What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?
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Coleman Hughes interviewed the authors of this book:
Their thesis is fine, in that it boils down to a truism about how humans participate in groupthink for social advantage within tribes, and principle plays a minimal role. Hardly an original thesis, but it is among the true ideas that most of us could stand to remind ourselves of. But the authors take it too far, both in the podcast and in the book itself, by claiming that ideology has literally nothing to do with anything. They mostly accomplish this through anecdote and history-mining. If a party known today for one idea, was once known for the opposite, their thesis is proven. The fundamental ideological difference of big government vs small government, for instance, is claimed to be nonsensical, since GWB and Trump expanded the government, yet "conservatives" didn't "flee the GOP" (whatever that means. Flee where?) over that. Or the GOP tends to want to fund the military and the police, which means they are for the expansion of government. Lazy, anecdote based proofs of nothing in particular, based on framings of ideology that imply one idea at a time must reign supreme in a person's mind, to the exclusion of any other ideas. They accuse the American public of being blatantly stupid, then build a case against blatant stupidity. But few people are so blinkered as they describe. I do agree that most people are more consumed with socially advantageous groupthink than they realize.
wrote on 21 Aug 2023, 18:51 last edited by Horace@Horace said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:
Coleman Hughes interviewed the authors of this book:
Their thesis is fine, in that it boils down to a truism about how humans participate in groupthink for social advantage within tribes, and principle plays a minimal role. Hardly an original thesis, but it is among the true ideas that most of us could stand to remind ourselves of. But the authors take it too far, both in the podcast and in the book itself, by claiming that ideology has literally nothing to do with anything. They mostly accomplish this through anecdote and history-mining. If a party known today for one idea, was once known for the opposite, their thesis is proven. The fundamental ideological difference of big government vs small government, for instance, is claimed to be nonsensical, since GWB and Trump expanded the government, yet "conservatives" didn't "flee the GOP" (whatever that means. Flee where?) over that. Or the GOP tends to want to fund the military and the police, which means they are for the expansion of government. Lazy, anecdote based proofs of nothing in particular, based on framings of ideology that imply one idea at a time must reign supreme in a person's mind, to the exclusion of any other ideas. They accuse the American public of being blatantly stupid, then build a case against blatant stupidity. But few people are so blinkered as they describe. I do agree that most people are more consumed with socially advantageous groupthink than they realize.
Economist Bryan Caplan agrees with me that this book makes decent points, but goes too far:
Link to videoHe proposes his own set of left and right principles:
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The left doesn't like markets
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The right doesn't like the left
Some amusing secondary points:
- self-identified righties would by and large rather not think about politics at all, while self-identified lefties are more absorbed by politics. It can replace religion in their psyches.
- Libertarians (like Caplan) get so much hatred from the left mostly because libertarians love markets, and that conflicts with the essential single principle of the left. But it seems weird to be so hated so much, considering the tiny power wielded by libertarians.
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topic:timeago-later,about a month
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wrote on 29 Sept 2023, 12:24 last edited by
Andrew Sullivan’s latest was an interview with Ramaswamy.
It was pretty good, at least half was about his upbringing and family background. They really only touched a little on his proposals.
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topic:timeago-later,about a month
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wrote on 5 Nov 2023, 19:15 last edited by
Sam Harris’ latest is a conversation with Graeme Wood. Many of you would have heard them talk several times in the past about jihadism, Islam, etc. They talk about the current situation in Israel but very much in the broader context of jihadism, ISIS, Saudi Arabia v Iran, etc.
I was getting to the point where I had heard enough experts interviewed about the situation for a while, but this discussion was very much worth my time.
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topic:timeago-later,2 months
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wrote on 15 Jan 2024, 19:27 last edited by
Glenn Loury is coming out with a memoir, I've pre-ordered.
Link to videoI enjoyed McWhorter's ode to not leaving the house, at 36:30. He's playing piano and reading a lot instead. It's a good life.
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wrote on 15 Jan 2024, 21:36 last edited by
He’s been writing that for the better part of a decade. I’m glad to see it’s finally coming out. I’ll read it.
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wrote on 15 Jan 2024, 21:37 last edited by
I hope he narrates the audio.
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topic:timeago-later,12 days
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wrote on 28 Jan 2024, 05:04 last edited by
Ezra Klein had a good discussion with a Democrat strategist who believes the party is stronger than it's ever been. Be that as it may, I was amused to hear Klein say that, if you zoom out a little bit, and think with ideas rather than labels, you can see that the American left is the party of cultural conservatism. Proving once again that if I write something here, it appears in the highest level intellectual conversations sooner or later. The thought didn't land with the guy Klein was talking to, who ignored it and changed course. The profundity of the insight was probably beyond him.
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topic:timeago-later,16 days
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wrote on 13 Feb 2024, 02:58 last edited by
Just finished listening to "Agent of Betrayal"
Amid the nuclear threat of the Cold War, America's prized secrets were falling into the hands of its sworn enemy. The FBI's hunt for the leak led to an astonishing discovery—the mole was one of its own, special agent Robert Hanssen. For two decades, Hanssen masqueraded as a devoted patriot while ruthlessly selling out his country, trading classified intelligence to the Soviet Union and later Russia, in exchange for cash and diamonds. He was a whirlwind of contradictions—a self-proclaimed patriot and a traitor; a family man who sexually betrayed his wife; an ardent man of God and a sinner. Through interviews with Hanssen’s family, friends, and colleagues, CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett (Host of “The Takeout”) delves into the double life of Robert Hanssen and unravels the chilling truth about the most damaging spy in FBI history in “Agent of Betrayal: The Double Life of Robert Hanssen”.
Quite good. It is an 8 part series, each one about 45 minutes or approx. I recommend it.
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topic:timeago-later,4 months
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wrote on 2 Jun 2024, 00:12 last edited by
Listening to "Queen of the Con".
https://johnathanwalton.com/queen-of-the-con
It has 5 seasons, each focusing on a female con artist. The guy who is doing the podcast started it because he was conned (the subject of season 1) and spent a lot of time trying to bring her to justice.
There are some really bad people out there, and con artists really damage alot of lifes.
I would call this a "light" podcast. Fun to listen to, and moves pretty quickly.
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wrote on 2 Jun 2024, 19:15 last edited by
I subscribe to something called Aporia, which is an intelligence-oriented cultural perspective magazine. They recently had an interview with a guy called Jeremy Carl which I thought was excellent. He wrote a book called The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart. He had wanted to call it "It's ok to be white", but the publishers wouldn't have it. Which, as he notes, is exactly the point of the book. "It's ok to be <ethicity>" is great as a book title for all ethnicities but one. And we know which. They note that there is something peculiar about "white" that makes people believe that to say out loud that it's "ok" to be that, it means you want to take over the world, because you're that. It's so funny. I mean the animal brain is so dominant in that attitude. Tell me without telling me that you believe white people are actually superior.
It's a discussion between two legitimately intelligent people, and therefore of some value. They do release exerpts on youtube. You can't say out loud that you appreciate them. They get into that too. We're all white supremacists. And I really do know the target, behind it all, of those who say we're all white supremacists. It's markets. They don't hate white people. (Mostly, they are white people.) They hate markets, and competition. They hate feeling like losers.
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I subscribe to something called Aporia, which is an intelligence-oriented cultural perspective magazine. They recently had an interview with a guy called Jeremy Carl which I thought was excellent. He wrote a book called The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart. He had wanted to call it "It's ok to be white", but the publishers wouldn't have it. Which, as he notes, is exactly the point of the book. "It's ok to be <ethicity>" is great as a book title for all ethnicities but one. And we know which. They note that there is something peculiar about "white" that makes people believe that to say out loud that it's "ok" to be that, it means you want to take over the world, because you're that. It's so funny. I mean the animal brain is so dominant in that attitude. Tell me without telling me that you believe white people are actually superior.
It's a discussion between two legitimately intelligent people, and therefore of some value. They do release exerpts on youtube. You can't say out loud that you appreciate them. They get into that too. We're all white supremacists. And I really do know the target, behind it all, of those who say we're all white supremacists. It's markets. They don't hate white people. (Mostly, they are white people.) They hate markets, and competition. They hate feeling like losers.
wrote on 2 Jun 2024, 21:14 last edited by@Horace said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:
We're all white supremacists.
The only race where it is forbidden to be your own cheer-leader.
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wrote on 9 Jun 2024, 13:43 last edited by
George Will on Andrew Sullivan’s podcast.
From the show notes:
two clips of our convo — on why the presidency has too much power, and the necessity of stopping Putin — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: growing up in Lincoln country; the son of a philosophy prof and an academic editor; Isaiah Berlin was a family friend; George and I both attending Magdalen College, Oxford; his meeting with Thatcher in late '60s; how socialism is stultifying; Oakeshott; industrial policy as crony capitalism “from the start”; Milton Friedman; why “secure” is the most important word in the Constitution; just war theory; Vietnam as the “professors’ war”; collectivism vs national security; the trauma of 9/11 and the Iraq War; the China threat today; Gaza; why natcons are jealous of progressives; Elizabeth Warren; why Woodrow Wilson criticized the Founding as quaint; FDR and his fireside chats; in praise of Eisenhower; the spread of the administrative state; Caldwell’s The Age of Entitlement; Reagan and the national debt; his bad wager on the Laffer Curve; the meaning of his smile; presentism; Hume at a dinner party; Madison’s genius; George the “amiable low-voltage atheist”; Christian nationalism; evangelicals for Trump; the entitlement crunch with Boomers; “not voting is an opinion”; our disagreement on immigration; the “execrable” 1924 law; climate change as a low priority for Gen Z; why Trump is unprecedented; Biden’s age and his “stupendous act of selfishness” in running again; Gina Raimondo; DEI as the new racial discrimination; the deep distrust in media; the flailing WaPo; “happiness is overrated”; the appeal of baseball; and the reasons why America is exceptional.
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wrote on 11 Jun 2024, 20:35 last edited by
Loury of course agrees with some sentiments expressed here about Biden's Morehouse College commencement speech.
Link to videoHis conversation partner McWhorter provides the interesting perspective that you can't even be mad at this sort of institutionalized psychological abuse of black people, because it's just what people like Biden say.
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topic:timeago-later,16 days
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wrote on 27 Jun 2024, 19:08 last edited by
Another clip from Glenn and John. Glenn introduces it like so:
Link to videoMy friend John McWhorter is a calm, rational, reasonable guy. So I was truly shocked when he implied some weeks ago that he wished someone would assassinate Donald Trump. I thought maybe John just got carried away in the moment. But in this clip from our most recent conversation, you’ll see him apologize for making the statement without quite taking it back. When even a moderate centrist like John, who is usually so mindful of his language, feels license to talk like this about Trump, we must be in a very dark place as a nation.
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topic:timeago-later,about a month
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wrote on 29 Jul 2024, 20:13 last edited by
Russ Roberts’ latest (EconTalk): Sam Harris on Jew-Hatred, Radical Islam, and The West.
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topic:timeago-later,3 months
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wrote on 17 Oct 2024, 04:13 last edited by
Bari Weiss talked to a panel of Democrats who will be voting for Trump. Good listening for those of you who can't possibly imagine how any sane or decent human being might want to vote for Trump. Of course I do realize that after these people go through the meat grinder of the TDS addled mind, they will be some combination of insane and/or indecent. But, it's still a valuable exercise for those of us who can't imagine how or why the opposition might believe as they do.
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topic:timeago-later,11 days
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wrote on 27 Oct 2024, 17:50 last edited by
Ezra Klein did a monologue podcast a few days ago that IMO is the state of the art case for Trump the existential threat. He acknowledges that things weren't that scary under Trump's first term, but that there is a reason for that. In Trump's first term, there were people there controlling him, keeping him from his worst impulses. Klein mentions the NYT best seller by an anonymous white house insider, about adults in the room containing the disaster. Klein says such people won't be there this time. Klein mentions that Trump has talked fondly of unleashing the military against his political opposition. Klein imagines all governmental apparatus bent to Trump's whims, and nobody there to contain him as he becomes an autocratic dictator. It was breathless in places. At the beginning of the monologue, he mentions the big five psychological traits and how Trump might score. He also mentions his own scores, and admits that his neuroticism is rather high. That checks out.
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wrote on 27 Oct 2024, 22:15 last edited by
Did he mention Milley's call to China before and after the election, "just in case?"
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wrote on 27 Oct 2024, 22:51 last edited by
@George-K said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:
Did he mention Milley's call to China before and after the election, "just in case?"
No?
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wrote on 29 Oct 2024, 17:09 last edited by
Today on Bari Weiss' podcast, Sam Harris and Ben Shapiro faced off over Trump. Sam gave his version of the state of the art existential threat argument. A few of his arguments I've long since considered and dismissed (he's been making them for quite some time). He'll always mention that "some republicans around 2020 were in fear of their lives if they didn't get behind Trump in lockstep". He mentions the suspiciously alive and well Liz Cheney, and Mitt Romney. This argument, I find completely absurd. Liz Cheney has objectively increased her political capital with her attacks on Trump. There are no sacrifices there, but for a nearly irrelevant house seat that her ambitions obviously far outstrip. Then Sam mentions all the generals and close aids from the first Trump administration that have come out against Trump. While I agree that's an interesting point, suspiciously absent from that rhetoric are examples of all the things Trump would have done, but was prevented from doing, by the adults in the room. Those adults are now deploying top shelf existential threat rhetoric against him, but for all their first hand experience with the terror that is president Trump, they have no specific example of something that would have happened, but didn't, because of the guardrails they provided.
For Shapiro's part, he leaned into the fact that things were pretty good during Trump's first term, and he expects more of same in a second term.
