Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Dolly Parton’s Legacy, Trump’s Winning Endorsements & the Coming AI Shakeup

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Normally Podcast: Dolly Parton’s Legacy, Trump’s Winning Endorsements & the Coming AI Shakeup · Normally

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, we are back on Normally the Show with
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Normalish Takes for When the News Gets Weird.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: I am Mary Katherine Hamm.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: I am Carol Markowitz. How are you, Mary Katherine?
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: I'm doing all right.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about it later in the show,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: but of course, the loss of Dolly Parton weighs heavily
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: in this house.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I went to car line yesterday and my kid was like, yeah, right, mom?
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Oh, no.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Were you crying?
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: I was crying.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I was sad and I made friends with another mom
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: who also had a Dolly shirt on when she arrived
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: at Carline.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: So I got, see, she's making connections still.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. She really, I mean, again, I don't want to,
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: I don't want to step on our third segment, but
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: she was amazing. And really what a legend. Okay. We'll
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: talk about it later. Let's not, let's not get ahead
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: of ourselves. I will tell you that my 10 year
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: old son, who is a wannabe YouTuber, uh, heard she died,
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: barely knew who she was, posted a few pictures of
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: her with one of her songs and got like thousands
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: of views. And my other kids who are like Dolly
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: fans were like, this is wrong. We should not allow
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: this to happen. And yet here we are.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: You know, people want to click. They want to click
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: on that.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: They left him like comments about like when they met her,
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: like when they first heard the song. He's like, I
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: don't know, man.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: It's better than a lot of other content to click on.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: All right. Let's talk about last night's election results. Darlene
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Graham won in South Carolina. Mike Mazzei beat Gentner Drummond
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: in Oklahoma's Republican primary for governor. Both of these people
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: were endorsed by Donald Trump. And it sort of was
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: a moment of like, Donald Trump still got it.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Which, look, in a lot of ways he does. Sometimes
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: he misses, obviously, endorsing the pillow guy while he's like
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: under indictment might not have been the right pick for
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: that race in particular. And then he loses. But he's
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: doing OK as far as track records go. And he's
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: using his political capital for some of these candidates. And
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: for others, he's just issuing an endorsement and stepping away.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Darlene Graham winning was a little bit unusual. She, of course,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: is the sister of Lindsey Graham, who died last month.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: And we just really don't know that much about her.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Lindsey was somebody who wore his politics on his sleeve.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: He knew exactly what he believed. A lot of people
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: disagreed with him. A lot of Republicans disagreed with him.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Yet he was always just himself and out there and
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: talking about what he thinks very openly. We don't have
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: that same vibe from Darlene Graham yet, but who knows?
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Now she's going to have to run in a general
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: election where the Trump endorsement matters a lot less. We'll
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: see what happens there.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's South Carolina. Even in a bad year, South
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Carolina is a fairly safe place for Republicans. I think
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of people do feel drawn to this idea
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: that she's.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: By having this seat.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Now, the primary voters have had their say before the
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: primary had their say.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: I did not think this was a good idea.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I thought it was a fine idea to have her
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: fill out the term. But at that point, she had
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: not expressed the desire to run and then she changed
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: her mind.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: So I don't love that. I don't like that.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: These are sort of family positions that you can pass along.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: She was very straight with the voters in that debate
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: where she said, I just don't know a lot about
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: some of these things, including foreign policy, about which Lindsey
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Graham was very, very passionate.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: That was his whole thing.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: So I I would suggest that between now and whatever
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: possible general election debates there are. She needs to brush
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: up on those things, despite a relatively safe state, because
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: that's voters deserve that, you know, about the things that
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: are going to be on your plate when you get there.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I know, you know, not everyone.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Knowing things has become stupid, but we still think you should.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: I think knowing things is good. And so she should
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: she should work on that.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: And yeah. I will say that a lot of people,
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: especially people who are new to politics, think that this
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: has never happened before, where a family member has taken
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: the seat of their relative. That is completely untrue. One
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: that sticks out to me is in 2000, John Ashcroft
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: lost to a guy that had died. He had been
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: killed in a plane crash, Mel Carnahan, and his wife,
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: Jean Carnahan, went on to take His seat in the U.S.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: Senate served until her death in 2002. But she won
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: his seat and she, you know, served there. So it
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: does happen where family members step in and take the seat.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: It happens a fair amount. And part of that is
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: just name recognition is 90 percent of politics.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: And so if you put someone with the same name
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: on the ballot, you're likely to get similar results with
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: people who are just checking into the voting process.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: But I do not love it, even though it has.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: There's a situation right now where several candidates are named
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Dan Sullivan in Alaska, and it was on purpose to
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: confuse voters. And I'm sure it will confuse some voters.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that one is just that's one of those moments
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: where in politics, I understand that there's dirty tricks at
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: every level. This one really exploited Alaska's strange system to
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: put two guys with the same name as two representatives
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: on the same ticket. One's a random guy who's just
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: named Dan Sullivan. The other one is the incumbent Senator
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Dan Sullivan against a pretty strong Democrat, Mary Paltola. And
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: that could cause problems for incumbent Dan Sullivan if he
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: does not educate people properly.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: And it's a pretty gross incident. Two uplifting stories right
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: at the beginning of this show.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: All right, let's make it funny. You know, Eddie Murphy
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: had a movie about doing exactly this kind of thing
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: where he ran using the name of a candidate, a
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: popular politician who had died. The movie was called The
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: Distinguished Gentleman. And his motto in his race was the
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: name you know. And that's what a lot of these
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: people are doing here. Yep, there it is.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: There it is. Yeah.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: So, you know, these people look like they're probably going
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: to win the generals. I imagine, unless we learn some
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: terrible things about Darlene Graham, she is going to win
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: the election in South Carolina. And it's, again, is it
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: Trump's power here or would Darlene Graham win anyway because
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: of her brother? Yeah. I think it's the latter, even
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: though I give Trump credit. Again, I fully give Trump credit.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: It's his party. He absolutely controls a lot of things.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: But I think some cases he can't push them across
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: the finish line. And in some cases it was unnecessary
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: for him to be doing the pushing.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Right. Well, I'm gratified that in a case like Lindell,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: It doesn't happen. So you have a totally normie Republican woman,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Lisa DeMoss, who's able to run instead and give a
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: fighting shot.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: To to the GOP in that state, even in a
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: bad year.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: It's not, you know, not a great environment to be
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: running in, but it's nice to have somebody who will
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: put a good face on the party.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: So what's your prediction? Are Republicans keeping winning? What are
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: we thinking?
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Um, I.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, I hate to be conventional wisdom about it,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: but I would suggest... No, conventional wisdom is the right way,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: The House is probably dunzo and that I get increasingly
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: worried about the Senate. But even though the vibes feel
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: like 2006, which was a disaster for the party in power,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: which was Republicans at the time, the map is very different.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: And the partisan polarization and the sorting into different places
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: is different. And these the places they need to turn
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Democrats in the Senate races are like double digit Trump states. Yeah.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: So they are on an uphill battle, even in a
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: very good environment for them. So I think the Senate
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: probably sticks around, but people need to run like they're behind. Right.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: That's a good point. While you were gone at one
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: point in the summer, I had Tim Young on the
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: show and he predicted Republicans keep both. And we got
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: some notes from people being like, is this man crazy?
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: But his point was also like, I think that he
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: thought Republicans keep both and don't deserve to keep both.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: So little of this, little of that.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, the universe is very small at the moment
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: because there are so many districts that are simply sorted
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: already into districts.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Heavily red or heavily blue.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: It's like 18 to 20 House districts you're looking at.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: But even though it's a small pool or a small number,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: you have to pull over. You don't have to do
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: that many.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Nonetheless, they have to like a lot of things have
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: to fall Democrats way, both on the House and the
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Senate to work out for them.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: So there's a there's a.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Sort of a built in defense for Republicans, but it
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: may not hold in a year like this.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah. All right, let's take a short break and be
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: right back with more on Normally. We are back on
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Normally where Meta has just lost a major child safety
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: case and a New Mexico judge has found that Facebook
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: and Instagram contributed significantly to harm to teenagers and constitute
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: a public nuisance. Meadow was ordered to pay $ 567 million,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: but it's into a fund at addressing youth mental health harms.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: And they were already told to pay $ 375 million in
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: penalties by a jury earlier this year. So the total
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: is $ 942 million. The earlier jury found 75,000 violations of
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: New Mexico's consumer protection law. So, yeah, you know, is
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: Facebook and Instagram harmful to minors? Probably yes. Measures that
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: they have to take will include stronger age verification, limits
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: on minors usage, restrictions on nighttime notifications, changes to engagement
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: features such as like counts, Um, but is this money
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: going towards anything real? I.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I would suggest it might end up going to things
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: that are actively harmful, just as that concerns me. You
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: don't know who's running these treatment paths, like, um, if
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: you read our friend Abigail Schreier's book, bad therapy, you
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: might be concerned about funneling more kids into sort of
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: a you know, top-down, government-dictated, therapized universe where they don't
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: actually get healed from these things.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: That is a concern that I would have.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: But I think there's a lot of value in parents
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: and everyone learning that a lot of these tech companies
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: know that what they're producing is hurting people.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: And.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say the most recent case,
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: which is just coming down, is actually far higher than
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: the numbers I said. It's in the $ 16 billion range
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: that they're going to. Yeah, sorry, that's my mistake. You know,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: it's a couple of hundred million between friends. But yeah,
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: the settlement that is happening right now is actually in
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: the billions. It was a coalition of states and U.S.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: territories that sued MEDA. And the claims, you know, covering
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: 29 states, And the settlement ultimately covers 47 states plus
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: DC and several territories. Is it addictive? Yeah, we're all addicted.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: We are all addicted to the scrolling and it's absolutely bad.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: I just, I'm so curious about how this money could
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: fix it and how, what that really means for the kids.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: I think really the only thing The only thing that's
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: going to stop kid addiction is their parents saying that's
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: enough of that. And too many parents are not willing
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: to do that.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the hard truth is that the most
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: effective protection is for you to say to your kids,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: you can't do this until you're.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: 16, 18, whatever the thing is.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Right. The New York Times actually interviewed a handful of
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: parents the other day asking them how they handle this.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: And it was a it ran the gamut. I had
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: a friend who was among them who has four kids, Diana.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And she was like, yeah, we finally sort of caved
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: and gave my kid a phone for high school for extracurriculars.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: She can get in touch with us, but it's sort
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: of disabled. And I'm like, that's where I am. Like,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I feel like I would having a logistical phone. but
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: not necessarily social media for my kids. And then there
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: were other parents who were like, I trust my kids
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: to make great decisions.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: And I was like, I don't know about that.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: You know, I have to say I'm somewhere in between
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: there because... I trust some of my kids. Like my
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: daughter had a phone for a long time. She, when
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: we lived in Brooklyn, she went to school in Manhattan.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: She had a phone, everybody on her bus had a phone. Um,
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: and she didn't use it for anything except, you know,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: contacting us being like the bus is late as she
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: got older. Obviously she uses it for a lot of things,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: talk to her friends and all that. Um, but she's
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: just not on it that much. There is, when I
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: see her, she is frequently reading. I mean, she's just,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: her school doesn't allow phone usage at all. It's, she
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: has kind of set the bar for what I consider
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: a correct usage, which she never uses it in restaurants.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: We don't use it in like when, when we're in
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: the car, like there's no like scrolling on your phone.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Like we're listening to my music together so I could
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: brainwash you into it. And that's, that's how it's going
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: to go. Um, my youngest son who's 10 cannot, be
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: trusted with any of this. You know, when he was
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: like seven, he was like, I want TikTok. And I
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: was like, absolutely not. Yeah. So and then my middle
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: son is somewhere in between. And You kind of have
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: to know your kids, but you also you have to
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: set limits. And the thing that I always say about
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: this is it is the scrolling that is the problem.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: It's not the phone. It's not them talking to their
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: friends wouldn't bother any of us. It's that they're literally
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: every time they're bored, they're like, oh, let's scroll and
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: make the boredom go away. And that we can't abide.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: We can't have them out in public basically carrying around
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: a little television set and to keep them entertained for
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: the moments, the seconds that they're bored and need something
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: else to look at. That's where the issue begins. It's
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: not the socializing to me at all. If they're socializing
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: with their friends on it, fine, but that's not what
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: most kids are doing.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm very open to the idea that
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: these companies being pushed into re-evaluating exactly how they're formulating
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: this for kids is probably valuable.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Do I trust personal injury lawsuits as the mechanism for
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: doing that?
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Generally, that's not a class of lawyers that I think
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: is doing the great, you know, benevolent work.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: But I guess we shall see.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: But I think you're right that the hard truth is
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: that you got to set some of these limits yourself.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Can be. Very, very challenging.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Be the parent. That's the message for a lot of
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: this is always like, where is the parenting in this?
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: That's really what has to happen. Parents have to set guidelines.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: They can't count on companies or even governments to take
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: that role for them. If you're not doing it for
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: your kids, nobody else will. Yeah. And and.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Taking your power, as some parents have done with school districts,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: to say, you need to help me with this and
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: not support what I'm doing at home, which is where
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: we've gotten a lot of the bans on phones and
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: social media in school is coming from parents who say,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I'm fighting this battle and you're undermining me.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: And so I think that's another form of parenting that
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: can be beneficial.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: So staying with the tech topic, Bill Gates spoke to
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Semaphore and he basically said AI is going to destroy
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: a lot of things. This is from the article. His
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: warning is a striking shift from three years ago when
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: he wrote that the coming bumpy AI job disruption would
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: lead to a manageable transition and that the technology would
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: help work efficiently. Now he says it will wreck economic
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: catastrophe with far fewer jobs than exist today thanks to
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: the speed of AI's advancements and what he calls a
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: non-existent response from government and tech leaders. quote, I'm in
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: a state of shock that I'm sort of the first
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: one saying this is crazy. This is insane. I'm just
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: deafened by the silence, end quote. Bro, you're not the
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: first one saying it. And I don't feel like there
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: is a silence. I think that a lot of people
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: are concerned about where this is going to go. But
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: this catastrophizing, I just can't support it. He's been wrong
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: lots of times before. He's been wrong about, say, COVID,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: where he assured us how bad it was going to
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: get and never got that bad. So maybe he should
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: take a break from being a doomsayer.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I also have to look at myself and be like,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: sometimes I'm a little too optimistic reflexively, right? I believe
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: in creative destruction. I believe it can bring us to
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: greater outcomes. And that doesn't dismiss the fact that people
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: get hurt along the way. I do think that this revolution,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: like others, will bring about more prosperity and more tools.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: And that is the likely outcome.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: However, I was once much more sanguine about social media
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: as well. And I was like, look at all these connections.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: It's so beautiful.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Who among us doesn't remember Friendster?
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Right. People can get in touch and they can spark
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: revolutions and repress countries. And, you know, it turned out
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: to be doom scrolling instead. So I think I'm more
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: wary of my optimistic predictions at this point. But I
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: think I think you're right that.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: This is a little this is a little bit of
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: a useless bit of Advice from Bill Gates, right? It's
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: too late.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, AI is happening. And also a lot of
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: people point out that the fact that he thinks he's
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: the first one saying it means that he's in some
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: kind of crazy bubble that doesn't exist.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're all having this discussion regularly. I think one
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: of the issues with AI and when he says, you know,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a government industry silence, first of all, there isn't, I
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: don't think. Second of all, particularly with government, and I
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: know this is tricky because there will need to be
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: probably limits.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: And rules and such.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: The government and the people who run it simply are
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: not with it enough to understand this technology and to
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: regulate it accordingly. Like things move too slow. They don't
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: get the ramifications. And that's one of my concerns about education.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: is that like, who is the human who's staying on
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: top of how much this is advancing? Because there's only
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: so much you can do in your brain while this
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: guy has unlimited computing power.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Right, right. And, you know, the democratization of information that
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: AI brings, is going to be a net positive. So
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: I'm cautiously optimistic with you on, I don't want to
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: be like caught surprised by how bad things could get.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: I get it. But a lot of these things were
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: said about the internet. Also, people said that the internet
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: was going to just destroy everything. And it really grew
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: the economy so much. It didn't destroy anything. And so far,
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Job losses haven't happened and AI is already kind of here.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: It's not like it's in some far off future. It's happening.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: It's here right now. U.S. employment 4.1% now down from 4.4%
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: in February. So is it hurting? Not yet. And we'll
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: see if it does.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: And even when I am dismayed by the Internet, I
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: do have to put my view in perspective. One of
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the things that, you know, annoys us frequently is.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Media coverage, right? And then the sort of the viral
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: nature of false claims, et cetera. But the internet also
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: gives us a thing that we didn't.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Have 30 years ago, which is access to primary speeches
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and documents that you can just go to the source
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and correct the record. And that was not something that
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: existed before. It had to come from the New York Times.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: It had to come through CBS. And we all have
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: that power now.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: And so it feels... annoying, but we have tools at
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: our disposal we didn't used to have.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: We're also super bad at predicting how things are going
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: to go. I remember in early internet, Yale took up
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: this project to put all books online. And after like
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: a year and a half, they got only books on
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: like Abraham Lincoln online. I And they were like, well,
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: this is never going to work. We're never going to
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: have all the books online. And of course, now we do.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: And we don't even think about it. It all exists
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: online now. It's not just Abraham Lincoln books. So we'll see.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: All right. We'll stay cautiously optimistic here on Normally. And
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: we'll take a short break and be right back with
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: the segment you're waiting for about our Dolly Parton. Be
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: right back.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: All right, we are back on normally to mourn the
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: American queen. Dolly Parton, who passed yesterday at the age
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: of 80. Her family announced her death and then later
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: that day announced that she had died after a very
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: brief fight with cancer. There had been rumors about her
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: health for about a year or so. And so I
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: worried about her regularly as a fan. She lived a
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: good long life. She was a woman of faith. Her
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: family made it clear that she was at peace.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: And I'm just so sad to lose her.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: She was so... just a national hero. A lot of
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: people are making this point, but she was really beloved
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: by everybody. And the fact is that she was beloved
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: by everybody because she did not get into politics and
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: she did not tell us her opinions all the time.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: And we just were left with her music and her
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: personality and not her random opinions on the day's news.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: And so it's funny that a lot of the people
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: pointing this out like, oh, we just all loved her
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: so much. Like, yeah, if you'd leave celebrities alone and
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: not make them comment on every news story or every
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: cause that you think is important, maybe we'd have more
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: celebrities that we all loved and didn't have to know
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: the minutia of what they thought.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Now, I think she's actually this is pertinent to our
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: second segment. She's a person who was living a life
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: where she wasn't compelled to live stream everything to do
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the grind. Now, some of that privilege of just having
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: been an icon before social media existed. But some of
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: it is a discipline where she was like, that's not
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: what I do.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: I write songs. I entertain. I step in where I
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: feel something is important. Literacy, of course, being her number one.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: We love that here on Normally.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: She had a simple and beautiful charity, the Imagination Library,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: that sends books to kids zero to five and gets
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: them in their homes and reading books. And and the
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: concept was inspired by her father, who could neither read
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: nor write. And it was much to his disappointment throughout
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: his life that he couldn't. And she she did this
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: in his honor. And I think she'll end up helping
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: solve a literacy problem we currently have made worse by
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: covid because a lot of kids are going to encounter
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: books and the joy of them before before they're five
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: that might not otherwise have done so. Right.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: And really, the only people who have anything negative to
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: say about Dolly today are the lunatics that we should
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: all be ignoring. The crazy person that runs the track
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: APAC account, I believe she lives in Germany. Like, she's
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: not even American, but she doesn't want American Jews participating
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: in politics. She says she was good for a celeb,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: but people overrate Dolly as a person. She's no Miss Rachel. Like, ma'am.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Even Miss Rachel would be like,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: don't bring me into this.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Don't talk about me like that. So is there anybody
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: else that we all kind of love and revere? The
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: only person I've seen mentioned that I think lives up
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: to that at all is Keanu Reeves. We all just
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: kind of like him. And Another one where he just
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: doesn't talk politics. What if we just did that with
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: our celebrities?
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: It seems like it might go better.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I would suggest just a handful of people, but nobody
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: like the level of respect she got from everyone. I
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: would say Tom Hanks is pretty universally beloved, thanks to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of his World War II work.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Snoop and Martha together, that But only together.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Separately no good. Yeah.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I think they're pretty beloved. But yes, Dolly was just
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: a really special person. And I loved what she modeled,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: which is I came from nothing and I came from
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: nothing with gratitude. She spoke all the time about being
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: so thankful for what her parents gave her. And her
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: parents gave her like a one and a half bedroom
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: cabin in the Tennessee mountains and paid for her birth
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: with a sack of cornmeal. Like that's what they were providing.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: And she's like, they're the greatest. I was rich before
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I was rich. And that is such a beautiful thing
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: to model that it is not in vogue to model
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: in our current, certainly social media era.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. The other thing is she could laugh at herself,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: where I think a lot of celebrities take themselves a
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: little too seriously. She famously said, That she didn't mind
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: the dumb blonde jokes because she knew she wasn't dumb
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: or blonde. Excellent.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: She was very funny.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: She nailed all those late night segments, just making some
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: dirty jokes, making people a little nervous, performing live.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: She was something else. She really knew.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: She was a great talent. That's the other thing. It's
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: like it wasn't just her looks. It wasn't just that
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: she was funny. It wasn't just that she was personable.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: She was very, very good at what she did. I mean,
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Jolene is such a classic. It's, you know, a song
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: that I remember playing for my daughter when she was
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: little and her singing along with it. And it's just
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: her music was amazing.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think she's spoken in the she had
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: spoken in the past about her songwriting being the backbone
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: of all of this. Like, sure, I do the thing
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: with the hair and the makeup and the platform shoes.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I joked yesterday that she probably didn't touch grass literally
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: because she was always in it. But but I do
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: all of that. But the songwriting is the basis of it.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: And it really was because she wrote incredibly powerful songs.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I believe legendarily she wrote I Will Always Love You.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: and Jolene within some ludicrous.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Same day. Right.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Insane. Thank you so much, Dolly.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I think she's, she's just such a great
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: figure because she embodies so many things.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: She's fully Christian and fully a gay icon. She's like amazing.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Fully a cartoon and fully the realist person.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: And I just think she was fabulous. It's on my
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: set right here. This Dolly Dolly Parton book.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: Love it. We have a clip the royal family in
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: the UK posted of the Kingsguard playing nine to five.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Let's play that. So good.
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: You know, that song, it came out in 1980 and
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: it really came to represent that early 80s feeling where
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: the economy was finally taking off and.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: It was like, it makes me picture like women in
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: heels with a double-breasted suits on and that line, pour
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: yourself a cup of ambition. I mean, perfect.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: So good. So such great writing, which is what it
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: all goes back to.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I should note that I think it's fairly rare for
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: the Kingsguard to do a tribute to an American outside
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: of an American dignitary or someone visiting.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: So this tribute is very special.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Of course, the Kingsguard did a tribute to America and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: the victims of 9-11 shortly after that tragedy. But it
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: is the UK is recognizing our queen, you know, and
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: that was awesome.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: R.I.P. Dolly.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: R.I.P.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you for all the great stuff that.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: We'll live on. Yeah.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: Well, thanks for joining us on Normally. Normally airs Tuesdays
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: Get in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail.com. Thanks
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: for listening, and when things get weird, act normally.