Cool that pocket casts now segments the podcast so you can skip to the next segment, advertisements, etc
The 30 sec skip is my best friend.I never listen to commercials.
I’ve been listening to American Prestige since it began a few months ago. I really want to like it but I just don’t. The main guy (Daniel) seems like he knows his shit but he just isn’t that great at podcasting. His cohost (Derek) is much more enjoyable to listen to, and seems to be better at interviewing guests as well, but gets overshadowed by Daniel so much that it often ruins the episode. I think I’m going to drop it from my list as I’ve been skipping episodes a lot recently, which is a shame because I enjoy learning about foreign affairs and wanted something better than Pod Save The World.
Latest 5-4 with Sheldon Whitehouse is so damn bleak. There is basically zero chance anything good happens with respect to the Supreme Court.
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Bill Bishop, who’s newsletter is the undisputed best resource out there on China, has started a podcast.
latest Ezra Klein episode is very good, Ezra is on parental leave, the fill-in host is great and the episode is about why journalists are terrible and why their insane “both sides” instincts make them worse
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Thursday and Friday of NYT Daily deal with public health officials (Fauci today) and it’s absolutely infuriating to think of the hell these people have been through for trying to do their jobs and save peoples’ lives.
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Yup. We are in a war against misinformation that people are still treating like a negotiation between cooperative parties.
The problem is that so far Sarah has invited other Sarahs on to the show, essentially. Agreed that she needs someone with more energy.
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Is Mike’s show any good?
latest Ezra episode (guest host Julia Galef) is fucking A++++++, it’s right up most UPers’ alley, discussing forecasting and some real insights into why UPers mostly hate dipshits like Pinker and Gladwell (I’m not all the way through it yet but they haven’t been explicitly mentioned but the guest is clearly subtweeting them)
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uppers hate pinker?
they should
please educate me. i haven’t read his books, but a lot of what i listen to says better angels is seminal or whatever. i know of at least one critical take on enlightenment now, but that’s it.
Turns out he’s a creep who hangs out with Epstein on the Pedo Express. I think I enjoyed one of his books many years back.
The Stuff of Thought is an interesting book. The idea that we talk about being under water vs in water was one tidbit from the book that stuck with me. His the world is only getting better so don’t upset the apple cart by advocating left wing ideas is bad though.
oh i see. shit, we are going to be finding out stuff like this for years about so many people.
beyond the creep stuff, though, it’s mostly that he’s leveraging his “expertise” in looking back at historical trends as a credential to justify his future-looking pronouncements. The podcast guest today basically demolishes the idea that knowing a bunch of historical facts is valuable for forecasting.
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The latest Rationally Speaking is scary and depressing. I knew that biology has been advancing super rapidly this century and know a decent amount about CRISPR but apparently just about any yahoo with time to read and a few bucks can build working viruses. The naivety of virologists (who just assume nobody would ever do anything bad with this technology on purpose) is not really surprising but it’s a little disturbing.
http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/261-dangerous-biological-research-is-it-worth-it-kevin-esvelt/
Most recent 5-4 is typically excellent. The one thing that I learned that surprised me was Thomas’s view on the religious aspect of the 1st amendment. Apparently he believes that it is not binding on states, only the federal government. To be clear, only the establishment clause of the first amendment. So, in his view, states absolutely cannot restrict free speech or the right to assemble. But they absolutely can promote/endorse/establish a state religion without any constitutional problem.
Note that he’s also drawing a line between the free exercise clause and the establishment clause: states can endorse a religion (like in this episode’s case), but they absolutely cannot constrain the exercise of religion (like in the case where states tried to impose COVID-related restrictions on large gatherings).
Assuming his view is described correctly, I think this is the most bonkers thing I’ve heard from Thomas. I mean, he’s an extremist along many dimensions, but usually I feel like there’s some logical argument underlying that extremism. But this is just ludicrous.
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