Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / Midterms! France! Josh is in DC! Yayyy

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Midterms! France! Josh is in DC! Yayyy · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:01
  .
• 0:04
  G'day, humans.
• 0:05
  Welcome to the Safe Space for Dangerous Ideas.
• 0:07
  I'm in Washington, DC, live in a beautiful hotel room, if you're not watching this, if you're listening after the fact to the podcast, with Jeff Maurer.
• 0:15
  Now, I always say Maurer.
• 0:17
  Yeah.
• 0:17
  And then I saw that there's an R in the middle of it.
• 0:20
  And I felt like I should be saying Maurer.
• 0:23
  You're overthinking it because you were actually right the first time.
• 0:25
  Maurer.
• 0:26
  Maurer, yeah.
• 0:26
  Maurer.
• 0:27
  Yeah, rhymes with Bauer, like Jack Bauer.
• 0:29
  Yeah, but Jack Bauer doesn't have an R in the middle of his name.
• 0:31
  Correct, because he doesn't.
• 0:34
  He's not a victim of the Swiss fuckery that I am a victim of.
• 0:37
  Okay.
• 0:38
  There's an R in the middle, but you don't say it.
• 0:40
  Okay, there's an R in the middle.
• 0:41
  So, Jeff Maurer is with us.
• 0:46
  Fabulous satirist, funny man, comedy writer, used to work on John Oliver's show, now does something on Substack.
• 0:53
  Yeah, I might be wrong.
• 0:55
  I might be wrong, it's called.
• 0:56
  And if you're, by the way, I should also say, if you're a premium subscriber and you're
• 1:02
  I could not appreciate more the people who actually pay every month because I'm wandering around the United States at the moment, and I don't feel like I've been sufficiently proactive in giving strokes to all the people who make this experiment possible, who make this show possible.
• 1:18
  I am working on things that will be...
• 1:20
  a gigantic and fantastic extravaganza next year.
• 1:24
  But I appreciate everybody's bearing with me because I've gone back through the archive, Jeff, and I've found some of my choicest episodes.
• 1:31
  I've been dropping them into the feed as well.
• 1:33
  And when I do that, I love listening to them again, but then I always think that maybe someone's out there thinking, lazy old Zeps, there he goes again, just giving us some old, you know, a half-eaten dog's breakfast from years ago.
• 1:46
  So if anyone is thinking that, bear with me.
• 1:49
  I appreciate you all.
• 1:50
  Let's make it to the end of the year, and there'll be all kinds of exciting things to talk about.
• 1:54
  If you're coming over from Jeff's side of the stream, and you're thinking, well, who the hell is this guy?
• 1:58
  Who's the hell is this Australian hotel room in Washington, D.C.?
• 2:02
  And why has he...
• 2:04
  I think you should clarify that your accent is real and that you are not an American doing a bit this entire hour.
• 2:10
  I think American, I don't think any American can do this.
• 2:13
  You're right.
• 2:14
  They're very hard accents to do.
• 2:16
  Quick story.
• 2:17
  Yes.
• 2:18
  I was on the Blocked and Reported podcast.
• 2:20
  Another Substack staple, which I'm sure a lot of your listeners know.
• 2:23
  Great show.
• 2:23
  Great show.
• 2:24
  Jessie, Katie.
• 2:25
  Yeah, Jessie's become a friend of mine.
• 2:26
  I've never met Katie in person, even though we were friendly.
• 2:28
  Nobody has met Katie in person.
• 2:29
  She lives in the wilds of the Northwest Pacific.
• 2:32
  Yes, that's right.
• 2:32
  Yes.
• 2:33
  Yeah.
• 2:34
  So I was on Blocked and Reporting, and there was a series of tweets about the, you know, horrible England grooming case from the early 2010s, you know about this, where the- The grooming gangs.
• 2:46
  Yeah, the grooming gangs.
• 2:48
  Yeah, the cab drivers and the police were really slow, and it was awful.
• 2:53
  And what Jesse and I were talking about is Elon pretended like he discovered this story, almost like he, you know, Woodward and Bernstein did.
• 2:59
  And literally the London Times.
• 3:01
  Yes, the London Times.
• 3:02
  They were like, the mainstream media has been hiding it.
• 3:05
  And the most mainstream newspaper in the UK was responsible for breaking this.
• 3:08
  Correct.
• 3:09
  Yeah.
• 3:10
  And even the American papers had it.
• 3:11
  So that was the point we were talking about.
• 3:12
  But we had to read a series of tweets.
• 3:15
  And Jesse said, can you read them as Elon and can you do a South African accent?
• 3:19
  Oh, my God.
• 3:19
  So I said, yes, I can do them as Elon.
• 3:21
  I said, I can't do South African.
• 3:22
  I will try to do...
• 3:25
  New Zealand, because, you know, Flight of the Conchords.
• 3:28
  I know that a little bit.
• 3:29
  Yes.
• 3:30
  And I attempted it.
• 3:31
  It was just a disaster.
• 3:32
  And the bad thing is, people thought I was trying to be jokey reading these horrible tweets.
• 3:37
  It was as good as you could do.
• 3:38
  It was as good as I could.
• 3:39
  It was an honest-to-God attempt.
• 3:41
  You left nothing on the field.
• 3:42
  But people were like, it was like a clownish accent.
• 3:44
  I'm like, well, that's what an American trying to do New Zealand sounds like.
• 3:47
  Even people who have learned that, you know, so there was a movie, a terrible movie that came out last year with John Lithgow and, uh,
• 3:56
  Jeffrey Rush.
• 3:57
  Don't know if you remember Jeff Rush?
• 3:57
  Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:58
  Australian actor.
• 3:59
  Shine.
• 4:00
  Yes, won an Academy Award.
• 4:01
  You know, it was briefly famous in, I guess, the 90s or 2000s.
• 4:06
  So they did a movie where, and it was a New Zealand film.
• 4:10
  hate it don't you hate it it probably doesn't happen that much in the states because you're so insular that you people never watch foreign movies but when you're in a medium-sized country sometimes you'll go to the motion picture theater you'll get your popcorn and your ice cream and you'll be excited about uh watching a nice new american movie because you want to see an america by default you assume when you go to the movie theater yeah motion picture cinema yeah we're
• 4:36
  You want Hollywood.
• 4:36
  A real movie.
• 4:37
  You want the silver screen.
• 4:38
  You paid your money.
• 4:39
  Yeah, I paid my money.
• 4:41
  And it's the same price for a real American movie as it is for a fake New Zealand or Australian movie.
• 4:48
  Yes.
• 4:49
  And so I went in, I saw John Lithgow and Jeffrey Rush.
• 4:51
  I was like, this would be great.
• 4:52
  Two fabulous actors.
• 4:55
  And I go in and it says, the film foundation of New Zealand is proud to present.
• 5:00
  And I'm like, oh, fuck this.
• 5:01
  I threw the popcorn all over the place and stormed out.
• 5:04
  No, I didn't watch it.
• 5:05
  I did watch it.
• 5:06
  But John Lithgow tries to do a New Zealand accent.
• 5:09
  Now, you would think if anyone can nail an accent.
• 5:11
  I think he could do it, yeah.
• 5:12
  John Lithgow, like Shakespearean, like so, you know, learned theatrical, really good actor.
• 5:19
  Terrible.
• 5:20
  But probably only terrible to someone who's familiar with New Zealand, who's really familiar with New Zealand accents.
• 5:25
  So there you go.
• 5:26
  So long story short, I'm from Baltimore, and this is the best American version of an Australian accent
• 5:32
  you have ever heard.
• 5:33
  It's pretty convincing.
• 5:34
  It's close.
• 5:35
  So uncomfortable conversations, we have the kinds of conversations that would make people uncomfortable if someone was to express a strident opinion about them at a cocktail party or a bar.
• 5:47
  And while I was in Washington, DC, I knew that Jeff Maurer.
• 5:54
  Pretty good.
• 5:54
  Maurer.
• 5:55
  80% Maurer.
• 5:56
  You're overthinking it.
• 5:57
  Maurer.
• 5:58
  Maurer.
• 5:59
  Jeff Mauer was here, and so I thought, you know what I should get him to do?
• 6:03
  I should get him to swing by my hotel room like a cheap hooker.
• 6:07
  Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, that doesn't make me sound great.
• 6:10
  And because you're going to be able to fill me in.
• 6:12
  See, I've been vacationing with my family in Texas and in New England, and I haven't been paying attention to the news.
• 6:18
  So occasionally I'll like to do these live streams with somebody who knows more about things than I do.
• 6:23
  I couldn't find such a person, so I had to go for you.
• 6:27
  And so a few things that I want to talk about today.
• 6:30
  What the hell's going on in France?
• 6:31
  Yeah.
• 6:32
  Does it tell us anything about the unsatisfiability of electorates and of the extremes at the moment?
• 6:39
  Because I can't think of anything that the exhausted majority would be able to say to the protesters in France or to, like, the alt-right here or to, like, the democratic socialists of America that would placate.
• 6:52
  them actually and also be sane yeah um and what's going to happen in the midterms and is donald trump over is there anything else that we need to cover those sound like uh three biggies i mean you you have chosen somebody with no expertise um but i uh always i try to be very upfront about that yes as a comedian you should never claim any expertise there are
• 7:13
  Some comedians who try to be serious and then when things get hot, they try to back off and say, I'm just a comedian, come on, you can't.
• 7:20
  I try to be upfront about you shouldn't listen to me or care about what I said.
• 7:26
  But you don't need that disclaimer.
• 7:27
  You pick topics I've written about.
• 7:28
  Yes, that's why I, because I'm a thorough journalist and so I did my research before coming here and I knew that you'd already bloviated and defined ignorantly about these topics.
• 7:37
  And also I live nearby, so.
• 7:38
  And you live, you live so close.
• 7:40
  It's fabulous.
• 7:42
  You know, Jon Stewart used to do that.
• 7:44
  It used to bug me.
• 7:44
  Yeah, yeah.
• 7:45
  Because it's big time.
• 7:47
  Yeah, it's like he actually had a really important role in civic discourse in the Bush administration.
• 7:52
  Yes.
• 7:52
  You know, I mean, like 2006.
• 7:54
  Or like, when was the walk against hate and or extremism?
• 8:00
  Yeah, 2007 or 2008.
• 8:01
  Like that kind of time.
• 8:02
  Like he was a very important person.
• 8:04
  Absolutely.
• 8:05
  And then, you know, someone would push him on it and he'd be like, I do a show that's on before puppets make phone calls.
• 8:11
  Yeah.
• 8:11
  And then he's like, got the Secretary of State on the show that night.
• 8:14
  Yeah.
• 8:15
  And he's like, look, hey, man, I don't know.
• 8:16
  It's just a comedy show.
• 8:18
  Yeah.
• 8:18
  So anyway.
• 8:19
  It's a bit of a Martin Bailey.
• 8:20
  Yeah.
• 8:20
  Yeah, I'm going to explain a Motten Bailey.
• 8:23
  So drop it in.
• 8:24
  It's a great concept that everyone should know about if they don't.
• 8:26
  Okay, it's it unfortunately refers to a thing that I don't think has existed for like 600 years, because it's like medieval fortifications.
• 8:33
  Most of my audience is our medieval fortification buffs who are only okay, and they never get satisfied because there's so little content about medieval fortifications on this show.
• 8:43
  Okay, well, let me provide the medieval fortification content people demand.
• 8:47
  The bailey, the mod is the castle, right?
• 8:50
  And then the bailey is the part out front that is less defended.
• 8:55
  Or how I got it backwards?
• 8:56
  I don't know, but I'm enjoying the fact that you seem to know what you're talking about, because I never know.
• 9:01
  I can't visualize.
• 9:01
  I should have just second-guessed myself.
• 9:02
  I can't even visualize what the castle...
• 9:05
  I've never understood what exactly we're talking about.
• 9:08
  Yeah.
• 9:09
  One is a castle and one is a more forward and dangerous position in front of the castle.
• 9:14
  So I'm going to say the castle is the Mott and the Bailey is the more dangerous position.
• 9:19
  And I hope that's what I said 30 seconds ago.
• 9:22
  And I hope that is also correct.
• 9:23
  But you may need to Google it.
• 9:25
  I'm going to Google it right now while you're talking.
• 9:26
  Because I thought it was the other way around.
• 9:27
  I think you retreat to the Bailey.
• 9:29
  Yeah.
• 9:30
  Anyway, get me on.
• 9:31
  Okay, yeah, yeah.
• 9:33
  One's one and one's the other.
• 9:34
  We know that much.
• 9:35
  There are two things.
• 9:37
  And so the more dangerous position in an argument would be you're floating a trial balloon to see if people will buy it.
• 9:45
  And then if they don't, then you retreat back to the Mott and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey.
• 9:50
  I used this in an article recently.
• 9:52
  to talk about the way a lot of democratic socialists will basically kind of be calling for a wholesale rebooting of society.
• 10:02
  And then when people say that sounds kind of radical, they go, I just want to give people health care.
• 10:06
  Hassan Piper is the worst.
• 10:07
  I just want to give people health care.
• 10:09
  Yes, it's like one second ago you were talking about destroying this thing and that.
• 10:14
  And a very clean example of this would be defund the police.
• 10:17
  Yeah, right.
• 10:18
  Or something like that.
• 10:19
  Yes.
• 10:19
  Where you say, you really don't want any policemen?
• 10:21
  And they're like, no.
• 10:22
  It becomes, no, it's better social service.
• 10:23
  Or like abolish the police or something like that.
• 10:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:25
  So Mott and Bailey.
• 10:26
  Hey, humans.
• 10:27
  Just jumping in here quickly to make sure you're aware that this is just a preview.
• 10:31
  This is just a brief highlight
• 10:34
  of one of our premium episodes.
• 10:36
  If you weren't aware, it is our very generous paid subscribers and channel members who help make all of this possible, and they get extra juicy premium episodes just like this one.
• 10:47
  You can become a member on YouTube to watch the full episode, or you can subscribe via our sub stack to get the entire back catalogue of mind-expanding, bullshit-free, uncomfortable conversations.
• 10:59
  Back to the show.
• 11:00
  Back to the show.
• 11:00
  Which is the castle and which is the...
• 11:02
  The...
• 11:03
  It sounds like neither is a castle.
• 11:06
  Come on.
• 11:07
  A mot is a large artificial mound of earth topped with a wooden or stone tower.
• 11:14
  So I guess that's... That's the castle, yeah.
• 11:16
  The bailey is an enclosed courtyard at the base of the mot surrounded by a defensive ditch and wooden palisade.
• 11:22
  So you were right.
• 11:22
  The bailey is the out thing and the mot is the safe thing.
• 11:25
  The safe thing, yeah.
• 11:26
  It's also called a...
• 11:29
  was called something like a castle and there was another there was another way of saying this which I think would have been a lot easier because why have we chosen a name for a logical fallacy that comprises two things that no one has ever heard of except for a sixth century medieval.
• 11:47
  We really solved our brigand problem in modern times so we don't really need this stuff we
• 11:54
  We may need it, depending on how civilization goes and whether or not, like, the French protests.
• 12:00
  Yeah.
• 12:00
  You know, if everything collapses, maybe we will become more familiar with actual Mots and Baileys.
• 12:04
  It's also called the castle and the courtyard.
• 12:07
  There you go.
• 12:07
  That's what we should be calling it.
• 12:08
  I like the castle and courtyard.
• 12:10
  It's got castle right in it, and everybody knows what that is.
• 12:12
  What?
• 12:13
  Castle.
• 12:14
  People know what castles are.
• 12:15
  Yes, that's right.
• 12:16
  And they also know what courtyards are.
• 12:18
  That's true.
• 12:19
  So, yes, the idea being...
• 12:22
  you make the argument.
• 12:24
  When a person pushes you on the argument, you switch it back for a milder version of the argument and say that that's the only thing that you were saying.
• 12:31
  And then the moment their criticism has moved on, you find yourself arguing for the more aggressive position of the argument.
• 12:36
  There you go.
• 12:37
  You got it.
• 12:37
  Again, you're in political media, you understand.
• 12:40
  Flawless.
• 12:40
  So sorry, what was your name?
• 12:42
  I don't know.
• 12:43
  You're the host.
• 12:43
  I thought you were talking about something that had something to do with something.
• 12:47
  Definitely not.
• 12:49
  We were going to talk about France.
• 12:50
  We were maybe going to talk about the DSA.
• 12:51
  Oh, you were talking about, I think you were making a point about French people.
• 12:58
  Were we talking about baguettes?
• 13:00
  Were we talking about foie gras?
• 13:02
  French people generally?
• 13:03
  French people in general.
• 13:04
  You can't trust them.
• 13:06
  That's what I was saying.
• 13:07
  Yeah, I want you to do the rest of this interview in a French, not a New Zealand or South African accent.
• 13:14
  but a french accent so france has this um little wee problem which is uh look it's a lovely country to live in i don't want to be i don't want to imply that the state is any more wasteful in france than anywhere else but it does a lot of stuff
• 13:31
  does a lot of stuff the government does yes yes right they're big spenders big spenders and there's value for that the trains are great they're very fast you know things have you get lots of money from the government yeah especially if you're old sure um good health care free all that well much health care i mean much health care yes well i don't think an american uh
• 13:53
  Yeah, I don't think an American can accuse other countries of having too much unfettered, unrestrained healthcare spending.
• 14:00
  I should be more clear.
• 14:01
  That's true.
• 14:01
  I should be more clear.
• 14:05
  Healthcare that is available to anyone who wants it.
• 14:07
  Very low cost to the consumer.
• 14:09
  They have that, yes.
• 14:11
  Normal humans call it free healthcare.
• 14:14
  Libertarians insist on parsing the meaning of the word free and emphasizing that nothing is free.
• 14:21
  That's where I agree with the libertarians on that point.
• 14:24
  It's not free.
• 14:25
  Because in one breath, we're gonna say, free healthcare, and then in the next breath, we're gonna talk about, okay, and also they don't have any money in France anymore.
• 14:32
  Everyone understands.
• 14:33
  Everyone in the universe understands that.
• 14:35
  All right, okay.
• 14:35
  I mean, it's like, you know, if you walk into a bar and everyone, someone's like, free drinks, free shots.
• 14:42
  You don't say, well, actually,
• 14:45
  That's not, you know, the distiller still has to get paid.
• 14:49
  Well, yeah, of course, they're free here.
• 14:50
  They're free for us.
• 14:51
  I don't think people do understand that.
• 14:52
  I don't think everyone does understand that.
• 14:54
  I've encountered a lot of people who I think they think that free is free.
• 14:57
  This is the, when people are declaring things rights,
• 15:02
  Sometimes, sometimes.
• 15:04
  Right.
• 15:04
  I don't think their thinking goes beyond that.
• 15:06
  They think once you declare it a right, it just kind of will appear.
• 15:09
  And they're not thinking about who actually provides it.
• 15:12
  And you're right, somebody is going to get paid at some point for providing a service.
• 15:15
  I think for a lot of people, it doesn't really go that far.
• 15:17
  That's true.
• 15:18
  They probably don't think about it very much.
• 15:20
  And so you're saying that.
• 15:21
  Not at all.
• 15:22
  Yeah, but if you press them on it, they would understand that the doctors have to get paid.
• 15:26
  Yes.
• 15:27
  Right.
• 15:28
  But not everybody... An MRI machine has to get made by a company that has to be compensated for the MRI machine.
• 15:34
  Yeah.
• 15:35
  But some people, if you press them on that, that will be the first time they've thought about that.
• 15:41
  boy you're right people vote you're right you don't just find mri machines in the woods somebody has to make it somebody has to operate and that person gets a salary yeah yeah but for some people and i'm talking you know let's just say it young people it'll be the first time they've thought about damn young people i know uh i think that's true and it actually raises a useful thing which uh unexpectedly links us back to france and the midterms which is
• 16:06
  there are things there are ways of thinking about the provision of services and the role of government that um i think there's a certain amount of uh i think we're allowed to get a bit fuzzy at the edges about what is a right and what is like an american libertarian will say that you can't have a right that imposes an obligation on somebody else
• 16:30
  Right?
• 16:30
  I think you would say that, yes.
• 16:31
  Yeah.
• 16:32
  You cannot.
• 16:33
  To talk about a right to even an elementary school education for every child in America is nonsensical, because in order to provide an elementary school education for free, you have to get those resources from somewhere else, which means taxing another person.
• 16:48
  That tax is an obligation that you're imposing on somebody else.
• 16:52
  So your rights have to be things that you're born with and nothing else.
• 16:57
  I used to believe that because I used to be an Ayn Rand reading teenage child, infant.
• 17:05
  When I grew up and got wise, Jeff, I started having more of an appreciation for what you might call a European interpretation of rights, or I just think a civilized understanding of rights in the post-capitalist, in tooth and claw version of civilization.
• 17:27
  which would be freedom also exists in positive ways rather than just negative ways.
• 17:33
  Like freedom does not merely mean the absence of a person
• 17:38
  coercing me into doing something, yeah, at the point of a gun.
• 17:42
  You know, me being magnificently free in the jungle with no assistance.
• 17:48
  Like, freedom also means my ability to achieve the life that I want and to have some tools to do so.
• 17:54
  So there's a positive interpretation of freedom, which I think France and countries like that and, like, Denmark, they're good at thinking about.
• 18:03
  They're good at thinking about, like, it's not...
• 18:05
  it's a pretty cheap form of freedom to say the poor man and the rich man are both free to sleep under a bridge.
• 18:14
  The rich man isn't going to sleep under a bridge because he doesn't want to, nor does the poor man.
• 18:18
  So, like, there is, like, there is some amount of, I guess, infringing the freedom of...
• 18:28
  spectacularly profitable companies and people to be as spectacularly profitable as they want in order to foster a sense of common welfare that makes the whole machine function that permits for language like free healthcare, free education.
• 18:48
  But not free cars.
• 18:50
  I think, I think,
• 18:53
  I think I follow you.
• 18:54
  And I think we're doing a nice tour through the different types of annoying young person.
• 18:59
  You know, I started with the annoying left wing person, which I was, by the way.
• 19:03
  I was the annoying left wing person who would say, you know, such and such should be free.
• 19:08
  And I thought I had done it.
• 19:10
  Right.
• 19:10
  I thought me declaring it was it.
• 19:12
  Yeah.
• 19:13
  And apparently you were the annoying type of young person.
• 19:15
  Yeah.
• 19:16
  Who had kind of a debater's point about positive rights versus negative rights and didn't follow on and ask, OK, but even if they're not rights, is it like a good thing to do?
• 19:24
  Exactly.
• 19:25
  Why are we pledging such pedantic fealty to this abstract concept of rights and freedom if it leads to a society that is monstrously unequal and nasty to live in and you're constantly in fear of violent crime because there is an underclass of permanently entrenched, impoverished people?
• 19:43
  Yeah.
• 19:43
  You have a perfectly good solution, which is a social democracy.
• 19:46
  I think, yeah, and I agree.
• 19:47
  And I think a lot of the disconnect is probably just coming from the rights language, people getting tripped up on that and...
• 19:53
  you know, what it can and can't do for you.
• 19:56
  I when I was younger, I would use language about rights and the word should a lot.
• 20:00
  This should happen.
• 20:01
  This should not happen.
• 20:02
  And I've gotten older.
• 20:04
  It's much more practical arguments are the ones that I think are the better ones, because, yeah, if I talk about providing health care or whatever, I wouldn't frame it in rights language.
• 20:16
  I would make a practical argument about this is a good thing to do.
• 20:20
  Actually, and that would be strategically smarter because you'd be able to win over libertarians and conservatives better because they wouldn't immediately shut down the moment you start talking about rights.
• 20:29
  Yeah, I have a good number of libertarian and small C conservative readers, even though I'm basically just an unreformed Obama liberal.
• 20:39
  Yeah.
• 20:40
  We seem to be speaking similar languages these days.
• 20:42
  I think, well, that's right.
• 20:43
  I think it's because you and I understand what makes them so frustrated about lefty noise, right?
• 20:50
  You know, the kind of closed-minded, echo-chambery, finger-waggy, censorious, sort of like, you know, virtue-signaling, foggy-headed, you know, muddle-headed, you know, all of that.
• 21:01
  Right.
• 21:01
  Yes.
• 21:02
  I just mentioned Jesse Single, who we did a live show here in D.C. like two weeks ago.
• 21:06
  Oh, that's right.
• 21:06
  How did that go?
• 21:07
  It was great.
• 21:08
  And you're doing another one in some shithole.
• 21:10
  New York.
• 21:11
  Yeah, New York.
• 21:12
  Not New York.
• 21:13
  Was it Philly?
• 21:14
  Yeah.
• 21:15
  No, it's come to that.
• 21:16
  One in New York, one in Philly.
• 21:19
  November 2nd and 3rd.
• 21:20
  Come see us.
• 21:21
  The one in Philly is on election night.
• 21:23
  So it's a combination show and hang out.
• 21:26
  We're going to order some pizzas and watch Democracy.
• 21:28
  Oh, that's great.
• 21:29
  Excellent.
• 21:30
  I wish I was still here for it.
• 21:31
  But we got a question at the DC show about where we fit in the media universe.
• 21:42
  We're just my answer.
• 21:44
  I think we're just liberals who are annoyed by other liberals.
• 21:49
  Yes, we get that we're annoying.
• 21:51
  And if you want to parse between liberal and progressive, you know, fair.
• 21:54
  I do that a lot.
• 21:55
  Yeah.
• 21:56
  But like, I get it.
• 21:59
  It's strange to encounter people on the left who like don't get how we're funny.
• 22:05
  think that everything on MSNBC is right.
• 22:07
  It's like, you think that everything on MSNBC is correct and true.
• 22:10
  Yeah.
• 22:11
  So that's really it.
• 22:12
  I mean, I think there's and I'm not even sure that liberal or progressive is very useful these days.
• 22:19
  I wonder whether or not, like, because I think
• 22:21
  I started talking about the exhausted majority.
• 22:23
  Yeah, sure.
• 22:25
  Which is, you know, the 80% of people.
• 22:26
  You say that phrase and I instantly can guess what you're talking about.
• 22:29
  You know, it's like there's 10% of the population are going to be on social media.
• 22:36
  G'day humans.
• 22:37
  Well, if you've listened to this much of the episode, then you must enjoy it, presumably, unless you're just listening for masochistic reasons.
• 22:44
  So you should listen to the rest of it.
• 22:45
  And the way you do that is by subscribing to the premium feed, where you not only get to hear the rest of this delightful conversation, and trust me, oh, it gets better than what you just heard, but you also get to hear no ads, zero ads.
• 22:58
  And previously, up until now, you had to go to the old Substack to do that and follow me on Substack and add one more platform to your life if you're not already on Substack.
• 23:07
  But here's the thing.
• 23:08
  We are now on Apple premium podcast as well.
• 23:11
  So with one click, Apple will just subscribe you up to the premium feed.
• 23:14
  You'll be able to listen to the rest of this conversation right now, right now, right now.
• 23:17
  So open up your Apple podcasts, click the old Pay Old Zepsy button.
• 23:22
  That's probably what it's called.
• 23:23
  Pay Old Zepsy.
• 23:24
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• 23:28
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• 23:33
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• 23:44
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• 23:48
  by going into your Apple Podcasts and clicking subscribe.
• 23:51
  I love you.
• 23:52
  If you don't do that, that's fine.
• 23:54
  I'll see you the next free episode, I guess.
• 23:56
  Take care.