kevin McCarthy are contributing to this dangerous rhetoric.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Well, and I do think that it’s worth pointing out that this is really, really dangerous. I talked with your colleague at CNN, Oliver Darcy about this yesterday. And I made the same point on Morning Joe this morning. And all of this rhetoric that you’re getting from people like Lindsey Graham that basically says the system is not legitimate, the kinds of rhetoric that you’re hearing about the FBI. This is dangerous because if something is not legitimate, then there’s no reason to respect it. There’s no reason to obey it. Oliver Darcy wrote, you know, talk of imprisoning democratic politicians and even their families in acts of revenge is now par for the course, even floating the outright execution of Joe Biden as Charlie Kirk recently did is accepted in the warp world of MAGA media where the audience has been programmed through years of conditioning to welcome such vile rhetoric into their homes. And again, we can’t get numb to buy all of this. And he writes, none of this is an exaggeration. It’s the reality of what is being broadcast in millions of homes across the country. And then, you know, he asked me what I thought and I said, I think it’s hard to overstate the dangers here because the language moves beyond, you know, your routine political demonization because it does suggest the need for violent resistance. I mean, if you don’t believe in the integrity of the democratic institutions, if you actually believe they are all illegitimate, the election has been stolen, then how do you expect people to react? There’s this constant escalation without any concern about where this leads or who might act on the idea that your opponent isn’t just wrong, that they’re evil, dangerous and illegitimate. And I pointed out, you know, all this talk about, you know, the FBI being the Gestapo. Well, one doesn’t argue, debate or disagree with the Gestapo. You go to war against them. You know, I feel like you and I have had this conversation now for some time, but it’s like, people, do you understand what is being said and what the consequences are of this kind of rhetoric? And it’s coming from people like Lindsey Graham and Kevin McCarthy and other people who really ought to know better. Tim Scott.The Danger of Dangerous Rhetoric
Key takeaways:
The dangerous rhetoric being spread by certain individuals undermines the legitimacy of democratic institutions.
The constant escalation of this rhetoric can lead to the belief in the need for violent resistance.
Terms like ‘Gestapo’ used to describe the FBI contribute to a mindset of warfare rather than open debate.
It is important to recognize and understand the consequences of this kind of rhetoric.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Well, and I do think that it’s worth pointing out that this is really, really dangerous. I talked with your colleague at CNN, Oliver Darcy about this yesterday. And I made the same point on Morning Joe this morning. And all of this rhetoric that you’re getting from people like Lindsey Graham that basically says the system is not legitimate, the kinds of rhetoric that you’re hearing about the FBI. This is dangerous because if something is not legitimate, then there’s no reason to respect it. There’s no reason to obey it. Oliver Darcy wrote, you know, talk of imprisoning democratic politicians and even their families in acts of revenge is now par for the course, even floating the outright execution of Joe Biden as Charlie Kirk recently did is accepted in the warp world of MAGA media where the audience has been programmed through years of conditioning to welcome such vile rhetoric into their homes. And again, we can’t get numb to buy all of this. And he writes, none of this is an exaggeration. It’s the reality of what is being broadcast in millions of homes across the country. And then, you know, he asked me what I thought and I said, I think it’s hard to overstate the dangers here because the language moves beyond, you know, your routine political demonization because it does suggest the need for violent resistance. I mean, if you don’t believe in the integrity of the democratic institutions, if you actually believe they are all illegitimate, the election has been stolen, then how do you expect people to react? There’s this constant escalation without any concern about where this leads or who might act on the idea that your opponent isn’t just wrong, that they’re evil, dangerous and illegitimate. And I pointed out, you know, all this talk about, you know, the FBI being the Gestapo. Well, one doesn’t argue, debate or disagree with the Gestapo. You go to war against them. You know, I feel like you and I have had this conversation now for some time, but it’s like, people, do you understand what is being said and what the consequences are of this kind of rhetoric?The emotional toll of political progression and the need for accountability
Key takeaways:
The emotional journey of acceptance and progression in society
The ongoing pressure faced by individuals to conform to societal expectations
The importance of coming to terms with past decisions and actions
The significance of holding Donald Trump accountable for his actions through conviction
The potential impact of visual evidence on public perception and understanding
The need for consequences and accountability in political leadership
Transcript:
Speaker 1
And I will say as a member of Congress, when he talks about the emotional reasons and kind of how people progressed from like barely accepting, fully accepting, they’re actually leading, he is 100% right. And I have like almost flashes of PTS listening to it because I can sense that. I can feel it. But you see these people that have given an ounce of their soul and now have to give five ounces and now a pound and it just continues because at any point when you stop, I mean, look, I’m about as anti-Trump as you can get now. And I still have people that are like, well, you voted for him once and you voted against the first impeachment. The point is you have to come to reckon with what you did. And it’s much easier in the sunken cost fallacy. You lost 10,000 soldiers in Vietnam. You can’t come home now. And it is very, very frightening. And that’s why I think the only way out of this is a conviction for Donald Trump because I think as that stuff is exposed, which is why I’m not all for cameras in the courtroom, but in this case, I think there has to be. I think when people see that, when he’s actually putting an orange jumpsuit, that can help. And then when frankly, there were Republicans and especially Donald Trump, they have to get their backside handed to him this next election. Otherwise, this is just going to continue.Challenges to Trump in 2022 Election
Summary:
The challenges facing Trump in the 2022 election are daunting.
His past actions, such as allegations of rape, financial fraud, betrayal of America, attempts to overturn an election, corruption involving foreign governments, and undermining reproductive rights, will likely impact his appeal to voters. These allegations, irrespective of legal convictions, are crucial for voters to consider.
Trump’s degradation, extreme rhetoric, and threat to American democracy necessitate a proactive approach in exposing his record to the American people, as waiting for legal processes or institutions like the Supreme Court may not be sufficient.
Acting collectively to inform voters about Trump’s controversial past is seen as crucial to influencing the outcome of the 2022 election.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Curtis Yarvan, he’s saying there on Charlie Kirk show that he wants the president to be able to be a king to your point and to be able to do anything. And that we have the Supreme Court dithering over all this. And so that’s really scary on the one hand. And I think that it’s it’s worth the people that are raising the alarm about this. I get it. But also the American people don’t want this. Right. And it is up to us to show videos of these weirdo boys in their basement. They’re planning to turn Donald Trump into a king and make sure that enough voters see that so that they reject it. And that’s basically what happened in 2022.
Speaker 1
Right. Yep. Listen, let’s go through the six things that voters are about to find out about Donald Trump that they didn’t know about him in 2020 when he lost. Right. Number one is that he raped E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room. Number two that he oversaw one of the largest financial frauds in all of American history has been fined half a billion dollars for it. And he and his two sons have been banned from doing large amounts of business in New York state. Three is that he stole America’s secrets. He lied to the FBI about it. He shared those secrets with other people. It is without question the greatest betrayal of America by a former president. Four is that he tried to overturn an election. He let an armed attack on the Capitol in one of the only days that all 435 members are there. And he’s promised to end American democracy for all time if he stumbles into the White House in January 2025. Fifth is that he and his family have corruptly taken more money from foreign governments than any political family in the history of the country. And six, he’s singularly responsible for ending row and stripping the rights and freedoms away of more than half the population. Any one of those six things are going to be difficult for him to overcome. I don’t think he can overcome all six. And none of those things are contingent upon him getting convicted in a court of law. These are all just facts in the ground. We know they happened. And it’s important that we start prosecuting our case against him with force because the American people deserve to understand who they’re voting for in this election, this Donald Trump, this Donald Trump to me is far weaker, far more degraded, his performance on the stump is far more atrocious and disturbing than it’s ever been. And he’s a far more dangerous and extreme figure than he was. We can’t wait for Mueller. We can’t wait for Jack Smith. We can’t wait for the Supreme Court. We got to go get this done now ourselves together.Presidential Power and Public Opinion
Summary:
The current imbalance among the branches of government has made the executive branch weak, prompting the call to grant unilateral power to the president to address this issue.
This suggestion aims to correct the inefficiency caused by the checks and balances system, which has immobilized the executive branch. Despite the concern of potential abuse of power, the public’s rejection of such a move is crucial.
By raising awareness about this issue and ensuring that voters are informed about any attempts to turn the president into a king, the democratic process would be protected, as seen in the 2022 elections.
Transcript:
Speaker 3
In order to remedy this sort of great imbalance or this this usurpation of the legislative and judicial branches over the executive branch, which has become the democratic branch With a small D and thus has been rendered utterly toothless in the sense that the president himself has power over the government. The only remedy for this wrong is to put the president entirely in charge of the government. And that essentially means that the executive branch far from being checked and balanced in a way that does not work and has left the executive branch not checked and balanced but simply Hog tied and held the hostage is to render the executive branch completely unilateral.
Speaker 2
Curtis Yarvan, he’s saying there on Charlie Kirk show that he wants the president to be able to be a king to your point and to be able to do anything. And that we have the Supreme Court dithering over all this. And so that’s really scary on the one hand. And I think that it’s it’s worth the people that are raising the alarm about this. I get it. But also the American people don’t want this. Right. And it is up to us to show videos of these weirdo boys in their basement. They’re planning to turn Donald Trump into a king and make sure that enough voters see that so that they reject it. And that’s basically what happened in 2022.
Speaker 1
Right. Yep. Listen, let’s go through the six things that voters are about to find out about Donald Trump that they didn’t know about him in 2020 when he lost. Right. Number one is that he raped E.Empowering the President for Balance
Summary:
The imbalance between the legislative and judicial branches over the executive branch has made the latter powerless.
A proposed remedy is to empower the president entirely, making the executive branch unilateral. While some fear this could lead to a presidency akin to a monarchy, it is crucial for the American people to reject such a scenario to maintain the balance of power in the government.
Transcript:
Speaker 3
In order to remedy this sort of great imbalance or this this usurpation of the legislative and judicial branches over the executive branch, which has become the democratic branch With a small D and thus has been rendered utterly toothless in the sense that the president himself has power over the government. The only remedy for this wrong is to put the president entirely in charge of the government. And that essentially means that the executive branch far from being checked and balanced in a way that does not work and has left the executive branch not checked and balanced but simply Hog tied and held the hostage is to render the executive branch completely unilateral.
Speaker 2
Curtis Yarvan, he’s saying there on Charlie Kirk show that he wants the president to be able to be a king to your point and to be able to do anything. And that we have the Supreme Court dithering over all this. And so that’s really scary on the one hand. And I think that it’s it’s worth the people that are raising the alarm about this. I get it. But also the American people don’t want this. Right. And it is up to us to show videos of these weirdo boys in their basement. They’re planning to turn Donald Trump into a king and make sure that enough voters see that so that they reject it. And that’s basically what happened in 2022.
Screen Time for a Four Year Old & cocomelon
Summary:
I was thinking about this reading your book. There is so little he can pay attention to for long periods except the screen. I mean in a weird way, like the natural state of the kid should be distracted. It’s unnerving and it’s also there’s a certain unconscionable aspect that has happened.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
I was thinking about this reading your book. So I have two sons, one’s one year old and one is almost four. And I was thinking about how for a four year old it isn’t his distractedness that worries me, it’s his focus. And I say this because particularly since he got a brother screen time rules are not what they once were in my house and it’s on these on all the time but it’s so noticeable with a little kid. There is so little he can pay attention to for long periods except the screen. I was reading in this wonderful newspaper that hosts this podcast. There was a feature about Coco Mellon which is this show of functionally animated nursery rhymes that like two and three year olds love and adults hate. But they talk about in this feature how they have set up a room, the place that makes Coco Mellon where they will have a kid watching the show and set up next to it is another screen that shows an adult just doing normal household tasks. Just sort of wandering around doing whatever you do in the house. And if the child becomes distracted from Coco Mellon by what the adult is doing, they go back to the edit and they amp up the interestingness, the cuts, the whatever makes a Coco Mellon episode interesting. And it was so dystopic, right? The level of engineering. I mean the hyper saturation of the color is a constant cuts. And so I mean a little bit like, you know, hyper sugary cereal or whatever, what his system is learning to find worth paying attention to, right? Then like how hard it is for the world to measure up to that as it is for me. I’m going to bring this to me in a second. So don’t I’m not just putting this on little kids. But I know every time I put them there, it is training, right? It is training about what’s interesting and what’s not. I mean in a weird way, like the natural state of the kid should be distracted. I can’t have him distracted all the time because I sometimes need to like clean dishes. But it is really unnerving.
Speaker 1
It’s unnerving and it’s also there’s a certain unconscionable aspect that has happened. And that is that those of us who really believed that, and I know you and I actually believe similarly 10, 12 years ago that the forces of the good would prevail with this medium and this culture. But what has happened is that profit and other motivations have not just made sure that engagement was taking place, but that the same formula that casino gamblers use to give intermittent reinforcement plus those ways of engagement so that the child is addicted. But what you said, and I’ll return back to your child, is that he can’t focus the same in the ways that you would hope. And that’s because he’s hyperstimulated. He is being molded. The same things that are making a gambler addicted in a very small way that’s happening with our children. So those of us who are studying this from the neuro science viewpoint, like John Hutton, we can tell you, I can tell you right now what we call the Goldilocks study, where a parent reads a story. The same story is then in an audio form and just heard by the child. This is a three year old or a four year old, or it’s animated in a screen. Well, you know that they are paying very close attention to that screen. But what you don’t know is if you do or look at the activation of the language regions of the brain, under all three of those circumstances, language is being activated most by when a parent or caretaker is reading that same story. The passivity is gone out the window. There is an interactive nature to it. And there is a use of their language knowledge and their background knowledge that’s coming to bear more forcefully in that print situation and more passively in the screen situation. And so of course you have differences in concentration. You have differences in attention. Walter Benjamin said that boredom is the hatch bird of the imagination. Well, our children, the first thing they do after they go off the screen is say, I’m bored, but this is not Walter Benjamin’s boredom. This is boredom that seeks to, if you will, assuage its need for hyper stimulation by getting more. This is something that we must figure out.Screen Time for a Four Year Old & cocomelon
Summary:
I was thinking about this reading your book. There is so little he can pay attention to for long periods except the screen. I mean in a weird way, like the natural state of the kid should be distracted. It’s unnerving and it’s also there’s a certain unconscionable aspect that has happened.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
I was thinking about this reading your book. So I have two sons, one’s one year old and one is almost four. And I was thinking about how for a four year old it isn’t his distractedness that worries me, it’s his focus. And I say this because particularly since he got a brother screen time rules are not what they once were in my house and it’s on these on all the time but it’s so noticeable with a little kid. There is so little he can pay attention to for long periods except the screen. I was reading in this wonderful newspaper that hosts this podcast. There was a feature about Coco Mellon which is this show of functionally animated nursery rhymes that like two and three year olds love and adults hate. But they talk about in this feature how they have set up a room, the place that makes Coco Mellon where they will have a kid watching the show and set up next to it is another screen that shows an adult just doing normal household tasks. Just sort of wandering around doing whatever you do in the house. And if the child becomes distracted from Coco Mellon by what the adult is doing, they go back to the edit and they amp up the interestingness, the cuts, the whatever makes a Coco Mellon episode interesting. And it was so dystopic, right? The level of engineering. I mean the hyper saturation of the color is a constant cuts. And so I mean a little bit like, you know, hyper sugary cereal or whatever, what his system is learning to find worth paying attention to, right? Then like how hard it is for the world to measure up to that as it is for me. I’m going to bring this to me in a second. So don’t I’m not just putting this on little kids. But I know every time I put them there, it is training, right? It is training about what’s interesting and what’s not. I mean in a weird way, like the natural state of the kid should be distracted. I can’t have him distracted all the time because I sometimes need to like clean dishes. But it is really unnerving.
Speaker 1
It’s unnerving and it’s also there’s a certain unconscionable aspect that has happened. And that is that those of us who really believed that, and I know you and I actually believe similarly 10, 12 years ago that the forces of the good would prevail with this medium and this culture. But what has happened is that profit and other motivations have not just made sure that engagement was taking place, but that the same formula that casino gamblers use to give intermittent reinforcement plus those ways of engagement so that the child is addicted. But what you said, and I’ll return back to your child, is that he can’t focus the same in the ways that you would hope. And that’s because he’s hyperstimulated. He is being molded. The same things that are making a gambler addicted in a very small way that’s happening with our children. So those of us who are studying this from the neuro science viewpoint, like John Hutton, we can tell you, I can tell you right now what we call the Goldilocks study, where a parent reads a story. The same story is then in an audio form and just heard by the child. This is a three year old or a four year old, or it’s animated in a screen. Well, you know that they are paying very close attention to that screen. But what you don’t know is if you do or look at the activation of the language regions of the brain, under all three of those circumstances, language is being activated most by when a parent or caretaker is reading that same story. The passivity is gone out the window. There is an interactive nature to it. And there is a use of their language knowledge and their background knowledge that’s coming to bear more forcefully in that print situation and more passively in the screen situation. And so of course you have differences in concentration. You have differences in attention. Walter Benjamin said that boredom is the hatch bird of the imagination. Well, our children, the first thing they do after they go off the screen is say, I’m bored, but this is not Walter Benjamin’s boredom. This is boredom that seeks to, if you will, assuage its need for hyper stimulation by getting more. This is something that we must figure out.Screen Time for a Four Year Old & cocomelon
Summary:
I was thinking about this reading your book. There is so little he can pay attention to for long periods except the screen. I mean in a weird way, like the natural state of the kid should be distracted. It’s unnerving and it’s also there’s a certain unconscionable aspect that has happened.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
I was thinking about this reading your book. So I have two sons, one’s one year old and one is almost four. And I was thinking about how for a four year old it isn’t his distractedness that worries me, it’s his focus. And I say this because particularly since he got a brother screen time rules are not what they once were in my house and it’s on these on all the time but it’s so noticeable with a little kid. There is so little he can pay attention to for long periods except the screen. I was reading in this wonderful newspaper that hosts this podcast. There was a feature about Coco Mellon which is this show of functionally animated nursery rhymes that like two and three year olds love and adults hate. But they talk about in this feature how they have set up a room, the place that makes Coco Mellon where they will have a kid watching the show and set up next to it is another screen that shows an adult just doing normal household tasks. Just sort of wandering around doing whatever you do in the house. And if the child becomes distracted from Coco Mellon by what the adult is doing, they go back to the edit and they amp up the interestingness, the cuts, the whatever makes a Coco Mellon episode interesting. And it was so dystopic, right? The level of engineering. I mean the hyper saturation of the color is a constant cuts. And so I mean a little bit like, you know, hyper sugary cereal or whatever, what his system is learning to find worth paying attention to, right? Then like how hard it is for the world to measure up to that as it is for me. I’m going to bring this to me in a second. So don’t I’m not just putting this on little kids. But I know every time I put them there, it is training, right? It is training about what’s interesting and what’s not. I mean in a weird way, like the natural state of the kid should be distracted. I can’t have him distracted all the time because I sometimes need to like clean dishes. But it is really unnerving.
Speaker 1
It’s unnerving and it’s also there’s a certain unconscionable aspect that has happened. And that is that those of us who really believed that, and I know you and I actually believe similarly 10, 12 years ago that the forces of the good would prevail with this medium and this culture. But what has happened is that profit and other motivations have not just made sure that engagement was taking place, but that the same formula that casino gamblers use to give intermittent reinforcement plus those ways of engagement so that the child is addicted. But what you said, and I’ll return back to your child, is that he can’t focus the same in the ways that you would hope. And that’s because he’s hyperstimulated. He is being molded. The same things that are making a gambler addicted in a very small way that’s happening with our children. So those of us who are studying this from the neuro science viewpoint, like John Hutton, we can tell you, I can tell you right now what we call the Goldilocks study, where a parent reads a story. The same story is then in an audio form and just heard by the child. This is a three year old or a four year old, or it’s animated in a screen. Well, you know that they are paying very close attention to that screen. But what you don’t know is if you do or look at the activation of the language regions of the brain, under all three of those circumstances, language is being activated most by when a parent or caretaker is reading that same story. The passivity is gone out the window. There is an interactive nature to it. And there is a use of their language knowledge and their background knowledge that’s coming to bear more forcefully in that print situation and more passively in the screen situation. And so of course you have differences in concentration. You have differences in attention. Walter Benjamin said that boredom is the hatch bird of the imagination. Well, our children, the first thing they do after they go off the screen is say, I’m bored, but this is not Walter Benjamin’s boredom. This is boredom that seeks to, if you will, assuage its need for hyper stimulation by getting more. This is something that we must figure out.
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