EZRA KLEIN v MATT YGLESIAS

Maybe there are some good omelette recipes in his book.

mattys plan for a billion americans is so loony, the idea that population equals power is comically simplistic thinking, i mean bangladesh is in the top ten, the usa has ~800 foreign military bases, i wonder if he just looked at china and was like hey lots of people, kinda points to the fact that if you want to have a career as an apologist for the awful things done in the name of power you have to be deeply stupid, some would argue that its all careerism and cynicism but i think the job really requires natural ability

even without casually dismissing genocide, just the idea of looking at what america is up to in the world and thinking yeah we need more of that is fucking deranged and unmoored from anything good, id be willing to bet he makes some sort of lesser of two evils argument re china in the book, no doubt appreciated by everyone trying to cook up a new cold war, but obviously *extremely debate club voice* thats a fallacy

IOZ shredding this book is probably embarrassing niche nostalgia but I enjoyed it: https://newrepublic.com/article/159306/emptiness-matthew-yglesias-biggest-idea-billion-americans-book-review

he links to this old MY Slate post in that piece, which is p amazing: https://slate.com/business/2013/04/international-factory-safety.html

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire wasn’t a tragedy and here’s why...

in short, Matt Yglesias is a man of reasons

lol xp

You have to admit Matt's billion-population-or-bust Big Idea has managed to gain more attention than anyone could have predicted, if they'd based their prediction purely on its merits (hint: it has no merits). In that sense, Matt has already succeeded beyond his wildest dreams (hint: if he ever thought for a moment anyone would pay attention to this, it was a wild dream).

Yglesias has neither the visionary scope nor the technical expertise to make any of this remotely plausible as a sustained argument, a “case for thinking bigger” if you will, or even as a set of discrete proposals. He has no theory of political power or change, no idea how any of this will come to pass. “There’s no way that all the specific ideas in this book will ever command broad consensus in American society,” he writes on page one.

actually! i think this is a more important pundit qualification than being dumb, im moving being dumb down to #2, tho obvs theyre related, and its interesting to see what pundits do when confronted with people who do have a theory of change, an example would be matty et al criticism of BLMs messaging particularly re defund the police, it freaks them out, they cite polls like this is not popular! and will not work, in complete ignorance of every movement ever, including those they claim to support, without history, the end of history

idk if it was address itt but when he was criticizing defund the police people on twitter asked him if he had ever been part of a collective action and he said that in college hed helped to get the minimum wage havard pays its workers raised, then one of the organizers of that campaign showed up and said that he had come to a couple meetings as a reporter for some harvard newspaper or maybe his blog and then just talked about all his beautiful ideas for what they should do and that was the extent of his involvement

Relevant to today's revive:

In a footnote, he writes that “Argentina, famously, was one of the richest countries in the world at the beginning of World War I, only to stumble into a seemingly endless series of policy errors that have ended with it left in the dust.” Most of this happened not after WWI, and not in a “stumble,” but after the U.S. initiated Operation Condor to destroy South American democracy and ignite decades of torture, murder, and terror. The U.S. small truck market, the complexities of the U.S. visa system, and the interpretation of economic statistics from “Purchasing Power Parity” to worker productivity all fall within the ambit of Yglesias’s ability to hit the backboard but never make a layup.

can Yglesias write an explainer about basketball

just join ILH

Me every time this thread is revived: "I hope this is about Yglesias and not Klein."

klein is ok imo, we could do worse

the boy who was impressed when he saw paul ryan with a pie chart

Policy is what serious people write about: Matthew Yglesias is a serious person; ergo, Yglesias writes about policy.

applies equally to klein, a very serious young man

think he technically qualifies as an invertebrate

Bill Gates saw the coronavirus coming. Here’s his plan to beat it. https://t.co/7qufRnD6xd

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) April 27, 2020

suit jacket and tie with jeans

https://i.imgur.com/NjbIHs6.png

lmao

If we were to have royals in this country, the Gates family would be my choice. They lead by example, not nouveau riche.

— Peter (@AtGreenScreen) April 27, 2020

tech bro

the boy who was impressed when he saw paul ryan with a pie chart

― lag∞n, Tuesday, April 27, 2021 9:49 AM (sixteen minutes ago)

I'm not a klein stan or anything but his approach just seems completely apart from yglesias's, for example I can't fathom yglesias having the thought and sensitivity to write this essay on the dignity of work, or have the sort of discussion with chomsky klein just did -- I see a certain humility in him that matty lacks but maybe some of this has to do with klein's like, relative patrician erudition, but there's a difference there, and as I was saying for a NYT columnist we could do a lot worse

yeah i mean thats why hes gallant and works at the new york times and goofus has a newsletter that makes him 5x as much $$$ but ultimately its all schtick which gets exposed with his frequent pointed deference to power

yeah for sure and you can see his deference to corporate power all over that chomsky interview, just saying for the purposes of this thread question he's capable of a little better than matty

low bar lol

Define schtick.

(lol I guess I brought this on, didn't I?)

its thoughtful young man routine, entertainment, a lullaby for npr listeners, which is exposed as such when his first question to bill gates isnt "why is the microsoft word guy running global public health"

doesnt really appeal to me since i happen to despise nice young men, but to each their own

xp But why does it have to be a "routine"? I think Klein genuinely believes in what he does and finds it worthwhile. You may think it's bullshit, which is fine, but it seems strange to call it an act. By your definition, I'm a mark because I buy into it (I'm not an NPR listener, but I am a regular listener of EK's podcast). But I also work for a publication that has interviewed Bill Gates about such things, so maybe that's to be expected.

Never mind, I'm sorry I took the bait.

he might actually genuinely believe everything he does, more likely some consideration of career advancement is also in the mix there, and needless to say he is subject to multitude powerful institutions, but regardless the end product, the public ezra klein if you will, is no more than a consumable

i mean you can call it bait if you want but might be more interesting to try to justify his career long sycophancy

what kind of young men do you like lag∞n

I have work to do, and don't feel like getting riled up, so I'm going to pass. But thanks!

kinda points to the fact that if you want to have a career as an apologist for the awful things done in the name of power you have to be deeply stupid, some would argue that its all careerism and cynicism but i think the job really requires natural ability

― lag∞n, Monday, April 26, 2021 3:57 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

fwiw i do think these people, your david brookes and whatnot, tend to be true believers, but also thats convenient for their bank account and resume which makes it easier, and the result is generally an uncanny imitation of sincerity and insight, a schtick

what kind of young men do you like lag∞n

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, April 27, 2021 11:02 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you know funny, creative, big hearted, the good stuff

creative not a creative, say

is there any more depressing term than "a creative" its so powerfully corporately bad it almost rises to the level of... creativity

i was at a wedding and a girl seated at my table was like wait is everyone at this table a creative, i have since become a purely technical worker

You excused yourself and had a drink at the table of influencers.

lol there was no such thing as influencers then!

i kind of like influencers tho you know for being so cyberpunk

the only influencers then were spirits and drugs nyuk nyuk

ayye

I'll be over at the disruptors tent. They've got vapeable stem cells.

Personally, I have found a lot of value in reading and listening to Ezra Klein. I find his views insightful and thought-provoking, from his analyses of U.S. politics to his journeys into psychological terrain on subjects like creativity, happiness, anxiety, etc. I'm sure he has made some mistakes in his career as a journalist, and I'm confident that I wouldn't agree with every word he has written. But at the same time, a few episodes of his podcast were especially helpful to me when I was suddenly laid off a couple of years ago and was searching for some meaning and direction. Maybe my admiration for him makes me a dupe of the establishment, a dumb member of the bourgeoisie. So be it. I'm happier this way.

Namaste. 🙏

ek is willing to explore a pretty wide range of ideas and does not exclude his own judgments from his own examinations. these are good things. my is like the king of smug conclusory argumentation for the most part. imo.