EZRA KLEIN v MATT YGLESIAS

ok i hope i have not caused you to feel bad about your job or listening habits, you have always seemed like a good decent person to me

But I do prefer to feel good about the work I do. I mean, in general, I prefer to feel good about the writers I read and the politicians I vote for and the podcasts I listen to. I don't like being bummed out all the time. Today was kind of a bummer for me, tbqh.

xp It's OK. I don't blame you.

yeah understandable re bummer shit, i would say we live in bummer times which is true, but i dont think that means we have to be bummers ourselves, at least not all the time, tho obvs its not easy

fwiw i just asked my dr. friend who has worked for the cdc and others in senegal/guinea/niger/nigeria/ghana/togo/south africa/indonesia/cambodia/etc what he thinks of the gates foundation

his response was 'big swinging dicks who do better than most'

jaymc nobody here wants to make you bummed out! but things like this:

Man, you guys sure know a lot about Bill Gates! Must be hard to keep track of it all!

― jaymc, Wednesday, April 28, 2021 9:46 AM (twenty-two minutes ago)

-- read a lot like "I am bummed out by facts, which I would rather avoid, so people who do not avoid them suck."

International development is a very treacherous field. Some shitty things happen due to aid organizations Implementing not well thought out ideas, but some have done a lot of good. The problem is that most of the good actors in these organizations are really held hostage by the donors desires

fwiw i just asked my dr. friend who has worked for the cdc and others in senegal/guinea/niger/nigeria/ghana/togo/south africa/indonesia/cambodia/etc what he thinks of the gates foundation

his response was 'big swinging dicks who do better than most'

― mookieproof, Wednesday, April 28, 2021 1:11 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i very much doubt the "big swinging" part of this is true.

Like, "I want to focus on good things done by (x) billionaire or interesting ideas introduced to me by (y) pundit" is a perfectly fine attitude to have. You seem to be having a problem with personally applying "...and I don't care / do compartmentalise about the bad stuff they also do or write," and blaming other people who do care, or who eyeroll, about it. You express that you actively want to believe in the overwhelming good intentions of these people, and of politicians, and seem opposed to compartmentalising their good actions ...perhaps because that inherently acknowledges the need to exclude other words and actions?

xp lol map

This Epstein case is horrific and the young women deserve justice. It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated but we must follow the facts and let the chips fall where they may - whether on Republicans or Democrats. #WeSaidEnough #MeToo https://t.co/2mvskwQwW1

— Christine Pelosi (@sfpelosi) July 7, 2019

I remembered Pelosi’s wording as “problematic faves” the real thing isn’t quite as good.

Also Gates has totes skated on Epstein.

the phrase "some of our faves are implicated" has been stuck in my head forever, it's so perfect

Hasn't nearly everyone "skated on Epstein" because he and Maxwell cultivated connections for the sake of the size of the network, rather than direct influence, and there's not much evidence of most of the fame-os on his flight logs being implicated in anything more untoward than Matt Groening having gnarly feet?

i think that is plausible, not ready to conclude gates is a pedo yet based on what i've seen. bill clinton is another thing though.

xp lol that is completely incomprehensible to me

Gates laundered donation money for Epstein years after his conviction. His ties were a bit deeper than Chris Tucker.

I don’t think this pegs him as a pedo, just an amoral narcissist whose sole true passion is self-aggrandizement at any cost.

the phrase "some of our faves are implicated" has been stuck in my head forever, it's so perfect

― superdeep borehole (harbl), Tuesday, April 27, 2021 8:34 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

epic post for sure

the fact that so many of the masters of the universe were still involved with epstein after he was convicted of child prostitution is just so utterly damning of their whole thing

i'm not a particular fan of bill or melinda, and jaymc makes an easy target because he's nice and will blame himself first . . . but to my knowledge lag∞n/milo etc. have no experience in public health whatsoever and are just 'rich people incapable of anything even minimally positive'

his organization has done 'a lot of good,' shouldn't we treat that good as a balance sheet with all the harm the acquisition of $80 billion caused in the first place?

you are absolutely permitted to keep bill gates out of heaven for his acquisitiveness, but we cannot now go back and change that. (although i might support you nationalizing him!) he might even be able to do a wee bit of good with it despite his mighty hubris

if absolutely nothing else, the gates foundation has spent some of its money on mosquito nets instead of shooting a car into space. i don't doubt that each of us would be a better administrator of all that money -- the monsanto thing is unfortunate and bad! -- but that doesn't make it a net negative influence. just a disappointing one

but to my knowledge lag∞n/milo etc. have no experience in public health whatsoever and are just 'rich people incapable of anything even minimally positive'

this is totally dismissive and inaccurate and your whole post is pretty lame and makes no attempt to engage with the info shared in this thread let alone the massive amount available not on this thread

but i guess you got one sentence from an ngo worker so go wild man

k

good responce

but to my knowledge lag∞n/milo etc. have no experience in public health whatsoever and are just 'rich people incapable of anything even minimally positive'

Hope rich people see this, bro.

Defensive responses are so fucking weird - FINE I'LL QUIT MY JOB IF THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT/FINE HE CAN'T GET INTO HEAVEN. No one asked you too/y'all are the ones trying to imprint moral seriousness and value onto Zuckerberg 1.0.

the gates foundation is currently working to deny people covid vaccine in order to protect patent monopolies!!! and its typical of their approach, its not that complicated

i don't like the "no experience" arguments. is everyone else supposed to just withhold judgment regardless of how much other stuff they know? and what do we do about public health experts who feel differently? bill gates is also not a public health expert. i don't have experience as an education expert but i am against charter schools and also against having an unelected rich person influence education policy just because (in part) our failure to tax people like him enough has left schools desperate for money.

most of his bad acts are on more of a governance level than on an actual doing public health level, but i guess im not a governor so

There’s years of reporting on Gates self-dealing and ideologically driven donation schemes!

You don’t have to be a public health expert, you just have to be interested and not like the taste of boot polish.

I read mookieproof's post several times. It was so well-hedged with qualifiers and repeatedly cast only as his opinion so that I'm not sure how it could be described as "inaccurate". As defenses of the Gates Foundation go, it was about as mild and vaguely neutral as it could possibly be. I think g∞n was mainly reacting to the 'charge' of not having any known expertise in public health.

otoh, I can see the descriptors "dismissive" and "makes no attempt to engage with the info shared" as perfectly justified, though.

i think we are not quite arguing the same thing, but yes, i will take the word of someone i know extremely well on the ground over ilx!

i don't actually mean to denigrate the knowledge of lag∞n or harbl, i just disagree with them on a very specific point

milo, however, is a clown

what specific point would that be that we just hate rich people

fair, you do like the celtics

your friends personal experience with the gates foundation might not be like represent the totality of their actions i mean maybe hes bill gates idk in which case tell him to fuck himself

the gates foundation is currently working to deny people covid vaccine in order to protect patent monopolies!!! and its typical of their approach, its not that complicated

― lag∞n, Tuesday, April 27, 2021 6:34 PM

is this true? I don't know but at this point lagoon your statements have been so inflammatory that I’m inclined not to believe you

i have already posted a link but here you go https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines

lol that is completely incomprehensible to me

― Dan S, Wednesday, April 28, 2021 10:40 AM (one hour ago)

(teenage sex slave of Epstein) alleges that she was ordered to give ‘The Simpsons’ creator Matt Groening a foot massage

“I was enjoying our conversation when Jeffrey insisted that I gave Matt a foot massage throughout the duration of the short flight. I never turned down a client but when I saw the shape of his feet, I nearly threw up at the thought of having to touch them.

“He had yellow crusty toenails that even someone with a chainsaw would’ve had troubles cutting through and then there was the fluffy balls of leftover pieces of sock wedged between he crevices of his sweaty toes, now that was the real icing on the cake for me.

“No way could I attempt this, I thought.

“Then I had an idea. I went to the back of the plane and rinsed a wash cloth in warm soapy water and returned for his dreaded foot massage but not before attempting to clean them first,” she said.

Roberts said Groening gave her a signed sketch of Homer and Bart Simpson.

“In return for my services Matt was kind enough to draw me two quick sketches on blank paper from his briefcase of my two favorite characters, Homer and Bart.

“I asked if he could make them out to my little brother and dad, the true fans of the family not missing an episode during dinner over the past 10 years or so.

“Next to the A-4 size drawing he was able to fit the quote ‘To my greatest fan from Matt Groening’ and their names next to it. I knew they’d absolutely love it and it was such a nice gesture his feet were no longer an issue as I laughed it off and even made a joke to the comedian about getting a pedicure before hitting L.A.’s beaches.”

ok that is gross, I couldn't read beyond the first paragraph

thanks for the link lagoon, I hadn't seen that article

np enjoy lol

you couldnt pay a 25 year old to take technocratic ideas,

idk i kinda suspect the opposite is true; there's probably more young ppl receptive to center-left/normie liberal ideas than ever because of the shift to the left among young people. because (1) it's a shift and (2) the majority of people are around the center. so that large mass of young people who would have been on the center-right or center are now more likely to be in the center-left. you also have young people who were on the center-left who are now far-left, but i would guess it's approximately in proportion (they're over-represented on twitter obvs). joe rogan (who politically is sketchy inchoate-populist rather than lib but had both matt yglesias and elon musk on recently) has 200m downloads a month, pod save america has 1.5m, chapo trap house has 150k. in relative terms the far left did amazingly well, but partly that's because they started from such a low base

Joe Rogan is not centre left in any way shape or form.

Immediate kneejerk response aside, judging the views of a demographic cohort by the podcasts they listen to seems...odd.

According to our survey respondent demos, Joe’s listenership is 71% male and evenly split between high school and post-secondary graduates. Fifty seven percent of his audience reports earning over $50k per year, with 19% making over $100k. The average age of his listeners was 24. The most likely additional podcast responses from his listeners were “Serial,” “The Daily,” “This American Life,” and “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von.” Joe Rogan’s listeners varied only slightly from the survey average on number of podcasts listened to and exclusivity, but he received nearly 3x the number of responses compared to the next most-responded podcasts, “Phil in the Blanks” and “Crime Junkie.”

Sorry, second graph was meant to be
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/inlineimage/2019-12-17/How%20Britain%20voted%202019%20age%20and%20gender-01.png

xps- not saying he is. he's kinda an incoherent mix of right wing/anti-pc, libertarian, left, but imho it washes out as MOR centrist in 2021. and tonnes of young dudes listen to it

I’m also questioning whether you actually know/are friends with any people in their twenties?

i am in my twenties lol

The people I know who are,

that's kinda my point tho. the people you and i know in their twenties aren't necessarily representative. there are a lot of young people with normal opinions. the shift left is def real but it's a shift. you can see that in those polls you show, too. you also just gave a stat showing that the average age of joe rogan listeners was 24

Why wouldn’t they be representative? Are only rightwing political opinions representative/the default?

_The people I know who are,_


that's kinda my point tho. the people you and i know in their twenties aren't necessarily representative. there are a lot of young people with normal opinions. the shift left is def real but it's a shift. you can see that in those polls you show, too. you also just gave a stat showing that the average age of joe rogan listeners was 24

Why wouldn’t they be representative? Are only rightwing political opinions representative/the default?

because they're not a large random sample, they're just the people we know through circumstance and social connections; that's a highly selected group, whether intentional or not. in my case it's partly intentional, i have basically zero right wing social acquaintances. i can't speak for you but the people i know are extremely unrepresentative in many ways. i have lived for the last decade in some of the most left-wing neighborhoods in my country, met a lot of people through arts and music scenes, etc.

And 71% male which tied in with my point about young men tending to be more right wing because of resentment politics. Did you miss that part?

the original point i was responding to wasn't restricted to either gender, but imho the point holds for women too. young women are more left wing on average now than in the past, but that shift didn't come about through an increase in the number of women who are far-left and a decrease in the number of young women who are centre-left. rather, both the number of young women who are centre-left and the number of young women who are far-left increased. therefore, there are more young women who are receptive to center-left ideas increased, due to the shift left

You have to stop saying “the shift left” if you’re not going to address the fact why young people are voting left in the first place: because the things most important to young people as a cohort are largely addressed by left wing parties, and that is true in the UK as it is in my native Ireland. (And the gender differential there was pretty apparent during the referendum too.)

As it happens, I live in a pretty right wing area, and I work with a mixture of people from various backgrounds, with a mix of qualifications and who have entered the workforce directly from school. But mainly you can tell about how people feel about politics by how they vote, which is a much more reliable indicator than anecdotal knowledge. The reason I cited this is because from talking to people, even people I know who don’t vote or who are not political in any way have real daily concerns because they are affected by high housing costs and the lack of opportunities, it’s not ideology so much as material circumstances.

http://www.electionanalysis.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Henn_and_Sloam_figure_2.png

This too is educational: young voters placed much higher importance on social and environmental issues than older voters and voted accordingly.

As for women, as someone who was pretty centre-left in her mid twenties (to the point of voting Lib Dem in 2010, UGH) and who has now moved left from that, I stopped voting for the centre left because they had nothing to say to me and they were engaging in policies that were anathema to me and my values. I won’t be voting again next chance I get for much the same reason.