Avsnitt

  • Hello!

    Today a very special March Madness episode with New York Times and CNN contributor Jane Coaston. We talk about the recent ascent of women’s basketball, the gendered ways in which we always expect good, progressive behavior from women’s coaches and athletes, Caitlin Clark-as-Larry Bird and Caitlin Clark-as-baller, and a bit about NIL and the transfer portal. I’ve wanted to have Jane on the pod for a very long time and this will not disappoint if you want her very good takes on women’s sports.

    Tyler will be back next week.

    Enjoy!

    Jay



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  • Hello!

    Today’s episode is a talk with Vinson Cunningham about his new novel GREAT EXPECTATIONS which came out yesterday and is in bookstores everywhere.

    It’s everything you would expect from Vinson: beautiful sentences, long meditations on hoops, the church, and love, and a engrossing storyline that follows a young man who goes to work on the campaign of a certain senator from Illinois during his first presidential run.

    BUY IT HERE.

    And if you’re in New York City, Vinson will be in conversation with Doreen St. Felix tonight at Greenlight Books in Brooklyn.

    Jay



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  • Hello!

    Today, we talk to two people who have been thinking about reporting about AI for quite a long time: Repeat guest Ben Recht, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Berkeley and Karen Hao, a journalist who has written an excellent series of pieces for the Atlantic. We talk to Ben about SORA, OpenAI’s video generator that only exists in trailer form so far and what might happen if it’s actually good. (We don’t think it’ll be good. At least yet.) And then we talk some philosophy.

    There’s also a surprise at the start of the show.

    And then we talk to Karen about the massive amount of water and energy that AI might consume in the near future and why everyone seems to want massive, cumbersome and expense-heavy giant tools and not the smaller, more streamlined tools that might actually create something of use.

    Links:

    SORA announcement

    Karen’s articles on AI for the MIT Technology Review (really good)

    …and her more recent (also really good) work for the Atlantic.

    thank you!



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  • Hello!

    On today’s episode, we talk about Aaron Bushnell, the active-duty Air Force twenty-five year old who self-immolated in Washington, D.C., the history of the act and how it has been seen in different eras and different contexts. We compare, for example, how Barack Obama talked about the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor who is credited with sparking the Arab Spring with how much of the liberal commentariat talks about Bushnell (largely in terms of mental health). And we try to make sense of what demands this act places on the public and how it could be understood.

    We also talk about this:

    We also talk about Jay’s recent article about Pretendianism in the New Yorker and Tyler talks about his own experiences as a minority in the academy.

    Some reading:

    Wapo report on Bushnell

    Article Jay wrote in 2022 about the self immolation of Wynn Bruce

    Pretendian article

    Enjoy!



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  • Hello!

    Today, we talked about a topic that we’ve been circling around for a while — the minority vote. We now have months of polls all pointing towards the same trends in terms of Black, Latino and Asian voters all moving towards the right for a variety of reasons, most of which are left unexamined by many in the mainstream presses.

    That, of course, doesn’t mean that we don’t hear about the “Black vote” or the “Latino vote.” We do read the polling results and see charts detailing the shift. But that second part — the explanation for why — almost never gets voiced for what I imagine is the very simple reason that most campaigns, pundits, and the like don’t really know the answers.

    We talk about all that on the show and give our own thoughts about why different groups of people might be leaving the Democrat Party and what implications it might have not just on 2024, but for the future of progressive politics. Can the Dems hold together their coalition by just screaming at minorities that if they don’t show up, they’re going to be living in a fascist state?

    Thanks for listening and as always, if you’re receiving this email and haven’t subscribed to the show, we would greatly appreciate your support to help us keep the lights on here.

    READING LIST

    Article in Slow Boring about the moderate Black voter

    Poll of Latino voters shows concerns about inflation and the economy

    Recent research showing that Black voter concerns about Climate Change

    Is Biden’s Israel policy alienating Black voters?



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  • Hello!

    Today’s episode is an interview with Carrie Sun, whose memoir PRIVATE EQUITY came out yesterday. (Buy it here!) The book is a memoir about the time Carrie spent working as the right hand for one of the country’s most famous billionaire hedge fund managers. We talk about the allure of finance and Wall Street, Ishiguro and restraint in writing, the ways in which political awakenings can sometimes be quite mundane in their origins, and a lot more about this wonderful book. If you’re a fan of everything from Ishiguro to Michael Lewis, this book is worth checking out, especially if you want to see what its like to work in a place where there are daily exploitations, insane expectations, but also sometimes there’s a bag on your desk and there’s a $2000 pair of leggings inside.

    Enjoy!



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  • Hello!

    Today, we talk about the Apple Vision Pro and its grim vision for how you should be spending your time. Also, we talk a lot about Jaron Lanier’s most recent essay about the Virtual Reality in the New Yorker, specifically the question he poses about how technology should fit into our lives and whether tech can just create things because they’re cool without affixing their products to some greater mission for humanity.

    The Apple Vision Pro doesn’t come with any story about how its going to change everything or even a particularly great series of launch apps that feel revolutionary. It just kinda is a VR headset that asks you to wear it around all the time. Lanier’s essay, as we discuss, asks whether “all the time” technology actually makes sense.

    ENJOY!



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  • Hello!

    This week we have on Musa Al-Gharbi, a professor of sociology at Stony Brook University. We talk a lot about “kids these days” and the tendency for all sorts of reactionaries to blame them for everything that’s wrong with this country. Don’t like illiberal attitudes on campuses? Blame the kids. Do you think free expression is at risk? Blame the kids. Feel like democracy is on the brink of collapse? Blame the kids.

    (As always, if you’re reading this and not subscribed to our substack or Patreon, please consider supporting the show at goodbye.substack.com. It’s just $5 a month and helps us keep it going.)

    Musa’s work is a critical intervention into all this kid blaming and we talk about the actual problem: Adults these days. We also touch on teachers, peer review as gatekeeping, and much more!

    Here’s some info on Musa’s upcoming book from Princeton University PRess, which I encourage everyone to pre-order.

    A piece he wrote outlining the problem with people saying “the kids these days” are responsible for everything that’s wrong with the discourse.

    Referenced in our conversation: Science is a strong-link problem by Adam Mastroianni

    A look at the Polarizing Effect of the March for Science on Attitudes toward Scientists by Matthew Motta

    A study on the difference between trust in science and trust in scientists by Marcus Mann and Cyrus Schleifer

    And Musa’s recent look at antisemitism in America and a lot of the ways in which it is misunderstood.

    Enjoy!



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  • Hello!

    This week, we talk about the big Polyamory article in New York Magazine and the proposition that breaking the bonds of monogamy might be a political statement, one that frees both sides from the constraints of marriage. Are we just reinventing ways to justify selfish behavior? And why does every personal decision in the lives of upper middle class, well-educated people need to turn into some movement that promises nothing?

    We also continue our ongoing talk about visions of the climate future with a conversation about “Psalm for the Wild Built” by Becky Chambers, which, in turn, led to a longer conversation about surf movies and Tyler’s hobby of fishing at 3 AM in a wetsuit in the cold unruly waters of coastal Maine.

    Enjoy!



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  • Hello!

    In today’s episode, we talk about Octavia Butler’s “The Parable of the Sower,” a science fiction novel from 1992 that unexpectedly found itself on the best seller’s list in 2020. The novel imagines a violent and grim future in which the world has warmed beyond safe inhabitation, the lucky get to live in walled off communities while the poor all kill one another in the streets. We talk about visions of climate apocalypse and how Butler, through no fault of her own, might have created a hegemonic vision of a warmed earth, one that has become almost cliche in the thirty years since Sower’s publication. Why don’t we have other, new visions for climate death? What would those even look like?

    We also get a bit into a recent article in The Atlantic about Butler and her use of “historofuturism” in her work.

    And we talk a bit about the state of the Black quarterback and muse on why Lamar Jackson might get a more traditional, sports-talk-racist treatment than other Black quarterbacks in the league.

    We will be continuing our look into extinction literature next week with a look at Becky Chambers’s “A Psalm for the Wild-Built.” If you’d like to read it before the show, please do so!

    As always, if you’d like to upgrade your subscription and help support the show, we rely on your contributions to keep it going. Please click over and help us for $5 a month!

    — TTSG



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  • Hello!

    I’m very excited to announce that Tyler Austin Harper will be our co-host for the next month or so.

    Tyler was on the show last month and introduced himself then, but for those who missed it, he’s a writer at the Atlantic and a professor of literature in the environmental studies department at Bates College. He specializes in extinction literature and film.

    For the next month or so, Tyler and I are going to talk to guests and to one another about a variety of topics, including literature and movies. In this episode, for example, you’ll find a “Book Corner” at the end where we talk about the rise of true crime podcasts and a recent op-ed in the Times.

    Tyler also wrote a piece about the Claudine Gay scandal at Harvard, which we discussed at some length here.

    As always, if you’re getting this email and want to support the show, please subscribe for $5 a month and you’ll receive access to our Discord server, where all these things are discussed at great length.

    thank you!

    Jay



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  • Hello!

    Today we have a great interview with Nithya Raman, the City Councilmember for Los Angeles’s District 4. We talk about housing, the despair around the homelessness problem in California’s biggest cities, and whether there might be a different future for the city’s political machine.

    My interest in Councilmember Raman started back when I was writing the newsletter for the Times because there was an effort by some of the more powerful local politicians to redraw her district in ways that would both disenfranchise many of the people who had voted for her to be their representative but also seemed to reflect the unrelenting power of homeowners in Southern California.

    You can read some of those pieces here, here, and here.

    What became clear to me during the reporting of those pieces was that Mike Davis was right when he wrote “the most powerful ‘social movement’ in contemporary Southern California is that of affluent homeowners, organized by notional community designations or tract names, engaged in the defense of home values and neighborhood exclusivity.”

    The real battle in California, then, is between the self interests of homeowners to protect their value and the “character” of their neighborhoods and the best interests of everyone else. This is not a fight that follows basic partisan lines nor is it one that really has much coherence to it, but it’s the fight that every politician in California, especially in Los Angeles or here in the Bay Area, must navigate to get anything done.

    Nithya and I talked about all that and the massive scandal in the Los Angeles City Council in 2022, where Latino members of the council and labor leaders were caught on tape making bigoted statements about pretty much every other group in the city. What those tapes revealed, at least to me, was how a type of identity politics actually functioned in the country’s second biggest city.

    If you want to know a bit more about Nithya, here’s a link to her campaign page and a story about the leaked tape scandal.

    thank you!

    TTSG



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  • Hello!

    In our Discord server, which you can access by subscribing to the show for a measly $5 a month, a user asked me to not do shows about sports. I took this request seriously as I generally aim to please, but am sad to announce that after much deliberation, I do think it’s worth having a conversation about a very distinct phenomenon I’ve observed over the past few years.

    As recently as 2020, it was difficult to have a conversation about sports without bringing in all that “politics.” LeBron was talking about Trayvon Martin and George Floyd. The NFL, still enmeshed in the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick, put together a variety of initiatives around ending racism or whatever. The NBA had its weird bubble spectacle with all its Nike approved slogans on every surface possible, including the player jerseys.

    Today, almost all of that is gone. Sports coverage, for the most part, feels explicitly apolitical. Even the NBA’s big concession post the summer of 2020 — that they would not play any games on election days and use their arenas as polling sites — came and went this year without any real interruption to what had become a non-stop In Season Tournament hype cycle.

    Are we in a period of overcorrection? To discuss this question, I brought on Bradford William Davis, an investigative sports journalist and a former sports columnist at the New York Daily News.

    Here is a sampling of Bradford’s work.

    A lengthy investigation into Major League Baseball’s practice of using multiple balls during the season. (for my money, one of the finest works of investigative sports reporting in the past five years)

    A look into injury and labor concerns in the NFL

    An investigation into sexual assault and misconduct in US Fencing

    TIMESTAMPS

    6:02- are we in a moment of overcorrection for politics in sports media?

    17:05 - OHTANI TALK and did he not come to SF because of crime, homelessness and wokeness?

    28:45 - DRAYMOND TALK and “mental health” as a catch-all explanation.

    45:00 - a defense of investigative journalism in sports

    52:00 - JUST TELL US WHAT’S HAPPENING, REPORTERS!

    ANNOUNCEMENT: We will be taking the next two weeks off for the break but will be back on Wednesday January 3rd.

    Thank you!

    Jay



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  • Hello!

    Today on the show, we have Tyler Austin Harper, a literary scholar and an assistant professor of Environmental Studies at Bates College. We talk about the history of extinction literature, the books that tech moguls read and the vision it inspires, the dangers of science fiction and all that’s happening in the Ivy Leagues right now.

    0:00 - Jay talks about the new direction of the show, which for now will be a “degenerate Asian version of In Our Time.”

    2:40-6:00 - Jay and Tyler talk about Maine and the L.L. Bean outlet.

    7:00-34:00 - EXTINCTION LITERATURE TALK

    34:00- end - How to think about what’s happening on campus, the need to address concerns about double standards in speech with seriousness and good faith, and a defense of DEI programs.

    You should read Tyler’s work as well. Here are some links

    How Much Blood is Your Fun Worth? in the Atlantic.

    I’m a Black Professor. You Don’t Need to Bring That Up. in the Atlantic

    The Moral Theater of Social Justice Parenting in NYT

    I Teach at an Elite College. Here’s a Look Inside the Racial Gaming of Admissions in NYT

    Lastly, I wanted to put in a short message here about the future of the show. As noted, the show will still continue and while there’s no definitive plan yet on what the next months will look like, there will still be episodes and an ongoing assessment of what’s working and what’s not. Obviously, the show will not be the same without Tammy, but the community we built over the past three and a half years has always been extremely important to me and not something I take for granted. If you have any suggestions or complaints or whatever, please feel free to email me at [email protected]. I’m extremely grateful for all of your support over all these years and I want you to know that you also have a say in what comes next.

    thanks

    Jay



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  • Hello from the “White Projects”!

    For Tammy’s final ep as co-host, we answer questions from our beloved subscribers. Thank you for asking us to ponder:

    * Vice, Jezebel, and the loss of irreverent digital media

    * What makes podcasting so terrifying (and freeing)

    * Biden vs. Trump in early polls + in Tammy’s reporting on young voters

    * Our worst takes from 3.5 years of blabbering

    * Whether TTSG was a guerilla marketing campaign for Jay’s book

    To get Tammy’s infrequent writing updates (soon replacing her TinyLetter, R.I.P.), sign up here, and find links to her older work here. You can also keep in touch via email and follow her on Instagram for eventual zine-y things!

    Mai can be reached via email, but apologizes in advance for her dismal reply rate.

    Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join the TTSG Discord community. You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and email us at [email protected].



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  • For Tammy’s last TTSG book club as pod host (!), we welcome Jillian Tamaki, award-winning author and a key member of our early-COVID Discord crew. Jillian’s new graphic novel, Roaming, published with her cousin and co-author, Mariko Tamaki, follows three Canadian college freshmen on a spring break trip to New York. We hear about Jillian’s use of vernacular tourist archives like Flickr and YouTube to build scenes of NYC from afar; the complex dynamics among young women friends, especially when traveling; and what makes a good artistic collaboration. [Note: From 3:15 to 26:10, Jillian presents a slideshow, but the BTS is great even without the visuals!]

    🎧 Heads-up: Tomorrow (Monday, Dec. 4) Tammy and Jay will record their final co-host ep, and take listener questions! Ask away here: https://forms.gle/bVtcVVyyNKz7Epe76

    Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community. You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and email us at [email protected].



    This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe
  • Hello from Philly!

    This week, Andy joins us for one of Tammy’s last eps as a host of TTSG. 🥲 After catching up on dog COVID, [6:10] we discuss how China’s historical self-identification as a vanguard of the Third World has given way, through decades of technological and economic growth, to a more general anti-West position. [29:00] We also reflect on the various pockets of U.S. public opinion on Gaza and Zionism, from Andy’s college students to our elected officials (and their press secretaries). [53:30] Finally, we debate whether the term “barbaric” has been selectively applied since October 7, along with larger questions of media bias.

    In this episode, we ask:

    Where does China’s relatively strong support of Palestine come from, and is it actually as strong as it seems?

    How does the movement for a free Palestine fit into the idea of what it means to be a good leftist?

    Should media outlets rethink when to publish gruesome images of victims of violence?

    For more, see:

    * Times coverage of the Biden-Xi Summit (and Blinken’s reaction to a Biden gaffe)

    * More on the three young Palestinian American students who were shot in Vermont, the NYU doctor who was fired over his racist social media posts, and the friendship between a Palestinian and a pro-Israel chef in Philly that has soured

    * Words from Lydia Polgreen and from Jay on the question of publishing graphic photos of children killed in Gaza

    Reminder: Tammy is hosting a virtual TTSG book club meeting for subscribers tonight at 5pm PST // 8pm EST (9am in Shanghai) with cartoonist, illustrator, and Discord OG Jillian Tamaki! We’ll get some BTS insight from Jillian on the graphic novel she just published with her cousin and co-author, Mariko Tamaki, Roaming. You can find the Zoom info on Discord or in this post!

    Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community. You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and email us at [email protected].



    This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe
  • Hello!

    This week, Jay talks to a student organizer for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of seventy five student organizations who have been organizing and putting on protests on campus. Last week, the administration of Columbia University suspended two of the student groups – Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace.

    The organizer and Jay talk about why Columbia made this decision, what the climate is like on campus, and what the administration has been telling students about the suspensions. We also talk about divestment, broadly, as an organizing tactic and discuss the anti-apartheid divestment protests for South Africa.

    Tammy will be back next week for three more episodes!

    Reminder: On Nov. 29, Tammy will host her last TTSG book club event over Zoom with cartoonist, illustrator, and Discord OG Jillian Tamaki—on Jillian’s new graphic novel, Roaming! Check out the Discord for details and a book discount.

    Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community. You can follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and email us at [email protected].



    This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe
  • This week, we’re joined by our friend Jamie Lauren Keiles, a former contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine who is working on a book about nonbinary identity in America and posting at the archival Instagram account @sexchange.tbt. [4:45] Jamie discusses his resignation from the Times Magazine, and why he signed the recent open letter by WAWOG (the Writers Against the War on Gaza) as well as an earlier letter criticizing NYT’s trans coverage. [47:40] We also talk about the process of unlearning pro-Israel propaganda and where a trans, anti-Zionist, observant Jew finds himself today, both institutionally and spiritually.

    In this episode, we ask:

    How is the presumed “objective” position within a media institution created and reinforced?

    What good (if any) can an open letter do? And how much does it matter what an American Jew thinks about all of this?

    How do people’s minds actually get changed on Israel-Palestine?

    For more, see:

    * Jamie’s latest Substack post: Do I believe that there are questions that should never be asked?

    * Jamie and Jazmine Hughes on Democracy Now! discussing their resignations from the Times Magazine

    * Jay’s recent piece on the chilling of pro-Palestine speech within journalism

    * AP coverage of the Writers Bloc action in the New York Times building last week

    [1:04:00] And a big announcement! Listen to the end to catch Tammy and Jay present a new phase for the podcast. (Spoiler: Tammy is moving on in early December; Jay is continuing and wants your feedback.)

    As always, subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community, which we hope to continue cultivating into the future. Also: On Nov. 29, Tammy will host her last TTSG book club event with cartoonist, illustrator, and Discord OG Jillian Tamaki—on Jillian’s new graphic novel, Roaming! Check out the Discord for details and a book discount.

    You can follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and email us at [email protected].



    This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe
  • This week, we are joined by Tania Hary, the executive director of Gisha (“access”), an Israeli legal organization that fights for the freedom of movement of Palestinians. [2:25] We discuss the restrictive status quo that was in place long before October 7, in which Israel controlled travel in and out of the occupied territories, the flow of goods and food into Gaza, and the Census-like registry of the Palestinian population (that is implicated in the questioning of Gazan fatalities). [30:45] Tania explains how political repression and compulsory military service convince many Israelis that theirs is the “most moral army in the world.”

    In this episode, we ask:

    How are Israelis consuming images from and narratives about Gaza?

    What does it mean for politicians and media to dispute information, namely death counts, coming from sources in a besieged Gaza?

    What does this war reveal about the world order, humanitarian law, and human rights?

    For more, see:

    * A recent press conference on how to report accurately on Gaza, featuring Tania

    * Reporting from Haaretz on the backlash against Arab Israelis

    * Tania’s testimony before the UN Security Council earlier this year

    * Protesters braving it in Tel Aviv this past week

    Subscribe on Patreon or Substack to join our Discord community and participate in our upcoming IRLish book event. You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and X (Twitter), and email us at [email protected].



    This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe