- Episode highlight
hours to spend listening to a podcast in a day... Around Derek says something interesting. He's talking about "supply side". He says, "If only the demand side liberals could take care of the supply side as well, then we could solve the problems" (and he also mentions redistribution of wealth... ugh...). "Supply and Demand" speak to free market economies. They can speak to government, but government, all governments, have proven to be woefully inefficient and mostly incompetent at taking care of these things. Simply put - a government is full of baureocrats who are not tasked with making something profitable (i.e. balancing the supply and demand levers so that it all makes financial sense in the end) but with giving something of perceived value to it's constituents - who are, largely, not critical thinkers or business owners. If the constituents perceive money being spent on something (regardless of the outcome) as something of value, then they have done their jobs. To do the hard work of spending money on something then seeing it through to a highly performed outcome is not necessary, because by then they are just on to the next "issue". Derek - you are wanting, as all liberals do, for Government to fix everything. Time and time again, over and over we have seen how the private sector is great at getting "supply and demand" issues taken care of (that Gym you love so much, would not be what it is if it were run by the government - it would be a million dollar public toilet...), and government is just not... Just go look at history, become a student of history, and it will change your mind completely. You talk a lot about what's wrong with California with all the regulation and lack of outcomes for billions spent. And we can talk all day about how democrat policies have produced the same result in the federal government. How are you not connecting the dots here?
Re: Ezra's point about rules/regulations around , Trump is actively demonstrating how easy it is to eliminate or blatantly disregard rules/regulations. Stop letting dumb rules hinder smart progress.
Derek Thompson is clueless on what it means to improve efficiency. At he explicitly states that the FDA will be less efficient because of headcount reduction (firing of probationary hires). He literally cannot imaging a world where you improve a process and accomplish the same or more with fewer people. He states that you need to identify the bottleneck and then hire more people to eliminate the bottleneck - how about creating an improved process that doesn't require any people? Wouldn't that be more efficient?
- Introduction
Here for the party Lex!
[] Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
- Left-wing vs right-wing politics
Is where the interview starts.
These are kinda terrible definitions. I think what they are trying to say, and maybe more accurately, is that conservatism tries to make it so that the way we are taught things work is how they continue to work, and there is not undue mental effort to adjust and personal security. The devil we do know. While liberals value new updated ideas and better outcomes over predictability and immediate stability. The devil we dont.
@ he says “One of the fundamental roles of government should not necessarily be to turn that unfairness into perfect equality but to rectify that unfairness to a kind of universal dignity so people can have lives of flourishing.” What the fuck does that even mean?? 😂 Sounds like something Kamala Harris would say
@. This dude has 0 understanding of Powerplants in the U.S.
"Liberals accept a little radicalism in promoting their ideas. Conservatives are okay with a little injustice" - that sounds like ... a "fair" assessment of the dynamics of the American left/right (it's a caricature of reality). Rather a description of what the left thinks of itself and how it defends its behavior.
- Political leaders on the left and the right
Era hits on ideal conservatism here, the idea of being told what to do by the leadership, except that the leadership used to be the governors of states. Now its... Trump.
The way money is in politics saying things that are against the ideals of the oligarchs makes for a high risk conversation. Avoid, lie, or propagandize. Avoiding is the most moral action.
Let me help you out here Erza. Biden dropping out disenfranchised the democratic voting base of suburban whites, they simply stayed home. That was like 15-20 million people. It would have been better if he made it up to Nov 5th and stepped down.
Christ this is BS. Do some research on the side effects of first-past-the-post.
Begins several minutes of absolute bull 💩.
, dems are too timid
This sorta ignores the elephant in the room that the right had Russian propagandist helping them out the whole time. For years, constantly just paying people to be online and spew nuttery till it was mainline just because it was so constant.
@ "Because in order to be able to Think, you need to risk being offensive" - Jordan Peterson (BBC)
- Internal political divisions
is actually hilarious
😅 knee-slapping stuff right there.. "Thank you Mr. President, that's exactly who we were gonna nominate too. Tip of my tongue"
- AOC
LOL, Lex your face. But yeah only 5 Dems really do tiktok and authentically talk, Pete, AOC, Jeff, Jasmine, and Bernie.
Ezra is spot on when he states the Left have to get over not wanting to be on the same platform as someone on the Right (far right at this point). I am reminded that Pete Buttigieg had no hesitation to appear on Fox News recognizing that their viewers would have no alternative voice if not for his. Pete continues to prove his wisdom and leadership. I hope others will follow his example.
Ezra nailed it here . The people to follow are the ones that have something to say. The people playing the angles moving to the top is why we are where we are. Those angle seekers are looking to benefit for themselves, not the rest of us.
- Political realignment
[] Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein
call you fathuh 😂
Elon Musk's personal process of RADICALIZATION..... so you're either LEFT or a RADICAL.... Noted!
bravo!
[] The Affordability Crisis by Annie Lowry (article in The Atlantic, 2020)
- Supply-side progressivism
without patrimonial laws and control…We would be fucked , deprived of our History. What’s your point ? What’s your idea ? Forget about all protections ?
Derek Thompson cooked
- Wealth redistribution
Free? So those companies did not get paid billions upon billions?
these people define poverty in such a way as to make that impossible.
its going to consultants, many of which aren't necessary and are very sus
- Housing problem
Why does every commenter seem to miss that almost all Westerns countries have a housing crisis. And everywhere it became a major problem after 2008 and completely out of hand after 2020. That is not a coincidence but a consequence of the economic policies!
Not sure why they miss this but the answer is a work from home tax credit. We saw the impact during covid. Oppertunity does not HAVE TO only exist in cities. Republicans feel absolutely abandoned by this mindset.
happened with heroin injection sites in Seattle. All council ppl were for it until it came time to placing it in a district….his explanation can be highly simplified—- “hypocritical” and it’s a perfect term for how I see any powerful political leader
[] Porcelain: A Memoir by Moby
[] Meet Me in the Bathroom by Lizzie Goodman
[] From Counterculture to Cyberculture by Fred Turner
you know why those laws appeared ? Because the 60-80’s fucked us . Hence the Protection. What are you proposing in order not to create the same Monstruosities?
- Regulation and deregulation
The political courage is what you guys call authoritarian when it doesn’t happen in your country.
Friend has really lost the plot on problem solving cause and effect in regards to human motivation.
regulations are bad in 99.9% of the cases... u talk about bad air... 95% of thr prolem was solved by 2-3 simple rules j u s t for huge companies... u would have nearly the same result if a normal person. privat or small businiss never just heared a word about this regulations.. understand? and thats the main point..u need very lee of them and nearly all of them should have nothing to do with the normal person..and also at big companys. less is more. u can do some very important. 1-2-3 - noch 300
How about hosting a bipartisan conversation on this idea of regulating outcomes rather than processes?
[] The Rise and Decline of Nations by Mancur Olson
[] Confidence Man by Maggie Haberman
- DOGE, Elon, and Trump
i am not against bulldozing inefficient not working or hindering institutions, rules, regulations and laws.I am for though, to have a replacement ready for implementation which would do better. It is called reform.If you do not do that, you are just creating chaos and hardship.
The ignored conversation is the consequences and harm done to deleting things. These two have a sorta blindness for the the mindset of the people they oppose on the left as much as the right.
remove as much as possible and see what’s actually needed. When what you’re talking about is the government which has a massive effect on society and peoples well being that’s the wrong approach. You can’t treat society like Twitter.
the answer sure isn’t to file all of them blindly. Take your time to really understand their work. For example, maybe they are an awesome worker but their boss giving the task is the issue. Musks slash and burn approach does not allow for flushing this out. Your a a Elon sick-o-fan Lex. With love, it’s so true my friend.
Excellent podcast , one comment on point , the goal of government is a) National security b) societal stability c) economic growth ( abundance ) , so you can attach reforms to the goals above .
See i got an issue with this. An AI only answering to a king, a fascist, an autocrat will suppress will wage war to gain access to resources that otherwise may be denied, would automate the war itself which may sound fun, but who knows what comes of that if the other side then does it too and also may send robots to grab people, migrants, citizens, dissidents from the street or their beds and trop them over the Gulf of America. The AI maybe should either be aligned with the world so all would benefit of its benevolent acts or at the very least with a constitution though it may cause mental break downs when it starts thinking of the concept of state and church and god over all.
~ ezra talks about "D.O.E." here. to clarify, he's talking about the Department of Education, not the Department of Energy. it confused me at first since the former is typically abbreviated as "E.D."
Talking the x-axis of liberal vs conservative economic policy without touching the y-axis of social policy is... Odd. Especially as relates to DOGE ( in)
Isn’t one of the main goals to cut government spending and deficit?
guy is COOKIN!
Lex - "I can criticize Trump all day" - Yet, you don't. I've listened to hundreds of your episodes and follow your tweets and reddit posts. I can count the number of times you have specifically criticized Trump or his policies on one hand.
wait, Lex you don’t like people who try to bend reality to their will? Hum, the describes Elon to a tee.
i thought this was a shining moment
Derek said the project was likely going to die and go to Starlink. They are focused on fixing the government processes. Just saying we think they should have just gone with Starlink makes no sense. How does that solve the issue of gummed up bureaucracy? If the system worked maybe a better solution would have been found or maybe it would have found Starlink to be the best solution a lot faster. Only bias I see is yours.
just give them Starlink for about 0.0001% of the $44bn budget 😂🤦🏻♂️
- Sam Harris
[] The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
I love Ezra Klein, this was a great podcast. I do want to say, I think that his view on AI is a little cautious and missing the bigger picture . I think that people can summarize content to its most necessary components and then draw the associations between different content without having to necessarily read the whole thing, that's where the true intelligence happens, not in the rote reading task. They just know that these pieces can work together. I do think formative education like during childhood and early adulthood has to be as independent of AI as possible to ensure that we don't rely too much on it, but it should be stated that as civilization advances our thinking will be across a higher abstraction level than currently possible so we must also prepare future generations for that level of thinking and to be able to use these tools while ensuring safety and stability. We need new ways of thinking about this. The future will not be like the past.
