#Ezra Klein

[maaarine]

The Ezra Klein Show: How to Discover Your Own Taste

"I think a lot about the difference between what in my head is the push internet and the pull internet, which is not perfect language.

But the internet where things are pushed at you and the internet where you have to do some work, day after day, go in and visit a home page or whatever, you have to pull it towards you.

And the problem with the push internet is it’s not really under your control, right? It’s about what the force pushing is doing.

But as that became bigger, people stopped doing the things that allowed the pull internet to exist.

There aren’t so many blogs anymore. Not none, but there are fewer.

People put their effort — because it’s the easier way to find audience and eventually to make a living — into the algorithmic spaces.

And so there’s simply less of this other thing there to explore."

#ezra klein #the ezra klein show #podcast #tumblr

[tomorrowusa]

« The cliché used to be that Democrats fell in love and Republicans fell in line. The reality, in recent years, has been that Democrats fall in line and Republicans fall apart. The Democratic Party’s establishment has held, even as the Republican Party’s establishment has buckled. »

— Ezra Klein at the New York Times.

The Democratic Party is larger but much more politically diffuse than the GOP. The differences in the internal composition of the Democratic Party sometimes remind people of the cliché about herding cats.

Republicans have been more likely to belong to groups which do things in more rigid lockstep – like fundamentalist churches and the NRA. And in this century they have their own national "news" outlet to make them adhere to the party line.

That typically lockstep approach by the GOP has caused the party mostly to unswervingly follow Trump into the wastelands of corrupt authoritarianism. Only a minuscule percentage of Republican office holders dares to publicly deviate from the MAGA path; the rest of the party has acted like political lemmings.

Democrats should continue to do more to put differences aside at least when it comes to winning elections. We can always go back to quibbling with each other during the election night victory celebrations.

#democrats #unity #republicans #rigid lockstep #donald trump #maga #ezra klein #election 2024

[porterdavis]

Clear eyes looking at Israel

Ezra Klein offers some plain talk about Israel

Antisemitism is not why most 18- to 29-year-olds (in the US) see Israel as the aggressor nation. Antisemitism is not why the images and facts out of Gaza horrify. They are opposed to the Israel they know: an Israel that has no interest in peace — that has actively sabotaged efforts at peace — and that can imagine no security for itself absent the endless control of Palestinian lives. Which is one reason I think the response to the protests on campus has been misguided. ... Israel is losing the support of a generation, not a few student groups. And it is losing it because of what it does, not what it is.

The younger generations see the hypocrisy of Netanyahu doing his best to destroy any prospect of a two-state solution -- allowing Hamas to control Gaza, knee-capping Fatah and letting the settlers rape, raid, and steal land -- while the US piously says its aid to Israel is to create two sovereign, peaceful neighbours.

The people of Israel deserve to be protected and supported in their desire to live in peace. The government of Israel deserves to be condemned for its actions in indiscriminately kettling and killing Palestinians.

#ezra klein #gaza #netanyahu #israel

[dk-thrive]

I’m just very suspicious of any kind of summing up of any kind of this is who I am

“And I think that’s important, especially as an artist, to not always be looking for how we are seen. And I think about labels a lot. And of course, as people write headlines, people have to have labels. It’s understandable. There’s a Twitter bio. There’s all these things that — you have to sum up these things. And I’m just very suspicious of any kind of summing up of any kind of this is who I am. Because, first of all, who I am is changing rapidly all the time with what I’m reading, and who I’m with, and what I’m experiencing. And then the other thing is even I can’t sum up who I am. So I don’t know if I can trust someone else to do it."

— Ada Limón, from “Ezra Klein Interviews Ada Limón” (Ezra Klein Show, May 24, 2022)

#Ezra Klein #artist #label #social media #Ada Limón #changing #multifaceted

[transpondster]

"Meta's AI doesn't know it's lying."

None of the AI chat tools know when they're lying, or wrong, or answering a question that no one asked.

#ai #tech #technology #ezra klein #how many times has ezra klein been tagged in a tumblr post? not often i bet

[nerdygaymormon]

There are two parts of this podcast episode that really struck me.

The first is why the different generations of Americans are reacting differently to the Israeli war against Hamas, which I'll summarize below.

The second part is Rabbi Sharon Brous sharing an ancient Israeli practice that beautifully illustrates mourning with those who mourn and seeing each other's humanity. Go to the 53:00 mark of the episode to hear it.

—————————————————————  

There's the older generation of Americans who saw Israel when it was small and weak and in danger of being eliminated by its neighbors. They have a sense of Israel's impossibility and its vulnerabilities from the dangerous neighborhood where its located. There was the 6-day war in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

Next is a generation that only ever knew a strong Israel backed by the United States' military and political support. This generation also knows Israel as an occupying force imposing its will on Palestinians. But this Israel also had a strong peace movement trying lead Israel to be a more humane and moral nation by reaching peace with the Palestinians.

That peace movement collapsed due to the Second Intifada and suicide bombings. This caused Israeli politics to move further and further right. Israel sought security through subjugation. Extremists from the margins become Cabinet members. Settlers in the West Bank, with government backing, annex more and more territory, making the possibility of a two-state solution less and less possible. Israel walled up Gaza and left the residents to the control of Hamas and to misery. That's what the generation of younger Americans knows of Israel.

—————————————————————  

SHARON BROUS: So there is a Mishnah, an ancient rabbinic text in the code of law that was codified 2,000 years ago, that tells the story of what would happen when the people used to go up to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. And imagine Mecca, like hundreds of thousands of people coming at once on a kind of sacred pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They would ascend the steps to the Temple Mount, and then they would go through this arched entryway. And they would turn to the right, and they would circle around the perimeter of this courtyard.

And then they would exit essentially right where they had come in. Except, the Mishnah says, for someone who’s broken hearted. That person would go up to Jerusalem. They would ascend the steps, walk through the arched entryway, but they would turn to the left. And every single person who would pass them coming from the right would have to stop and ask this simple question, [HEBREW], what happened to you? And then the person would say, I’m brokenhearted. My loved one just died. I’m worried sick about my kid. I found a lump.

And the people who are walking from right to left would have to stop and offer a blessing before they could continue on their pilgrimage. And I just want to think about how profound the insight is in this ancient ritual because if you spend your whole life dreaming of going up on this sacred pilgrimage to the holiest site, the holiest place on the holiest days, and doing your circle around the courtyard, the last thing in the world you want to do is stop and ask the poor guy who’s coming toward you, are you OK? What’s your story? What’s going on with you?

And yet central to your religious obligation, in fact, the only religious obligation you have that day, is precisely to see this other person in their suffering, to ask them what their story is, and then to give them a blessing. And if you’re broken, shattered, the last thing you want to do is show up in this space with all of these people and go against the current in such a public and visible way. And yet, you’re obligated to do that.

And so I think the rabbis kind of captured this very sacred and profound, psychological and spiritual tool for us, which is to say when we are suffering and when we’re hurting, we need to be seen by other people. We need somebody to say, tell me about your pain. Help me understand what’s going on for you. And we need to be blessed.

And that’s why the loneliness of this moment feels so profound for so many Jews because we feel like, wait, we often ask people, tell me about your pain. Tell me about your suffering. How can I be a good ally? How can I stand with you in solidarity? Why aren’t people asking us? And it’s a reminder for us that we have to reinforce our commitment to living in a world in which we can see each other in our pain.

And when we’re walking from right to left, because we’re OK that day, not to turn our eyes away and our hearts away from the poor person who’s walking toward us who’s broken that day. Otherwise, our humanity is lost to us. And it doesn’t only hurt the person who’s broken. It hurts the whole society. It, frankly, hurts our democracy. It endangers our democracy when we’re unable to actually engage one another’s pain because we feel that our cause is so righteous. Our work is so holy, so important that we’re going to keep circling from the right, even though there are all these people who are quietly walking in the other direction, saying, please, please see me. I’m hurting right now, and I need you to help me in this moment of my pain. I need you to help me by bearing sacred witness to my heartache in this moment.

#rabbi sharon brous #ezra klein #israel #long post

[type40capsule]

On the Search Engine with PJ Vogt podcast, Ezra Klein has good advice for journalists who are still on Xitter: Leave.

#science #technology #Xitter #journalism #Search Engine with PJ Vogt #podcast #Ezra Klein #Marshall McLuhan #Elon Musk #internet #social media

[dikleyt]

It's so worth watching, trust me, and I normally hate stuff like this. So satisfying though

#transphobes #grifters #transphobia #oli london #ezra klein #right wing grifters #debate #Youtube

[metaphrasis]

What a poetic mind can teach us about how to live

“The poet Jane Hirshfield invites us to embrace habits of deep noticing and attention — and observe the beauty that unfolds.”

#Jane Hirshfield #Ezra Klein #New York Times

[graphicpolicy]

Preview: The Riddler: Year One #6 (of 6)

The Riddler: Year One #6 preview. Edward Nashton’s long, painful psychological journey and downward spiral have finally brought him to the point where he is ready to take direct action #comics #comicbooks

View On WordPress

#comic books #Comics #dc black label #dc comics #ezra klein #paul dano #stevan subic #the riddler: year one

[mitchipedia]

Ezra Klein: This changes everything

In 2018, Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google — and not one of the tech executives known for overstatement — said, “A.I. is probably the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. I think of it as something more profound than electricity or fire.”

Try to live, for a few minutes, in the possibility that he’s right. There is no more profound human bias than the expectation that tomorrow will be like today. It is a powerful heuristic tool because it is almost always correct. Tomorrow probably will be like today. Next year probably will be like this year. But cast your gaze 10 or 20 years out. Typically, that has been possible in human history. I don’t think it is now.

Artificial intelligence is a loose term, and I mean it loosely. I am describing not the soul of intelligence, but the texture of a world populated by ChatGPT-like programs that feel to us as though they were intelligent, and that shape or govern much of our lives. Such systems are, to a large extent, already here. But what’s coming will make them look like toys. What is hardest to appreciate in A.I. is the improvement curve.

“The broader intellectual world seems to wildly overestimate how long it will take A.I. systems to go from ‘large impact on the world’ to ‘unrecognizably transformed world,’” Paul Christiano, a key member of OpenAI who left to found the Alignment Research Center, wrote last year. “This is more likely to be years than decades, and there’s a real chance that it’s months.”

Perhaps the developers will hit a wall they do not expect. But what if they don’t?

I find myself thinking back to the early days of Covid. There were weeks when it was clear that lockdowns were coming, that the world was tilting into crisis, and yet normalcy reigned, and you sounded like a loon telling your family to stock up on toilet paper. There was the difficulty of living in exponential time, the impossible task of speeding policy and social change to match the rate of viral replication.

Some people looking at AI say AI is nothing, just a parlor trick. Others say it's revolutionary, but it will be a revolution akin to the invention of the smartphone. Still others say we're looking at the next step of evolution, the emergence of another intelligent species, perhaps the emergence of gods.

I agree with the second group, the folks who think AI is like the invention of the smartphone. But what if the third group is right—and the transition to this new intelligent species happens in months or years, rather than decades or longer?

Sounds crazy, right? But imagine it's Feb. 2020 and somebody tells you that starting in a few weeks, you're going to have to stay away from other people for more than a year. You would have thought that person was crazy, wouldn't you?

#AI #artificial intelligence #the singularity #Ezra Klein

[maaarine]

Ezra Klein: 

“We often seem to me to be optimized for people’s 20s. You move somewhere. You’re pursuing a job. Again, that’s not what everybody does.

But then, as your life changes and you need support, you have children, you have health problems, you age, you have mental health problems, all the things that make us interdependent on others, our lives are in places where we don’t have a lot of support for that. 

And our families are much smaller, and what we can ask of each other is somewhat less.

So you talk a lot throughout the book about isolation as a cause here, but you say that social isolation is the most under-discussed dimension of serious mental illness that there is. (…)”

—

Thomas Insel

“In an era where everybody is online and connected more than ever supposedly, there’s a greater sense of loneliness, which is different than being alone but a sense of loneliness. 

And you’re right. In the book I talk about how that is a feature of mental illness, which is one of the most disabling and difficult. 

And when you talk to people who recover they almost always start by telling you about a person who had their back, someone who they trusted who gave them hope.

And so in putting my vision about how to fix this problem together, I came up with those three Ps. 

It wasn’t my idea. It was the idea of a very wise street psychiatrist in L.A. who also was running the L.A. County Department of Mental Health, Jonathan Sherin who said, it’s really people, place and purpose. 

If you provide those, people will, in fact, recover.

So the first part of that, that social support, is, I think, entirely critical, and it’s a great place to start. 

And it could come from family. It could come from a peer who’s been down this road. It could come from a neighbor. There are all sorts of ways to make that happen.

And to build it into policy, it starts with things like having parental leave. It’s not in our value system, and I do think there’s a policy issue here that we ought to bring front and center. 

It’s one of the reasons why I said, the problem here is medical, but the solutions are social, they’re environmental. But they’re also political.”

Source: The Ezra Klein Show: A Top Mental Health Expert on Where America Went Wrong

#the ezra klein show #ezra klein #thomas insel #podcast #health

[luxe-pauvre]

We ran a lot of elections in the United States before we let women vote in them. You do not need to assert any grand patriarchal conspiracy to suggest that a process developed by men, dominated by men, and, until relatively late in American life, limited to men might subtly favor traits that are particularly prevalent in men. Talking over listening, perhaps. “Listening is something women value almost above everything else in relationships,” says Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown linguist who studies differences in how men and women communicate. “The biggest complaint women make in relationships is, ‘He doesn’t listen to me.’” Tannen’s research suggests a reason for the difference: Women, she’s found, emphasize the “rapport dimension” of communication — did a particular conversation bring us closer together or further apart? Men, by contrast, emphasize the “status dimension” — did a conversation raise my status compared to yours? Talking is a way of changing your status: If you make a great point, or set the terms of the discussion, you win the conversation. Listening, on the other hand, is a way of establishing rapport, of bringing people closer together; showing you’ve heard what’s been said so far may not win you the conversation, but it does win you allies. And winning allies is how Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nomination. […] presidential campaigns are built to showcase the stereotypically male trait of standing in front of a room speaking confidently — and in ways that are pretty deep, that’s what we expect out of our presidential candidates. Campaigns built on charismatic oration feel legitimate in a way that campaigns built on deep relationships do not. But here’s the thing about the particular skills Clinton used to capture the Democratic nomination: They are very, very relevant to the work of governing. And they are particularly relevant to the way Clinton governs.

Ezra Klein, Understanding Hillary

#Ezra Klein #Understanding Hillary #Hillary Clinton

[porterdavis]

Quote of the Day

... even in a time of profound economic dislocation, American politics has become less about which party is good for your wallet and more about whether the cultural changes of the past 50 years delight or dismay you.

Ezra Klein, NY Times

#ezra klein

[dk-thrive]

I’ll just say let’s just think about ease. And I’ll say, just keep saying the word ease and it comes up.

I usually sit for at least 15 minutes a day. Sometimes in the morning and sometimes at night. At night, it’s usually because I’ve forgotten to do it in the morning. Or I had something early, an early flight or something like that. But I try to start my day with it. I also try to do — set an intention every day that I just hold with me throughout the day. And sometimes it’s just like, oh, I’m feeling a little stressed out, and I’ll just say let’s just think about ease. And I’ll say, just keep saying the word ease and it comes up. And then my meditation practice — it differs. Sometimes it’s — I think the core is always love and kindness. That’s what I learned many, many years ago. And that’s my fallback."

— Ada Limón, from “Ezra Klein Interviews Ada Limón” (Ezra Klein Show, May 24, 2022)

#Ada Limón #ezra klein #meditation #meditate #ease #sutra #love #kindness

[gabrielkahane]

“Here’s a climate analogy: just as economic elites are responsible for a wildly disproportionate percentage of carbon emissions, cultural elites—a class to which Klein, with his 2.7 million Twitter followers, belongs—play an outsize role in driving traffic on social media platforms. Everything that he and others like him post has a ripple effect, implicating in the surveillance economy all those who engage with his content. That engagement, as I’ve written before, makes companies like Twitter and Meta more attractive to advertisers, even as that engagement is achieved through algorithms that incentivize and reward our worst instincts as humans. If media elites are troubled by this state of affairs, they are anything but powerless. Indeed, they can help to reshape digital life by being more intentional in their online behavior.”

#surveillance capitalism #ezra klein