Latest / Blocked and Reported / Episode 299: The Politics of Misery

Transcript

Episode 299: The Politics of Misery · Blocked and Reported

0:09
SPEAKER_03: Okay, Jesse, can we start with an email from a listener?
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would love to.
0:14
Okay,
0:15
so on our last Primo episode,
0:17
as I'm sure,
0:18
actually,
0:18
let's do a quiz.
0:19
SPEAKER_03: Jesse, what was our last Primo episode about?
0:21
SPEAKER_01: Oh, fuck me.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh, God.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay, wait.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: Let me just guess based on context clues.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: Trans barista, furry, coffee shop, anarchist.
0:34
SPEAKER_03: Iran.
0:34
SPEAKER_03: It was about Iran.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Oh,
0:36
SPEAKER_01: it was about like the diaspora and how you and I are in favor of the CIA
0:41
SPEAKER_01: instituting a new monarchy.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:43
SPEAKER_03: Yes, something like that.
0:44
SPEAKER_03: It was about our personal preferences for what happens in Iran next.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: For the future.
0:49
SPEAKER_03: Which is important because they're asking us.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: What's also crazy is at the end of that episode,
0:55
SPEAKER_01: you said,
0:55
SPEAKER_01: this is a direct quote,
0:56
SPEAKER_01: I hope they close that fucking canal.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: And then that happened.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: So I blame you.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, yeah, listen to your email.
1:03
Okay,
1:03
so the show is actually about a beauty influencer named Huda
1:07
Huda Katan.
1:08
And her line,
1:10
her line of beauty products,
1:11
it's sold exclusively at Sephora.
1:13
SPEAKER_03: Have you been?
1:14
SPEAKER_01: You think this pays the bill?
1:15
I'm one of the people who sprays perfume in your face when you
1:18
walk into Sephora.
1:18
So I mentioned on the show that some members of the Iranian
1:22
diaspora had been
1:23
SPEAKER_03: protesting Huda's line at Sephora.
1:27
SPEAKER_03: Do you see how I'm pronouncing her name twice,
1:29
SPEAKER_03: just in case hopefully one of those ways is correct?
1:32
You should pronounce it like 10 different ways and then you can
1:34
cut out all the wrong ones.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: Huda, Hida, Huda, Huda.
1:37
SPEAKER_03: So there's a protest.
1:39
SPEAKER_03: People are leaving flyers in Sephora.
1:42
SPEAKER_03: They want her products no longer carried by this company because she is,
1:48
SPEAKER_03: they would say,
1:48
SPEAKER_03: no friend to the Iranian people.
1:51
SPEAKER_03: And I mentioned that shortly after this protest started,
1:54
SPEAKER_03: Sephora removed Huda's photo from their windows.
1:58
SPEAKER_03: And I said,
1:58
we don't know if this was just a regular rotation or if this
2:03
was a response to the
2:03
SPEAKER_03: protest.
2:04
SPEAKER_03: Well, Jesse, now we know.
2:05
SPEAKER_03: So we got an email from a Sephora employee.
2:09
SPEAKER_03: She said this.
2:11
SPEAKER_03: On January 31st,
2:12
SPEAKER_03: Sephora asked stores to remove the Huda window banner,
2:14
SPEAKER_03: remove her products from front of the store,
2:16
SPEAKER_03: and cancel any Huda events,
2:18
SPEAKER_03: citing safety as the reason.
2:20
Also,
2:20
did you know our CEO,
2:22
Artemis Patrick,
2:23
is Iranian,
2:23
and her dad worked for the Shah?
2:26
SPEAKER_01: Artemis?
2:27
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: It's a funny name.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: Good name, classic, strong name.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's my main thing.
2:32
Her dad worked for the Shah,
2:33
so she is presumably no fan of Huda's,
2:36
at least at this point.
2:37
SPEAKER_03: And our listener continued.
2:38
SPEAKER_03: Also, I'm sure you're hearing from others on this, but Musagadah.
2:42
SPEAKER_03: Did I do that right?
2:43
SPEAKER_01: Mosadah.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: I thought it was Mosadah.
2:44
SPEAKER_03: It sounds Jewish, doesn't it?
2:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're such Persians, Jews, Arabs.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: We're really all alike.
2:49
SPEAKER_03: Wasn't democratically elected in a way that we would think of it.
2:51
SPEAKER_03: He was appointed by the Shah in the parliament.
2:54
SPEAKER_03: This was your error.
2:55
SPEAKER_03: And I let you make it because I didn't want to womansplain you.
2:59
SPEAKER_03: I didn't want to, like, embarrass you in front of the listeners.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you knew?
3:02
You knew the background on Mossadegh and you just let me...
3:05
Yeah,
3:06
he's a Jewish uncle.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was like, that doesn't sound exact.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my bad.
3:13
I think I mentioned I took one course in college and knew a
3:16
little bit about this,
3:16
SPEAKER_01: which at some point I did.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: Not anymore.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: Although I know the years things happened.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: This person adds the fifth column members only 267 covers as well,
3:25
SPEAKER_01: not to direct people to our competitor.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: Who do you think does better foreign policy analysis?
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Us or the fifth column?
3:34
SPEAKER_03: Look, they're libertarians.
3:35
SPEAKER_03: All of their analysis is going to be the same.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: I also... Can I confront you about one other thing before we start?
3:40
SPEAKER_03: No, I'd rather you not.
3:42
SPEAKER_03: I'm feeling fragile today.
3:43
SPEAKER_03: I saw an ant.
3:45
I posted something to my sub stack,
3:46
single-minded,
3:47
single-minded,
3:48
single-minded.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: You can't cut that because I keep saying it.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: Single-minded about AI.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: It was an AI take.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: And Freddie DeBoer...
3:56
SPEAKER_01: Both emailed me about it, accusing me of capture.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't know who.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: Presumably the Iranian regime.
4:02
SPEAKER_03: You were captured by Claude?
4:04
SPEAKER_01: By Claude.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: I am Claude Bill.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: That's legit.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: And he did a lengthy, quote, resub.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: What do you call it on Substack if someone, quote?
4:13
SPEAKER_01: Resub?
4:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's quote Reese up.
4:16
SPEAKER_01: And I think that this dates back to when,
4:20
SPEAKER_01: because you're so racist,
4:21
SPEAKER_01: he popped into our comments and called you racist.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: So I blame you for the fact that he's so mad.
4:25
SPEAKER_03: Look, we invited him on the show.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: That's what I don't get about this.
4:29
Shouldn't that,
4:30
like,
4:30
if you're mad at someone and they're like,
4:32
come on our...
4:35
internationally renowned super no no no that's not that's not
4:37
what happened
4:38
actually he did once again he demanded to come on the show oh
4:41
he said he wanted to
4:42
come on the show no he demanded to come on the show then we
4:44
invited yeah no so it's
4:45
SPEAKER_01: literally he's mad he says come on the show we say sure he says i'm tired
4:51
SPEAKER_01: Although he does have a, he does have a kid.
4:54
SPEAKER_03: He had a chest cold and low T. Yes.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: He said, he said, he didn't say that.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to get sued.
5:01
SPEAKER_03: He didn't say that in the email.
5:02
He did a post about how he has low T,
5:04
which look,
5:05
one of us also has low T.
5:06
So I'm sympathetic.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: Have you had your hormones checked?
5:09
We should,
5:10
Jesse,
5:12
we should get our hormones checked and find out this American
5:14
life did this.
5:14
And one of their best episodes ever,
5:16
which they did clearly before the awokening this.
5:19
SPEAKER_03: Do you remember this episode about testosterone?
5:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
5:22
SPEAKER_03: Oh, it was so good.
5:23
SPEAKER_03: So they got the whole staff tested for testosterone.
5:28
SPEAKER_03: And no surprise, it's public radio.
5:30
The women had higher T than I think all of the men,
5:32
except for David Rakoff,
5:34
the gay dancer.
5:36
SPEAKER_03: Rest in peace.
5:38
SPEAKER_03: He died?
5:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he died years ago.
5:39
SPEAKER_03: He had shoulder cancer.
5:40
SPEAKER_03: It was very sad.
5:41
And one of the other great moments of this episode was they
5:46
interviewed a trans man.
5:47
SPEAKER_03: And this is probably, I'm guessing this came out in like 2007.
5:52
SPEAKER_03: 2008, maybe.
5:53
SPEAKER_03: And the trans man said it was like he had been like a dyke.
5:58
SPEAKER_03: He had gone to like Bryn Mawr,
6:00
SPEAKER_03: one of the women's schools,
6:01
SPEAKER_03: you know,
6:01
SPEAKER_03: had been this real feminist.
6:03
SPEAKER_03: And he was talking about how once he got on T,
6:05
SPEAKER_03: he started being completely unable to not check out women.
6:08
SPEAKER_03: Oh, wait, I think I remember this.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:11
SPEAKER_03: And there's this great line where he says...
6:14
SPEAKER_03: I also got more interested in math and science.
6:18
SPEAKER_03: And they joke about it.
6:19
SPEAKER_03: They have a little laugh about it.
6:21
SPEAKER_03: I don't think that line would make it into this American life today.
6:24
SPEAKER_03: Or that episode.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: I think you and I should just...
6:27
Do like a grab bag of different hormones without knowing what
6:29
we're taking?
6:30
SPEAKER_03: Oh, look, I am all about HRT.
6:32
SPEAKER_03: I'm already on progesterone.
6:33
SPEAKER_03: That's the only one my doctor will get me.
6:35
But I'm trying to get on progesterone first,
6:37
then estrogen,
6:38
and then testosterone.
6:39
SPEAKER_03: I will be truly non-binary.
6:41
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to be on every endogenous hormone possible.
6:43
This is all in an effort to see if one of them will help me be
6:46
able to do one pull-up.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: I would love to be able to do a single pull up or to be good at math.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: The dream.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: The dream.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: I forget how we got to that, but should we proceed to the actual episode?
6:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
6:58
SPEAKER_03: What are we talking about today?
6:59
SPEAKER_01: We've got a few things on our plate.
7:01
So we were going to talk about a major blue sky blow up
7:06
involving a New York Times columnist.
7:08
We're going to see if we get to that because there was other
7:11
blue sky news that supplanted that.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: And I think we should talk about that.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: I also want to talk a little bit about depression.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: Katie, I've been meaning to talk to you about depression.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: And race, a subject that has also never come up before.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: So just getting right into it, Katie, is it rational to be depressed?
7:29
SPEAKER_03: I think it depends on your station in life.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm saying is it rational for me to be depressed?
7:35
SPEAKER_03: You?
7:35
SPEAKER_03: No.
7:36
SPEAKER_03: Well, you, yes, but also no.
7:38
SPEAKER_03: What do you mean?
7:39
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so...
7:42
SPEAKER_03: You have no, like your life is like fucking amazing.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: But before you continue, if you upset me, I will kill myself.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: It's not funny.
7:51
SPEAKER_03: Your life is objectively like top,
7:54
SPEAKER_03: like probably 1% of all human lives of all people who have ever existed.
7:59
SPEAKER_03: Like you have an amazing job.
8:03
SPEAKER_03: You get to travel whenever you want.
8:05
SPEAKER_03: You have friends.
8:07
SPEAKER_03: You have a good apartment that you pay under market for.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
8:12
SPEAKER_03: You're kind of a scary driver, but objectively... Based on what?
8:16
SPEAKER_01: When did you drive?
8:17
SPEAKER_03: Oh, because we did the... We drove from New York to DC.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: Why was I scary?
8:21
SPEAKER_03: And to Boston.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: I think I'm a very good driver.
8:24
SPEAKER_03: It was scary,
8:24
SPEAKER_03: but it also might have been your shitty car at the time,
8:26
SPEAKER_03: which I believe you no longer have.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: Rest in peace, the Camry.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: I think I got $400 for it.
8:32
SPEAKER_03: Another check for happiness.
8:34
SPEAKER_03: So I think rationally, your life is amazing, but...
8:39
SPEAKER_03: the global situationship around the world could,
8:43
SPEAKER_03: could lead one to be stressed out and depressed.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: What is our global situation?
8:48
SPEAKER_03: It's complicated.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: You'd be like, we're fuck buddies with planet, planet earth.
8:52
If you know what we,
8:53
I think we've,
8:53
we've gone beyond that point and we're talking toxic exes.
8:56
SPEAKER_03: So,
8:58
SPEAKER_01: The reason I'm bringing this up actually starts in 2023.
9:01
Matt Iglesias did this provocative post titled Why Are Young
9:04
Liberals So Depressed?
9:06
And he basically talked about these disturbing trends in the
9:08
data having to do with
9:09
SPEAKER_01: young people,
9:10
SPEAKER_01: particularly adolescent girls.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: So one common explanation is cell phones and social media.
9:16
But Iglesias pointed out like this seems to be
9:19
disproportionately affecting liberal people.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: young people.
9:22
And actually,
9:23
liberal young men were more depressed than conservative young
9:27
women.
9:27
SPEAKER_01: So ideology played a pretty big role.
9:30
SPEAKER_03: All right.
9:31
SPEAKER_03: So in terms of the- Most depressed is liberal young women.
9:36
Then liberal men,
9:37
liberal young men,
9:38
then conservative young women,
9:40
then conservative young men.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
9:42
SPEAKER_03: I can easily imagine what the-
9:46
SPEAKER_03: I don't know,
9:47
SPEAKER_03: like the progressive take on this would be,
9:49
SPEAKER_03: which is white,
9:51
SPEAKER_03: you know,
9:52
SPEAKER_03: conservative white men,
9:53
SPEAKER_03: they're a position of power.
9:55
SPEAKER_03: They've got it good.
9:56
SPEAKER_03: They're winning the whatever, whatever.
10:00
SPEAKER_03: War is toxic masculinity.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, so read what Matt said at the time.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: This was 2023.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:06
I think the discussion around gender and the role of social
10:08
media is an important one.
10:09
But I also don't believe that liberal boys are experiencing
10:11
more depression than
10:12
conservative girls because they are disproportionately hung up
10:15
on Instagram-adduced
10:15
SPEAKER_03: body image issues.
10:17
SPEAKER_03: I think there's also something specific to politics going on.
10:19
SPEAKER_03: Some of it might be selection effect,
10:21
with progressive politics becoming a more congenial home for
10:23
people who are
10:24
SPEAKER_03: miserable.
10:25
SPEAKER_03: But I also think some of it is poor behavior by adult progressives,
10:28
many of whom now valorize depressive affect as a sign of
10:31
political commitment.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: So sum up what he's saying there.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: What do you think he means by that?
10:36
That it's like there's being depressed is sort of a way of like
10:39
virtue signaling,
10:40
SPEAKER_03: being depressed about the state of the world,
10:41
SPEAKER_03: which I think is undeniably true.
10:44
You see this like I see this on Instagram all the fucking time
10:49
where people...
10:50
seem to feel like they have to apologize for living their lives
10:54
while there's a war
10:55
going on or a genocide going on or abortion is now illegal in
10:58
Georgia or whatever
10:59
SPEAKER_03: it is.
10:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:01
SPEAKER_03: I see this with influencers.
11:02
SPEAKER_03: I see this in people I know in real life.
11:05
SPEAKER_03: There does seem to be this,
11:07
SPEAKER_03: like,
11:07
SPEAKER_03: if you're engaged,
11:08
SPEAKER_03: if you're aware,
11:08
how could you be taking your dog to the beach and going for
11:12
brunch and enjoying
11:13
SPEAKER_03: your life when children in Gaza are starving to death?
11:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: And it sort of reminded me of,
11:19
SPEAKER_01: I'll never forget this video I saw about how after Kim Jong-il died,
11:24
people just sort of took to the streets to theatrically cry and
11:27
basically rend
11:28
SPEAKER_01: their garments.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: That's obviously a more extreme example,
11:32
but it seems obvious that our emotional reactions to stuff are
11:35
mediated by cultural
11:37
SPEAKER_01: expectations.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: And we sort of act the way we're supposed to act.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: And I think if you perform certain emotions long enough,
11:43
SPEAKER_01: that just becomes your emotions,
11:45
SPEAKER_01: no performance required.
11:46
SPEAKER_03: Right.
11:46
SPEAKER_03: And also,
11:47
SPEAKER_03: I think if you're continually exposed to terrible news...
11:52
SPEAKER_03: Like,
11:52
I used to be much more of a Pinkerite when it came to sort of
11:57
the long arc of human
11:59
SPEAKER_03: history.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: Steven Pinker, the world is getting better, basically.
12:01
SPEAKER_03: Right.
12:02
SPEAKER_03: The world is getting better.
12:03
SPEAKER_03: I don't really feel that way anymore.
12:05
SPEAKER_03: And that might be because I'm just exposed to so much more bad news.
12:09
Maybe it's because the world actually is getting worse,
12:11
or maybe it's just...
12:12
we're exposed to more of the shitty stuff that's probably
12:15
that's probably true a
12:16
huge element of it um and look i know this isn't really
12:20
rational like if you look
12:22
at the data the world is objectively better than it was a
12:26
hundred or two hundred or
12:27
a thousand years ago by so many measures global life expectancy
12:31
is up extreme
12:32
SPEAKER_03: poverty is down
12:34
SPEAKER_03: Literacy rates are up.
12:35
SPEAKER_03: And despite what's currently going on in the Middle East,
12:38
the world is way less violent than it used to be on both a
12:42
macro and micro scale.
12:45
SPEAKER_03: Food is better.
12:45
SPEAKER_03: TV is better.
12:46
SPEAKER_03: My Subaru has heated seats.
12:48
SPEAKER_03: I can get legally married to a woman now.
12:49
SPEAKER_03: Couldn't do that in 1926.
12:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:52
SPEAKER_03: So I know all that.
12:53
And yet when I turn on the news or open my phone and I see a
12:57
flood of images of
13:00
SPEAKER_03: really awful shit happening at this moment,
13:03
SPEAKER_03: not to me,
13:03
SPEAKER_03: to be clear,
13:04
SPEAKER_03: here's my privilege disclaimer,
13:05
SPEAKER_03: I'm fine.
13:06
I don't feel optimistic about the future in a way that I did
13:10
even a few years ago.
13:11
SPEAKER_03: And I think a big part of that for me is
13:14
SPEAKER_03: has to do with the environment.
13:15
SPEAKER_03: And I'm not just talking about climate change,
13:17
SPEAKER_03: which I am concerned about,
13:18
SPEAKER_03: but they're all tied in.
13:19
SPEAKER_03: But like, I don't know, this is something I talked about.
13:23
SPEAKER_03: with a friend yesterday who's from the East Coast.
13:25
SPEAKER_03: Like when I go back to the East Coast and we go to the beach,
13:28
SPEAKER_03: which I do every couple years,
13:31
SPEAKER_03: tell me if this is true at Cape Cod.
13:34
SPEAKER_03: The beach is a lot smaller than it used to be when I was a kid.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: You mean from erosion?
13:38
SPEAKER_03: Erosion.
13:39
SPEAKER_03: Like the beach that I grew up going to as a kid doesn't exist anymore.
13:42
SPEAKER_03: Literally does not exist anymore at all.
13:44
SPEAKER_03: And so things like that give me a sort of grief that,
13:50
SPEAKER_03: That I think is kind of existential.
13:52
SPEAKER_03: And I don't know,
13:53
like if you're conservative and you're not sort of constantly
13:58
subjecting yourself
13:59
to news about dire end of the world predictions or climate
14:04
change or environmental
14:05
SPEAKER_03: catastrophe,
14:07
SPEAKER_03: maybe you can live in a little bit.
14:10
Maybe you can just be a little bit happier if you're not
14:11
thinking about this stuff.
14:13
SPEAKER_03: Not that conservatives don't think about ecology.
14:14
SPEAKER_03: I think they do.
14:15
SPEAKER_03: But you know what I mean?
14:17
SPEAKER_03: Does the environment seem worse than it did when you were a kid?
14:20
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I obviously know there's beach erosion.
14:22
There's actually a really good Modest Mouse song from 1996
14:27
about literally beach erosion.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: But beachside property.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: It's very good.
14:32
um i don't yeah the beach stuff hasn't gotten to me i don't
14:37
know my sense is like
14:38
more my intuition is like climate change is still pretty bad
14:41
but we've actually
14:42
made progress on things like solar which i i was gonna get to
14:46
because well just to
14:47
bring us back to why i'm bringing this up wait can i say one
14:49
more thing before we
14:50
move on oh yeah go for it i want to i just want to acknowledge
14:52
that like a lot of
14:53
things environmentally are much better than they were when we
14:57
were kids like clean
14:58
SPEAKER_03: air and
14:59
SPEAKER_03: like environmental standards.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: Remember the ozone hole was a thing and we fixed it.
15:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:03
SPEAKER_03: That was a thing.
15:04
SPEAKER_03: We had to stop using hairspray and CFCs,
15:06
SPEAKER_03: but like there was a problem and then they solved it,
15:08
SPEAKER_03: which doesn't seem to,
15:10
SPEAKER_03: that sort of thing doesn't happen anymore.
15:12
SPEAKER_03: But I like,
15:12
I do know objectively that like the rivers that I used to kayak
15:16
on as a kid are
15:17
SPEAKER_03: much cleaner now because the paper plant went out of business.
15:20
SPEAKER_03: I, I do recognize that stuff.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: So why does it,
15:23
SPEAKER_01: why doesn't that over,
15:24
SPEAKER_01: uh,
15:25
SPEAKER_01: overshadow your,
15:26
SPEAKER_01: I get why you're sad about the beaches,
15:28
SPEAKER_01: but like,
15:29
SPEAKER_03: It's not because it's not just the beaches.
15:30
SPEAKER_03: It's really not.
15:31
SPEAKER_03: But I also like,
15:32
SPEAKER_03: you know,
15:32
SPEAKER_03: like I live half the year in Asheville,
15:34
a place where they just underwent like one of the biggest
15:37
natural disasters of the
15:38
SPEAKER_03: past century.
15:41
SPEAKER_03: So it's hard not to see that and get and feel a lot of,
15:46
SPEAKER_03: you know,
15:47
grief over the fact that like a place that used to be great is
15:51
shitty now.
15:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm with you.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: I think I have mixed feelings on the environment stuff.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: And I definitely you were an environmental journalist.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: You think about it more than I do.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: But the reason I bring this up is because the other day,
16:03
SPEAKER_01: Matt Iglesias returning to this theme posted the following.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: Please read.
16:07
SPEAKER_03: These are two.
16:07
SPEAKER_03: So he's got two screenshots here.
16:10
SPEAKER_03: Of tweets,
16:10
and he says there are two significant these are two significant
16:13
political takesters
16:14
SPEAKER_03: who both seem to be suffering from depression,
16:16
SPEAKER_03: which is a serious issue.
16:17
And I hope they get help and then kind of mistaking that
16:19
depression for a political analysis.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: So I'll read the two posts in question.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: One is from Aaron Regenberg.
16:26
I'm just so fucking sad and angry every second that my brain is
16:29
turned on.
16:29
And I both,
16:30
one,
16:30
believe that's a correct insane response to the world right
16:33
now.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: But two, I'm not really sure how to cope with it.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: CBT, buddy.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: CBT, exactly.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: The other is, oh, we'll get there.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: The other is someone named Kate Wagner at McMansion Hell.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: I can't justify having children in a world.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: Wait, do you know that account?
16:49
SPEAKER_01: Wait, she's come up before on here.
16:50
I don't know that she has,
16:52
but McMansion Hell is...
16:55
She's basically like a McMansion critic.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: I feel like she's come up, but I can't remember anything anymore.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: I can't justify having children in a world hell-bent on killing them.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: In every way possible,
17:08
SPEAKER_01: whether through climate change,
17:09
poverty and the dismantling of public health at home or bombs
17:12
falling from the sky
17:13
SPEAKER_01: abroad.
17:14
I don't disparage those who have chosen otherwise,
17:15
but the choice has been made for me.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: I did not consent to it.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: Now,
17:20
SPEAKER_01: the important context here,
17:21
I think it's a little bit something for Matt to like point to
17:25
two individual people
17:26
SPEAKER_01: and be like,
17:27
SPEAKER_01: I think they're depressed.
17:28
On the other hand,
17:29
he did reply to his own tweet by saying,
17:31
I say this not just to dunk.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: It's bad to go through life like this.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: Most practitioners prefer medication as the first treatment,
17:37
but I personally was helped a lot by transcranial magnetic
17:40
stimulation and think
17:41
SPEAKER_01: more people should consider it.
17:44
SPEAKER_03: Is that like electroshock therapy, like the updated version?
17:47
SPEAKER_03: No.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: No, because you don't get shocked.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: It literally just sends, you get magnetized.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: It turned,
17:53
they turned your whole brain into metal and then they dangle
17:56
you from a height and
17:57
SPEAKER_01: that puts things in perspective for you.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: Uh,
17:59
SPEAKER_01: no,
17:59
SPEAKER_01: my sense is I don't think you even feel anything,
18:02
SPEAKER_01: but it's definitely not like electroshock.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: Although for severely depressed people, electroshock actually works.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: But yeah,
18:08
SPEAKER_01: someone that asked him,
18:09
did the stimulation help longterm or did you need to keep doing
18:11
it every so often
18:11
SPEAKER_01: to get that effect?
18:12
Iglesias says,
18:13
um,
18:14
couple months of treatment and then years ago and he hasn't
18:16
been back.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: So, uh,
18:17
I had actually independently heard there's some promising
18:20
research on TMS.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: Anyway.
18:24
Wait,
18:24
can I ask you something personal and you can not answer it or
18:27
we can cut this?
18:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:28
SPEAKER_03: So you've been open about your mom before she died,
18:31
SPEAKER_03: for like years before she died,
18:32
SPEAKER_03: was very severely depressed.
18:35
SPEAKER_03: Did she ever do electroshock or something like this?
18:36
SPEAKER_03: Did you do those sort of treatments?
18:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I guess if my whole thing is like we shouldn't.
18:42
as much as we dunk on sort of don't stigmatize discourse in
18:45
some context this stuff
18:46
is still stigmatized but yes she got some ect which we think
18:52
helped for a span but
18:54
also introduced like all sorts of memory issues but it did not
18:56
provide her with
18:57
like lasting relief no it like sort of it it's this weird thing
19:01
where in part
19:02
because of one flew over a cuckoo's nest it's like um and uh
19:07
who was the kennedy
19:08
SPEAKER_01: who got it
19:09
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Rose?
19:10
SPEAKER_01: Was it Rose?
19:10
SPEAKER_01: Wasn't there also a Kennedy who got... There was one who got lobotomized.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: Those Kennedys... Are you watching the new Kennedy show?
19:18
SPEAKER_03: No.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't watch any TV.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm too highbrow for that.
19:22
SPEAKER_03: It was the Kennedy who got it was Rosemary.
19:24
SPEAKER_03: Wait, no.
19:27
SPEAKER_03: She got a lobotomy.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh, she's a lobotomy.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: Am I confused?
19:31
SPEAKER_01: Anyway,
19:32
SPEAKER_01: for various reasons,
19:34
my sense is that ECT does work for some people and it's not
19:38
like it looks in the
19:38
SPEAKER_01: movies,
19:39
SPEAKER_01: but I do think it like,
19:40
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
19:41
SPEAKER_01: in my mom's case,
19:41
SPEAKER_01: I think it gave memory problems.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: So yes, unpleasant.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: But
19:47
SPEAKER_01: I was sort of struck by the fact that after Iglesias did this post,
19:52
SPEAKER_01: whatever you think about it,
19:53
SPEAKER_01: there was this weird,
19:55
somewhat performative seeming doubling down that I think kind
19:58
of proved his point.
19:59
So please read this quote retweet from Regenberg,
20:02
who's one of the two takesters he highlighted.
20:04
SPEAKER_03: He said,
20:04
I know there are people who can watch their own country do
20:07
things like bomb
20:08
elementary schools and run concentration camps and not feel
20:10
emotionally devastated,
20:11
SPEAKER_03: and that's fine for them.
20:12
But I don't think those of us who find these evils intolerable
20:16
are the deviant ones.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: I think this is important,
20:19
SPEAKER_01: and I think he's conflating two very different things,
20:21
SPEAKER_01: which is I find this thing intolerable morally.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
20:25
Therefore,
20:26
I think it's fine that I feel like shit and I feel sad and
20:29
angry every single day.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: I think you can have one.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to have the other, right?
20:34
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
20:36
SPEAKER_03: I think that's my default state.
20:39
SPEAKER_03: I am aware of what's happening in the world.
20:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:44
SPEAKER_03: I think a lot of what's happening in the world is truly horrific,
20:46
SPEAKER_03: particularly in the Middle East right now as we speak.
20:50
SPEAKER_03: I just opened up my New York Times app.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: You're mad that Iran forced us to attack them.
20:56
I just opened up my New York Times app and saw that 700,000
21:00
Lebanese people are
21:01
SPEAKER_03: fleeing from their homes.
21:02
SPEAKER_03: I think this is horrific.
21:04
SPEAKER_03: I also feel...
21:06
continually grateful that that's not my life I feel like I feel
21:10
like the luckiest
21:11
person in the world and I think that not acknowledging that and
21:16
wallowing and how
21:17
SPEAKER_03: shitty the world is is it just feels like that's sort of an ungrateful is
21:22
narcissistic the right word maybe that's maybe that's the word
21:24
like people really
21:25
are suffering but I'm not one of them yeah well and not just
21:29
that but like trying
21:31
SPEAKER_01: to not be even even imagine you were one of the ones suffering like yeah
21:36
Trying to not be miserable and trying to find meaning despite
21:39
your circumstances is
21:40
SPEAKER_01: like a pretty longstanding and proud human tradition.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Man's search for meaning is like one obvious example.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: I have a much more lowbrow one that always stuck with me.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: There's this song.
21:51
SPEAKER_03: This is going to be about some fucking pop punk band, isn't it?
21:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: You really, you guessed that.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Jesse, we've been doing this for six years.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: There's a song, and you're going to feel like a jerk after I've seen it.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: There's a band called Say Anything,
22:06
SPEAKER_01: and the lead singer's grandparents were in the Holocaust,
22:08
SPEAKER_01: so you're a real piece of shit.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: The song's called Alive with the Glory of Love,
22:13
SPEAKER_01: and it's this really weird,
22:15
SPEAKER_01: sort of upbeat,
22:16
SPEAKER_01: but sad song,
22:17
SPEAKER_01: and it's difficult to listen to,
22:18
but it's about this Jewish couple that falls in life during the
22:22
Holocaust in
22:23
SPEAKER_01: Europe,
22:24
SPEAKER_01: and it's a tough listen.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: I highly recommend it, and
22:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, I just don't want to abandon.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: I don't, that's what I don't like about this normatively.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: This idea that there's shitty things going on in the world.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: So you yourself should feel shitty.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: That's often not how it works.
22:38
SPEAKER_01: People are often able to transcend that.
22:40
And I also just think it makes it harder for folks in some
22:43
progressive communities
22:44
who are sort of where this is normalized to understand the
22:48
world and its challenges
22:49
SPEAKER_01: with clear eyes.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: Cause like a lot of stuff going on,
22:52
SPEAKER_01: at least might be fixable.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, climate stuff's a great example, right?
22:55
SPEAKER_01: Like,
22:55
nothing drives more anxiety and more doomerism than climate
22:59
stuff where the
22:59
SPEAKER_01: orthodox progressive stance is like,
23:01
SPEAKER_01: we're already totally fucked unless we,
23:02
SPEAKER_01: like,
23:03
SPEAKER_01: dismantle capitalism tomorrow.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: But there's also been upsides.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, solar panels are way cheaper than they thought they'd be.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: They're everywhere.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Fucking Texas is leading in wind.
23:13
Like,
23:13
it's always a little bit more complicated than everything being
23:16
great or horrible.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: But either way,
23:18
SPEAKER_01: I think I'm team Iglesias,
23:19
SPEAKER_01: like,
23:19
SPEAKER_01: even if he pointed this out in sort of a rude way.
23:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
23:22
SPEAKER_03: well,
23:22
SPEAKER_03: and the climate doomerism,
23:23
SPEAKER_03: I think,
23:24
has been extremely counterproductive because these completely
23:30
wrong predictions...
23:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
23:32
SPEAKER_01: did anyone actually think that?
23:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, this is definitely rhetoric that some people believe.
23:37
SPEAKER_03: So,
23:37
SPEAKER_03: like,
23:38
SPEAKER_03: in 2018,
23:39
SPEAKER_03: Greta Thunberg,
23:40
SPEAKER_03: not a scientist herself,
23:41
SPEAKER_03: but prominent activist,
23:42
SPEAKER_03: she tweeted,
23:43
a top climate scientist is warning that climate change will
23:46
wipe out humanity
23:47
SPEAKER_03: unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next...
23:50
five years now apparently that top climate scientist she was
23:54
referring to never
23:55
said that so this was like a a like game of telephone through
23:58
many different levels
24:01
but i i think absolutely people believe young people in
24:05
particular believe that we
24:06
have reached some tipping point when it comes to climate change
24:09
and that yeah why
24:11
have kids you're gonna bring kids into a fucked up planet with
24:15
floods and fires and
24:16
SPEAKER_03: disasters and i honestly like i i kind of
24:19
SPEAKER_03: I kind of see that, but I also don't want children.
24:21
SPEAKER_03: So it's like for me,
24:23
SPEAKER_01: but it's also like,
24:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't,
24:25
SPEAKER_01: it's,
24:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't,
24:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't like the reason Pinker's book resonated is because it's sort of,
24:33
SPEAKER_01: It is like a long path to build a civilization.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: And even areas where like things are obviously shitty,
24:39
like the gigification of the economy and how even American
24:42
workers are sometimes
24:42
SPEAKER_01: treated,
24:43
SPEAKER_01: just compare that to any other point in human history.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: And usually the comparison will be good, not bad.
24:47
SPEAKER_03: If you take the really long view,
24:50
SPEAKER_03: and I try to take this,
24:51
SPEAKER_03: like if I feel myself getting depressed about the planet,
24:54
SPEAKER_03: I do try to take the really long view because ultimately...
24:58
SPEAKER_03: I think none of this actually really matters.
25:01
SPEAKER_03: Go on.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: Because the sun's going to expand and boil off the ocean?
25:06
SPEAKER_03: Well, no.
25:07
SPEAKER_03: On an individual level, obviously it matters.
25:09
SPEAKER_03: But macro level, at some point...
25:13
SPEAKER_03: Humans will probably go extinct,
25:15
SPEAKER_03: like every species does at some point,
25:18
SPEAKER_03: but something else will come along,
25:20
SPEAKER_03: right?
25:21
SPEAKER_03: In millions of years, will this planet still exist?
25:23
SPEAKER_03: I hope so.
25:24
SPEAKER_03: And maybe we won't be here, but something will be.
25:28
SPEAKER_03: Life will go on.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: You're really taking the long view.
25:30
SPEAKER_03: Until the sun...
25:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:32
SPEAKER_03: Until the sun explodes and then life will not continue to go on.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: But hopefully life will then go on elsewhere.
25:38
SPEAKER_03: Hopefully elsewhere.
25:39
SPEAKER_03: Life will go on somewhere elsewhere until it stops going on.
25:43
SPEAKER_03: In which case, you know, too bad.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: This has been your daily dose of inspiration.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: Sure, we're all going to die possibly soon.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: But at some point, some other form of life might exist.
25:53
SPEAKER_03: No wonder my self-help book didn't sell well.
25:56
I basically think it's bad that there are progressive
25:58
communities where you sort of
26:01
SPEAKER_01: need to think everything's horrible and that,
26:03
SPEAKER_01: therefore,
26:04
SPEAKER_01: you should be depressed.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: I think that could make people depressed in the long run.
26:06
So I don't know if that means Iglesias' theory is true,
26:09
but I think there's something to it.
26:10
SPEAKER_03: I think so, too.
26:11
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
26:11
we don't know if these particular people actually do suffer
26:13
from depression or if
26:14
they're just virtue signaling or if they're sad because of
26:17
what's going on,
26:18
SPEAKER_03: a legitimate response to terrible news.
26:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
26:24
SPEAKER_03: The trend is there.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: I just,
26:25
I think it's hard to justify having children because the world
26:27
is going to try to
26:28
SPEAKER_01: kill my children.
26:29
SPEAKER_03: I think from an American, that's a crazy thing to say.
26:32
SPEAKER_03: Like if you are,
26:33
SPEAKER_03: if you're an Iranian right now or you're in Gaza or some like,
26:37
SPEAKER_03: we were actually talking about this yesterday.
26:41
SPEAKER_03: Like, is it, is it ethical to bring children?
26:43
SPEAKER_01: You and McMansion.
26:45
SPEAKER_03: Me and Jana.
26:46
Is it ethical to bring children into a world that really is
26:49
hell on earth?
26:50
SPEAKER_03: Is that ethical?
26:52
But if you're an American and your like main thing is
26:55
critiquing shitty capitalism,
26:58
SPEAKER_03: McMansions like that don't have enough windows.
27:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a little bit of stolen valor.
27:03
Is it fair to bring a child into a world where their parent is
27:07
a McMansion influencer?
27:09
SPEAKER_01: Or an anti-McMansion influencer?
27:11
SPEAKER_02: That's the question.
27:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay, one other little thing.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not that little.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: I want to get to the main thing I want to talk about.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: But okay, can we do one other thing, Katie, please?
27:20
SPEAKER_01: Please, please?
27:21
SPEAKER_01: I'll allow it.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, remind me.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: You're a big physics guy.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: Remind me of Schrodinger's cat experiment.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: Or thought experiment.
27:29
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so this was about...
27:32
SPEAKER_03: You've got a cat.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: Good nailing it so far.
27:36
SPEAKER_03: And you've got a litter box.
27:39
And the question is,
27:40
is the litter box for the cat or is it for the students?
27:44
SPEAKER_01: That is Matt Walsh's version.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: Or Libs of TikTok's version, I'm sure.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: Short Ears Cat is this thought experiment.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: You have a cat in a box.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: Like I said.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: Step one, cut a hole in a box.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: Step two, put a cat in the box.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: And it's sort of making this point about probability.
28:02
But basically,
28:03
by the time you open the box,
28:04
there's a 50% chance Katie,
28:06
cover your ear.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: Actually, you won't care.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: No, let's say it's a dog.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: There's a dog in the box.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: 50% chance poison gas will kill the dog.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: It'll kill moose.
28:14
SPEAKER_03: I have to interrupt you.
28:15
SPEAKER_03: Guess who was in USA Today today?
28:17
SPEAKER_03: Who?
28:18
SPEAKER_01: Moose.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: Moose was in USA Today?
28:20
SPEAKER_03: He was.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: How did we not start with this?
28:24
SPEAKER_03: He's modest.
28:25
SPEAKER_03: No,
28:25
SPEAKER_03: USA Today interviewed my dad for some article,
28:28
and he was talking about how people love their pets and use
28:33
this as an example.
28:34
SPEAKER_03: And the quote was something like,
28:36
SPEAKER_03: Herzog's daughter and her wife often take Moose to visit.
28:39
SPEAKER_03: The author did not mention that when we take him to visit my parents,
28:45
SPEAKER_03: we drive across the country,
28:47
SPEAKER_03: which I think is remarkable.
28:48
SPEAKER_03: Anyway, go ahead.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, the point is, until you open the box, the cat sort of...
28:55
SPEAKER_01: It could exist or it could not.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in the superposition of alive and dead at the same time.
28:59
And the reason I bring this up is because I've noticed this and
29:01
it started to drive
29:02
me crazy with the way people mention or don't mention when
29:07
there's some sort of
29:07
conflict or someone kills someone or attacks someone when
29:11
identity does and doesn't
29:12
SPEAKER_01: get mentioned.
29:14
So I'm bringing this up because on Saturday,
29:17
this online far-right influencer,
29:19
Jake Lang,
29:20
SPEAKER_01: held a demonstration outside Gracie Mansion in New York.
29:24
SPEAKER_01: It was called Stop the Islamic Takeover.
29:26
SPEAKER_03: More like Gracie Moslem.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: That was okay.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: You're usually pretty funny.
29:31
SPEAKER_01: It's called Stop... More like Gracie Mosque.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: Gracie Mosque.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: Mamdani did rename it Gracely Muslim Mosque.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: Saint Muhammad.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: He called it Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City.
29:49
It's unavoidable to tell the story without explaining a bit who
29:51
Jake Lang is.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: You don't know who Jake Lang is, right?
29:53
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: He was a January 6 rioter.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: He was indicted on,
29:58
SPEAKER_01: quote,
29:59
SPEAKER_01: 11 charges,
29:59
SPEAKER_01: including two counts of assaulting,
30:01
SPEAKER_01: resisting,
30:01
SPEAKER_01: or impeding certain officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: That's from the indictment.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: This is because he assaulted a police officer with a baseball bat.
30:09
SPEAKER_03: A thin blue line.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: So he was innocently there trying to stop the steal with a baseball bat.
30:14
And this far left woke...
30:16
He must have just been on his way to softball practice.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
30:18
SPEAKER_03: I can't imagine he would have brought his bat to a political rally.
30:23
SPEAKER_03: That'd be really stupid.
30:24
yeah i've been reading a lot of sub stacks that they just
30:26
swooped him in um he was
30:28
in jail for apparently four years awaiting trial which seems
30:32
bad even for someone
30:33
like him that's a broader issue but luckily president trump was
30:36
elected and
30:36
pardoned him before he could be tried so he's now a far-right
30:40
influencer running
30:41
for senate in florida he keeps getting arrested that's the
30:43
american dream right
30:44
there four years in prison awaiting trial then you're pardoned
30:49
assault a cop with a
30:50
SPEAKER_01: baseball bat allegedly yeah no defamation yes um
30:54
SPEAKER_01: Get pardoned by the president.
30:55
SPEAKER_03: Do you think he has a thin blue line bumper sticker on his truck?
30:58
SPEAKER_01: It's so, it's also crazy.
30:59
SPEAKER_03: That's like a, that's a Schrodinger's bumper sticker question.
31:02
SPEAKER_03: 50-50.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: This guy is very good at getting arrested.
31:04
In February,
31:05
he was arrested for destroying a prosecute ice ice sculpture
31:08
outside the Minnesota.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: Did he take a hairdryer to it?
31:12
SPEAKER_01: This was outside the Minnesota state capitol.
31:13
The New Republic reported,
31:14
quote,
31:15
President,
31:15
he said,
31:16
President Trump,
31:17
we support you.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: We support ICE.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: Our country was made for Americans and not for Somalis.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: Lang says in a video he posted to social media before awkwardly kicking,
31:25
SPEAKER_01: not kicking,
31:25
SPEAKER_01: but awkwardly kicking some of the ICE blocks down to spell a new message.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: Pro ICE, baby.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: America first, America only.
31:32
We'll see you here February 7th,
31:33
Saturday,
31:34
12 noon outside the Minnesota state capitol.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: He was chased away by counter protesters, according to the New Times.
31:39
SPEAKER_03: Wait, okay, wait.
31:41
SPEAKER_03: Maybe this is just bad writing,
31:43
SPEAKER_03: but the way that you read that,
31:44
SPEAKER_03: that makes it sound like he kicks the phrase,
31:47
SPEAKER_03: pro-ice baby,
31:48
SPEAKER_03: America first,
31:49
SPEAKER_03: America only,
31:49
SPEAKER_03: we'll see you here,
31:50
SPEAKER_03: February 7th,
31:51
SPEAKER_03: 12th,
31:51
SPEAKER_03: Saturday noon,
31:52
SPEAKER_03: outside the Minnesota Capitol,
31:53
that he kicked the one sculpture into the- It is slightly
31:56
confusing writing,
31:57
SPEAKER_01: but that is what he yelled.
31:58
Pro-ice baby,
31:59
America first,
32:00
America only,
32:01
we'll see you here,
32:01
February 7th.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: I love the mix of-
32:04
SPEAKER_01: sort of far right talking points about Somalis mixed with,
32:07
SPEAKER_01: you got to say when you'll next be streaming.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: More seriously,
32:12
SPEAKER_01: NBC news reported on March 2nd that he was arrested after being,
32:15
SPEAKER_01: and this is,
32:15
SPEAKER_01: this one is completely remarkable.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: He had spent four years in prison, um,
32:20
SPEAKER_01: Again, that shouldn't have happened.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: But four years in prison, awaiting charges on assaulting a cop.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: NBC News reports March 2nd he's arrested after being,
32:26
SPEAKER_01: quote,
32:27
SPEAKER_01: seen on camera at a January 6th,
32:29
SPEAKER_01: 5th anniversary event this year,
32:30
SPEAKER_01: telling Metropolitan Police Commander Jason Bagshaw that he should be,
32:34
SPEAKER_01: quote,
32:34
SPEAKER_01: put down like a dead dog and,
32:36
SPEAKER_01: quote,
32:37
SPEAKER_01: hung in front of the Capitol.
32:39
Bagshaw was one of the officers who defended the Capitol
32:41
against the mob Lang was part of.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: As part of this latest charge,
32:44
SPEAKER_01: quote,
32:45
SPEAKER_01: prosecutors say Lang approached Bagshaw and pointed at him,
32:47
SPEAKER_01: quote,
32:48
Quoting Lang is saying public execution is the only solution
32:50
for animals like you.
32:52
And that bag shot needed to be dragged out by his ankles and
32:55
thrown in the Potomac.
32:56
SPEAKER_01: So that's who Donald Trump parted.
32:57
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to say something maybe controversial here.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: You think he's hot?
33:02
SPEAKER_03: I don't think he should have been arrested for that.
33:03
SPEAKER_01: For publicly threatening to kill a police officer?
33:06
SPEAKER_03: That's not a threat.
33:07
SPEAKER_03: If he said,
33:08
SPEAKER_03: if he said,
33:09
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to drag you out by your ankles and throw you in the Potomac,
33:13
SPEAKER_03: he's talking about a hypothetical here.
33:15
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
33:16
um i'm just trying i'm just like i'm just i'm just standing by
33:19
your free speech
33:20
free speech bro was it was this was this a an actual threat was
33:24
this like something
33:24
he was gonna act on honestly you're gonna make me click on this
33:27
article you gotta
33:27
make sure i'm not missing anything he did hit a cop with a
33:30
baseball bat so um so
33:32
maybe a few days ago so he goes to new york to wait wait so
33:35
what happened so he was
33:36
SPEAKER_03: arrested on mark did he get out did he
33:38
SPEAKER_01: No,
33:38
SPEAKER_01: he's been arrested repeatedly,
33:39
SPEAKER_01: and I guess he just keeps getting out on bail,
33:41
because he then went to New York to do a protest at what you
33:44
call Gracie Mosk-tion.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: Moskalium.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: It's like a big, gaudy Mosk-tion.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: His whole thing is going to liberal places,
33:53
SPEAKER_01: being provocative,
33:54
SPEAKER_01: and I think hoping there's some sort of confrontation.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that to justify the attacks,
33:58
SPEAKER_01: but I do think this is an influencer business model,
34:00
SPEAKER_01: right?
34:01
SPEAKER_03: Yes, absolutely.
34:01
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: So this was never going to go well in New York.
34:06
SPEAKER_03: But on Saturday, sorry to interrupt you again.
34:08
I'm trying to think like if I think of like the it seems to me
34:12
maybe I'm getting my
34:13
SPEAKER_03: history wrong,
34:14
but we could think of like the original influencers in that
34:18
particular manner as
34:20
SPEAKER_03: the Phelps family.
34:21
Yeah,
34:21
because they would protest outside of funerals and stuff saying
34:25
God hates.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: Soldiers funerals.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: Whatever.
34:27
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:27
SPEAKER_03: God hates fags.
34:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:30
SPEAKER_03: Our friend Megan was there telling us that God hates fags.
34:32
SPEAKER_01: Wasn't that their whole thing?
34:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:34
They were like trying to get attention in the pre-viral outrage
34:36
era when it was even harder.
34:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:38
SPEAKER_03: I wonder if they were physically attacked.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: Well,
34:42
SPEAKER_01: no,
34:42
SPEAKER_01: I bet people were instructed to ignore them,
34:45
SPEAKER_01: but it would be hard to do if your relative,
34:48
SPEAKER_01: that takes a saint-like amount of patience.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, New York Times reported- I hope they protest my funeral.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: You hope I protest your funeral?
34:55
SPEAKER_03: No, I hope the Phelps family does.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can't.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: It's like that's the kind of thing where either you get it.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: You can't ask them to.
35:01
SPEAKER_01: Now they're not going to do it.
35:02
SPEAKER_03: I'll ask Megan about that.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: Saturday, quote, counter protest.
35:06
SPEAKER_01: This is from New York Times.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: Counter protesters outnumbered Mr.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: Lang supporters with taunts and physical objects wildly thrown.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: And then a man lit and threw the homemade bomb into the street,
35:15
SPEAKER_01: causing chaos and fear,
35:16
SPEAKER_01: but no injuries after the device failed to detonate.
35:19
So this was an actual improvised explosive device that that was
35:22
live and that could
35:23
SPEAKER_01: have killed people if the guy was a little less shitty at bomb making.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: What a loser.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: Two men were charged in the attack and both sided ISIS.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: Talk about a throwback as their inspiration.
35:33
SPEAKER_03: Wait, so I'm OK.
35:35
SPEAKER_03: Wait, were they on Lang's side?
35:37
SPEAKER_03: Were these the conservatives or the libs?
35:38
SPEAKER_03: Who was inspired by ISIS?
35:40
SPEAKER_01: No, they're ISIS inspired radical Islamist terrorists.
35:43
SPEAKER_03: So they're the counter protesters, too.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: I guess trying to prove laying's point for him.
35:48
SPEAKER_03: Right.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was he he's a guy who spreads conspiracy.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: He does spread conspiracy theories about Muslim.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: And he said, I'm from New York.
35:55
SPEAKER_01: I promise there's not been an Islamic takeover of New York.
35:58
But these two little would be terrorists rose to the bait and
36:01
literally tried to
36:02
SPEAKER_01: fucking blow up the crowd around him.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: Got it.
36:04
SPEAKER_01: OK, yeah.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: So obviously this whole story is disturbing,
36:06
SPEAKER_01: but I just want to focus on like a little thing,
36:09
SPEAKER_01: but not that little thing.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: This goes back to the Schrodinger's identity thing.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: So read this post from Zoran Mamdani,
36:16
SPEAKER_01: Mayor Mamdani,
36:17
SPEAKER_01: America's Mayor,
36:18
SPEAKER_01: posted the day after the attack.
36:20
SPEAKER_03: Yesterday,
36:20
white supremacist Jake Lang organized a protest outside Gracie
36:23
Mansion rooted in
36:24
SPEAKER_03: bigotry and racism.
36:25
SPEAKER_03: Such hate has no place in New York City.
36:27
It is an affront to our city's values and the unity that
36:30
defines who we are.
36:31
SPEAKER_03: What followed was even more disturbing.
36:32
SPEAKER_03: Violence at a protest is never acceptable.
36:34
The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not
36:37
only criminal,
36:38
SPEAKER_03: it is reprehensible in the antithesis of who we are.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: What jumps out at you about that?
36:42
Well,
36:42
he doesn't he doesn't say who committed the violence at the
36:45
protest.
36:46
SPEAKER_03: So if I if I didn't have this conversation with you,
36:49
I would probably have assumed that the violence was connected
36:53
to Jake Lang.
36:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:55
And I do think like it's fair to point out that he says white
36:58
supremacist Jake Lang.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:01
SPEAKER_01: Bigotry, racism.
37:02
He talks about his ideology,
37:03
but then it's just vague about who did the violence.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: And right now.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: This could be an oversight.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: I don't think Momdani is trying to cover it up.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: He did later appear with Jessica Tish,
37:13
SPEAKER_01: NYPD commissioner,
37:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
37:15
SPEAKER_01: in a press conference that spoke frankly about what happened.
37:18
But I think the problem is we've gotten in this habit of like
37:22
sometimes people's
37:23
SPEAKER_01: identity or ideology is super important.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: And there's the headline finding like you remember with Kyle Rittenhouse,
37:27
SPEAKER_01: white man kills people.
37:29
anti-racist protesters um and one of whom was racist one of
37:32
whom was right right
37:33
literally wandering around calling people the n-word um so like
37:36
i find a lot of
37:37
anti-mom donny stuff to be a bit on the paranoid side to be
37:40
honest but i i think
37:42
this is a fair point like why would you mention one or not the
37:44
other and this is
37:45
only i think does rile people up further and give them reason
37:48
to question your
37:49
leadership there was also this uh x post from cnn which did not
37:53
go well for cnn
37:53
SPEAKER_01: please read this
37:55
Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday
37:57
morning for what
37:58
could have been a normal day enjoying the city during
38:00
abnormally warm weather.
38:01
SPEAKER_03: But in less than an hour,
38:02
their lives would be drastically changed as the pair would be
38:04
arrested for throwing
38:05
homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside Mayor
38:08
Zoran Mondami's home.
38:09
SPEAKER_03: Here's what we know so far.
38:10
SPEAKER_03: That is really bad.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: They were crossing into New York City.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: It was a warm out.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: What should we do?
38:20
SPEAKER_01: Museum of Natural History?
38:21
SPEAKER_01: Central Park.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: Or Terror Attack at Gracie Mansion?
38:24
SPEAKER_01: Until you've experienced the energy of New York City firsthand,
38:28
SPEAKER_01: when you cross that bridge or come out through the tunnel,
38:30
SPEAKER_01: you don't know.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to do an IED?
38:32
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to go to Broadway?
38:34
SPEAKER_03: The article itself, was the article as bad as the tweet?
38:38
SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
38:39
SPEAKER_01: But I think people...
38:42
SPEAKER_01: Rightly,
38:44
like if this had been white supremacists coming into New York
38:48
City to cause
38:49
SPEAKER_01: trouble,
38:49
SPEAKER_01: they never would have been.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh, they just crossed into New York City.
38:53
And I think this is sort of the fault of certain like
38:56
progressive habits or liberal
38:57
SPEAKER_01: media habits,
38:58
SPEAKER_01: like in terms of how we talk about this stuff,
39:00
SPEAKER_01: which is when we do and don't talk about identity.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
39:03
This just jumped out at me as like maybe we should just be
39:06
consistent one way or another.
39:07
SPEAKER_03: Right.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: All right.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: That's all I wanted to say about that.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: Any further observations?
39:11
SPEAKER_01: Are you depressed now?
39:12
SPEAKER_03: So tired, y'all.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: Do you feel depressed?
39:13
SPEAKER_03: You know what?
39:14
SPEAKER_03: I was going to have kids.
39:16
SPEAKER_03: I'm not having kids anymore.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: Because of this, because of the headline thing.
39:18
SPEAKER_03: I do think that there is,
39:20
SPEAKER_03: like,
39:22
SPEAKER_03: there are people who feel like they need,
39:25
who don't want to have children and feel like for some reason
39:30
that they need to...
39:32
SPEAKER_03: have a higher calling than just not, I don't want to step on Legos.
39:38
SPEAKER_03: And so they come up with these justifications.
39:41
I think that if people want children,
39:44
that biological urge,
39:47
I think it overpowers people.
39:49
common sense and rationality which is why you see people have
39:52
continuing to have
39:53
children and and wars even literal war zones yes um there
39:57
people are going to do it
39:58
if they want children it's apparently from what i hear it's a
40:01
very very powerful
40:03
instinct one that i lack anyway we can move on all right katie
40:06
um why don't we
40:07
SPEAKER_01: pause here and do housekeeping but i'm gonna make you do it
40:10
SPEAKER_03: We are a podcast.
40:11
SPEAKER_03: This is Blocked and Reported.
40:13
SPEAKER_03: You can reach out to us with feedback, tips, story tips.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: Hate mail, death threats.
40:19
SPEAKER_03: Yes, death threats.
40:20
SPEAKER_03: Haven't gotten any of those lately.
40:22
SPEAKER_03: You can email us.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: You haven't.
40:24
SPEAKER_03: Have you gotten many death threats lately?
40:26
SPEAKER_03: I think you...
40:28
SPEAKER_03: I think your definition of a death threat is different than mine.
40:31
SPEAKER_03: You think of a death wish as a threat.
40:33
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
40:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't conflate the two.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: If someone's like, I wish you would die, I'm like, that's annoying.
40:39
SPEAKER_03: You did just on our segment about Jake Lang.
40:43
SPEAKER_01: What did I say?
40:45
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
40:46
SPEAKER_03: He said somebody should string you up, not I'm going to string you up.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, that wasn't directed at me.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, continue.
40:54
Anyway,
40:56
if you do want to send death threats,
40:57
blockedandreportedpodcasts at gmail.com.
41:01
SPEAKER_03: We also have a premium program.
41:03
This is the best way to support the show for $7 a month,
41:05
a mere $7 a month.
41:07
SPEAKER_03: You get at least three extra episodes of this podcast every month.
41:11
SPEAKER_03: You also get access to our live hangouts.
41:13
SPEAKER_03: We do these periodically on Substack Live.
41:16
SPEAKER_03: You and I just did one this week.
41:18
SPEAKER_03: It was excellent.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: It was amazing.
41:19
SPEAKER_03: Yes, we did an AMA with our listeners.
41:21
SPEAKER_03: They asked fantastic questions.
41:23
SPEAKER_03: We periodically do these with other people as well.
41:25
SPEAKER_03: And what else do people get, Jesse?
41:27
SPEAKER_03: Merch?
41:27
SPEAKER_01: No merch.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: No merch.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: Why would you bring that up?
41:29
SPEAKER_01: It's a sore spot.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: I think mostly what you get is a claim and social capital.
41:34
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
41:35
You get to sleep soundly knowing that you have supported two
41:37
small independent.
41:39
SPEAKER_01: Small beans.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: We're just small beans.
41:42
SPEAKER_01: Also, it cures depression.
41:43
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: We should imagine for $7 a month,
41:46
SPEAKER_01: all your depression symptoms washed away in a flood of content.
41:49
SPEAKER_03: Put some magnets on your head.
41:51
SPEAKER_03: That might also help.
41:52
SPEAKER_01: And if you put magnets on your head.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: I think that's it.
41:54
SPEAKER_03: That's the important stuff.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for housekeeping, Katie.
41:57
SPEAKER_03: Okay, what are we talking about next?
41:58
SPEAKER_01: So I had wanted to talk this episode about a really sprawling,
42:03
SPEAKER_01: colorful,
42:04
SPEAKER_01: weird blue sky meltdown involving New York Times columnist Jamel Bowie.
42:09
We might have to put that off for another segment because some
42:12
news got ahead of me
42:14
SPEAKER_01: on the blue sky front.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: Katie, please read this post.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: This is from Jay Graber, CEO of Blue Sky.
42:19
SPEAKER_03: Some personal news.
42:20
I'm transitioning from CEO to a new role as Blue Sky's chief
42:23
innovation officer.
42:24
SPEAKER_03: I'm excited to welcome at tony.bluesky.team as our interim CEO.
42:29
SPEAKER_03: More here.
42:29
SPEAKER_03: And then there is a link to a press release.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: So Jay Graber has been the CEO of Blue Sky,
42:35
SPEAKER_01: I think since the beginning,
42:36
SPEAKER_01: definitely since its sort of period of growth.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: Although we'll get to that question of how much it's actually grown.
42:42
SPEAKER_01: And like,
42:43
SPEAKER_01: undeniably,
42:44
this is a site that's carved out a big place in sort of the
42:48
liberal imagination,
42:48
SPEAKER_01: right?
42:49
SPEAKER_01: Or are you skeptical of that even?
42:51
SPEAKER_03: I think for a very specific audience,
42:55
I think that if I went and asked any of my parents' friends
42:59
about Blue Sky,
43:00
SPEAKER_03: they wouldn't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
43:02
But if you're within a certain age bracket and you're on the
43:04
left,
43:04
either you're on Blue Sky.
43:06
SPEAKER_01: If you're super online.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: Or you have strong feelings about Blue Sky one way or another.
43:09
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
43:10
SPEAKER_03: I don't talk to people my own age.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: You only have older friends.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: So Tony Schneider is this new Tony guy.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: He's a venture capital bro from Wired's coverage.
43:19
SPEAKER_03: That's a guy.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: I know.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: I thought it was a girl.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: T-O-N-I.
43:23
SPEAKER_01: I've never seen a guy.
43:23
SPEAKER_03: It's the Tony Braxton spelling.
43:25
SPEAKER_03: Tony, Tony, Tony.
43:26
SPEAKER_01: Schneider tells Wired that he intends to help Blue Sky,
43:28
SPEAKER_01: quote,
43:29
SPEAKER_01: become not just the best open social app,
43:31
SPEAKER_01: but the foundation for a whole new generation of user-owned networks,
43:33
SPEAKER_01: end quote.
43:35
SPEAKER_01: uh, dot, dot, dot.
43:35
SPEAKER_01: He was previously CEO of the WordPress parent company automatic,
43:39
SPEAKER_01: annoyingly misspelled from 2006 to 2014.
43:41
SPEAKER_01: Then he did some other stuff.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: I, so I'm like, I'm curious what this means for blue sky.
43:47
And I don't know,
43:48
to be honest,
43:49
like I continue to be fascinated and horrified by it.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, do you think that we are too fixated on blue sky or that I am?
43:57
SPEAKER_03: I'm not, I never think about blue sky.
44:00
SPEAKER_03: You might be, no, no,
44:02
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been on there?
44:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I looked up last week.
44:04
SPEAKER_03: I looked up what people were saying about Lindy West.
44:07
But do I just like ever open Blue Sky if not to specifically
44:12
see what Blue Sky is
44:13
SPEAKER_03: like talking about for this show?
44:15
SPEAKER_03: No, would not occur to me.
44:16
And you don't have people in your orbit who like check it
44:18
regularly or who are on there?
44:19
SPEAKER_01: No.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: I have so many normal friends who just maybe not.
44:24
SPEAKER_03: I don't.
44:24
SPEAKER_03: Your friends might not be normal.
44:26
SPEAKER_03: I think my friends are normal.
44:27
SPEAKER_03: They're all 75, but they definitely don't check Blue Sky.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: Your old friends, your former friends are all on Blue Sky.
44:31
SPEAKER_03: I highly doubt it.
44:32
SPEAKER_03: I don't think my old friends are online like that.
44:34
SPEAKER_01: So the Wired piece writes, it's a pivotal moment for Blue Sky.
44:37
The company found success by positioning itself as a
44:39
progressive replacement for
44:40
SPEAKER_01: Elon Musk X.
44:42
That helped fuel the platform's rise as X's hard right
44:44
ideological turn prompted
44:46
SPEAKER_01: some users to seek new social networks.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: In 2025,
44:49
SPEAKER_01: Blue Sky grew from 25 million users to over 40 million,
44:52
SPEAKER_01: according to its annual transparency report.
44:55
SPEAKER_01: blah, blah, blah, blah.
44:56
The journalist goes on to explain that it's still a little bit
45:00
niche and has some challenges.
45:03
I think there's been this thing going on where people will
45:06
mention that it hits new milestones.
45:07
SPEAKER_01: So now it's at 40 million.
45:09
SPEAKER_01: And that new Tony,
45:11
SPEAKER_01: that Tony check,
45:12
SPEAKER_01: one of his first posts after becoming CEO was noting it had crossed,
45:16
SPEAKER_01: I think,
45:16
SPEAKER_01: 42 million.
45:18
SPEAKER_01: But I think people are really misleading themselves.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: So just describe these two graphs I pasted here for me.
45:24
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so this is a graph of daily likers.
45:29
SPEAKER_03: So that's likers.
45:30
SPEAKER_03: So people who are active users of Blue Sky, right?
45:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, unique people who at least like one post.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: The other graph is daily posters, people who post at least once.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: And what do those numbers say?
45:42
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so they're basically identical.
45:47
SPEAKER_03: They're not?
45:48
SPEAKER_00: You're not good at math.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: You're a girl.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: The trend lines are identical.
45:51
SPEAKER_03: The numbers are different, but the trend lines are identical.
45:53
SPEAKER_03: Sorry, that was sexist.
45:54
They say that there was very minimal users and likers through
45:57
the election.
45:58
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
46:04
SPEAKER_03: Or no, no, no.
46:05
SPEAKER_03: That's like July 2024.
46:07
SPEAKER_03: There's some little spike there.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: The biggest spike by far is Trump.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: Oh,
46:12
that might have been when did Elon buy Twitter or made some bad
46:16
decision about
46:17
SPEAKER_01: Twitter and people fled to blue sky.
46:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so big spike around the inauguration.
46:21
SPEAKER_03: Another big spike.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, biggest spike around the election.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: Then a smaller one around the inauguration.
46:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
46:27
SPEAKER_03: And then downward trend.
46:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:29
SPEAKER_01: With like a little spike from Minnesota ice stuff.
46:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
46:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
46:33
SPEAKER_03: When Trump does something fucked up, people skeet about it.
46:38
So there's like a little more than a million people who like a
46:41
post at least once a day.
46:43
There's a little more than 600,000 people who post anything at
46:47
least once a day.
46:48
SPEAKER_01: And that's the thing.
46:48
SPEAKER_01: It's tiny.
46:49
And they think it punches so far above its weight because the
46:52
people who are on there are
46:54
are disproportionately in media or academia,
46:56
just people with strong professional opinions.
47:00
SPEAKER_03: I don't know that it does punch above its way.
47:06
Obviously,
47:06
we have very different social circles,
47:09
but I don't hear about Blue Sky on the news.
47:12
SPEAKER_03: I don't hear about Blue Sky in life.
47:15
The only time I think about it is when you're talking about it
47:18
or if there's
47:20
SPEAKER_03: content on Blue Sky that somebody takes a screenshot of.
47:24
SPEAKER_03: And post on Twitter.
47:25
Which is a classic pastime to post stuff on Twitter and be
47:28
like,
47:29
look at this shit.
47:29
SPEAKER_03: Right.
47:30
SPEAKER_03: Like Threads.
47:31
SPEAKER_03: Threads has over 400 million monthly active users,
47:34
SPEAKER_03: having overtaken X in the daily mobile ab users with approximately.
47:39
SPEAKER_03: Damn.
47:39
SPEAKER_03: So Threads is huge, which makes sense because Threads is...
47:45
SPEAKER_03: is connected to Instagram.
47:46
So if you have an Instagram account,
47:47
you have,
47:48
you automatically have a threads account.
47:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:50
SPEAKER_03: Um, it's a weird place, but so, yeah, I don't know.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it does,
47:54
SPEAKER_01: but I just feel like there's so much discourse about it,
47:57
SPEAKER_01: but maybe that's not the same as punch above its weight.
47:59
SPEAKER_03: Right.
47:59
SPEAKER_03: I think there's just,
48:00
SPEAKER_03: there's like dunking on it,
48:02
SPEAKER_03: but I don't think blue sky has like capital the way that X does.
48:08
SPEAKER_01: Maybe because I spend too much time on it.
48:10
SPEAKER_03: Um, do you spend a lot of time on blue sky?
48:13
SPEAKER_03: Um,
48:14
SPEAKER_01: No, not engaging, but just like, well, first of all.
48:17
SPEAKER_03: I mean, can you see any accounts?
48:19
SPEAKER_03: I just looked up.
48:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have a burner.
48:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, you're the fifth most blocked person.
48:25
SPEAKER_03: Who is good for?
48:26
SPEAKER_03: So it's J.D.
48:27
SPEAKER_03: Vance, White House, ICE, and then some account called good for no.
48:33
SPEAKER_03: Do you know what that is?
48:34
SPEAKER_01: I have no idea who that is.
48:35
SPEAKER_03: It's probably spam.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: All I'll say is that my normie friends,
48:41
SPEAKER_01: normie-ish friends in progressive politics are all on Blue Sky,
48:43
as I know because they sometimes send me crazy shit people are
48:46
saying about me.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: They should stop.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: I also think that, say again?
48:49
SPEAKER_01: They should stop.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they should.
48:52
I also think like it just is a uniquely closed ecosystem where
48:57
so like Twitter has Nazis.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: We all acknowledge that.
49:00
SPEAKER_01: I think you and I have sufficiently mentioned Twitter Nazis are bad.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: We're mad.
49:04
SPEAKER_01: We don't like them.
49:04
But if you say something crazy and conspiratorial on Twitter,
49:09
you will get pushback.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: whatever direction your crazy conspiratorial shit is on blue sky.
49:14
There is,
49:14
I think this real hardening of conspiracy theorizing and
49:20
radical stuff.
49:21
SPEAKER_01: And it,
49:21
I just think it has a higher proportion of crazy than any other
49:26
left of center
49:27
SPEAKER_01: platform I've seen.
49:28
SPEAKER_01: Like I've, I haven't really been on gab.
49:30
SPEAKER_01: What's the, or like truth social.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure those are just as crazy.
49:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure.
49:35
SPEAKER_03: I wonder if Truth Social has a community notes fact-checking apparatus.
49:42
SPEAKER_01: Guessing no.
49:43
SPEAKER_01: Actually, there are 8 billion Muslims in the US.
49:47
SPEAKER_01: Somalis like to eat dogs, cats, and ferrets.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: That'd be so funny.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: Gab fact-checking.
49:54
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
49:54
SPEAKER_01: I think that's what's important.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: I think Blue Sky has an actual radicalizing effect on people.
49:58
SPEAKER_01: I can't prove that.
49:59
Maybe the people who go there come pre-radicalized,
50:02
but I don't know if I hope that
50:05
this is a sign that it's going to collapse or if it's useful to
50:08
have all the crazy
50:08
SPEAKER_01: people in one place riling each other up,
50:11
SPEAKER_01: like at least publicly where we can see it.
50:13
SPEAKER_03: I don't think so.
50:14
I mean,
50:14
I think that X was a much better platform when it had more
50:18
annoying progressives on it.
50:19
SPEAKER_03: I think that you do get some pushback on X sometimes,
50:25
but it's so overwhelmingly conservative now in part because the
50:29
algorithm...
50:31
directly rewards people who are willing to pay seven dollars a
50:35
month to elon musk
50:37
so if you have a blue check unless you're like us and got it
50:42
for free unwanted did
50:43
not pay for it unwanted yeah i did not consent to it he pays us
50:47
we don't pay him
50:48
SPEAKER_03: which is actually true um
50:52
So X is built so that it's built to prioritize conservative
50:58
voices at this point.
51:00
SPEAKER_03: And because so many of the loudest progressives fled,
51:03
SPEAKER_03: I think there's way less balance on the site than there used to be.
51:05
SPEAKER_03: It's just gone the opposite direction.
51:08
SPEAKER_01: I do.
51:08
SPEAKER_01: There's a number of them that are quietly coming back.
51:11
I think part of the problem is that like the norms of blocking
51:15
people on Blue Sky are so insane.
51:17
SPEAKER_01: We're like,
51:17
SPEAKER_01: if you follow Matt Iglesias,
51:18
you will find thousands of people you've never interacted with
51:21
have blocked you,
51:22
SPEAKER_01: let alone if you follow me.
51:23
And I just think that's a recipe for like a ideological
51:28
hothouse that actually
51:29
SPEAKER_01: like,
51:29
I think Twitter has some built in resistance to that because I
51:33
agree it's gotten
51:34
SPEAKER_01: way more right,
51:35
but there's still a lot of like normal liberals and even
51:37
lefties on there.
51:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, it's clearly an echo chamber.
51:39
I don't think I will undoubtedly never be able to talk to her
51:44
about her experience
51:45
SPEAKER_01: as Blue Sky CEO,
51:46
but Jay Graber has also just been through the ringer because
51:50
one of the interesting
51:51
dynamics of Blue Sky is the more you're considered on the right
51:54
side of history,
51:55
SPEAKER_01: the more people judge you and the more people end up hating you.
51:58
This is sort of the point of the Jamel Bowie story we will
52:01
eventually tell,
52:02
SPEAKER_01: but Graber caught such an insane amount of shit over...
52:06
everything um a lot of it was simply that i hate to put myself
52:10
at the center of it
52:10
but there was this giant campaign to ban me they just didn't
52:14
want me on there and
52:15
she refused to for her credit but um if i were in her position
52:18
i would not want to
52:19
be the ceo of this site i don't know what this new tony guy is
52:22
going to do i think
52:22
they're going to tear him a lot apart well it won't really
52:24
matter because nobody
52:26
this guy doesn't really matter that's my position on blue sky
52:28
it doesn't fucking
52:28
SPEAKER_03: matter
52:29
SPEAKER_01: That's all I got, Katie.
52:30
SPEAKER_01: Any other thoughts on depression,
52:32
SPEAKER_01: Darn Mamdani,
52:33
SPEAKER_01: Mamdani's wife,
52:34
SPEAKER_01: Jake Lang,
52:35
SPEAKER_01: or Jay Graber,
52:36
SPEAKER_01: Blue Sky?
52:37
No,
52:37
but I am very excited to hear about what happened to Jamal
52:40
Bowie on Blue Sky.
52:42
SPEAKER_01: I think you just said Jamal.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: That's a little racist way to end the show.
52:46
SPEAKER_01: Jamal?
52:46
SPEAKER_03: Okay,
52:47
SPEAKER_03: Jamal Bowie on Blue Sky,
52:49
SPEAKER_03: but I guess,
52:50
SPEAKER_03: what are we going to,
52:50
SPEAKER_03: are you going to make me wait on that one?
52:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to make you pay for it.
52:53
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
52:53
SPEAKER_01: It's a primo episode.
52:54
SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, this has been Blot Reported.
52:57
SPEAKER_01: As always, we're produced with help from Jessica the 80s Baby.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: Goodbye.
53:00
SPEAKER_02: Bye.