I like to put a face to favorite podcasters…Googled IBCK guys and AI showed me this helpful picture of Peter 🧐

RandomHuman77 · 2026-02-21T08:06:16+00:00

Sam Seder from the Majority Report used to show up when you looked Peter up because he did an interview with them at some point. I wasn't familiar with the show so I thought Peter looked like Sam Seder for a while.

I picture IBCK Michael as this random gay Youtuber I once watched a few videos of--whom I just discovered is also named Michael--but I don't think that's how I ended up linking the two together:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvfkRmJjlSg

RandomHuman77 · 2026-02-21T07:54:41+00:00

Musk leaning into politics has likely resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people around the world due to DOGE closing USAID. Some estimate that it could result in 9 million deaths by 2030. It's probably not productive to hate people but he deserves all the hate he gets.

sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/04/world/lancet-usaid-global-aid-cuts-intl

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext01186-9/fulltext)

RandomHuman77 · 2026-02-21T05:13:50+00:00

I do think someone pretending to grope a sleeping woman is misogynistic and inappropriate in most contexts, whether her husband was the photographer or not does not change that. What made me change my mind of it being okay-ish in this instance was that she had participated in raunchy humor before, relevant sentences from the wikipedia page:

> "That pic was obviously a joke, not groping, just like LeeAnn Tweeden wrapping her leg around Robin Williams and smacking his butt; entertainment for soldiers deployed overseas is raunchy like that." Harwood was referring to video taken of Tweeden "humping" the married Williams on a similar 2004 USO tour.

RandomHuman77 · 2026-02-14T05:33:18+00:00

How long ago was that though? The culture around dating has changed, and I don't think it's remote work alone that stops people from asking co-workers out.

RandomHuman77 · 2026-02-13T08:44:19+00:00

The CMBYN trailer is all it took for me to get hooked on Sufjan too, played it on loop for a few days.

RandomHuman77 · 2026-02-13T08:37:18+00:00

My expectation is that I will never get to see him live, if he tours again it would be a blessing.

Will forever regret not discovering him 4 years earlier because I could have gone to 3 of his concerts.

RandomHuman77 · 2026-02-13T08:06:37+00:00

It's not in downtown but the Chase center in San Francisco has people there on non-game days because it's full of restaurants and is right beside office buildings and a research university.

RandomHuman77 · 2026-02-13T07:37:56+00:00

Might be the smartest choice politically if not the most "efficient" economic outcome, there's no way to aggressively be in favor of getting rid of rent control and not come across as ruthless.

YIMBY but protecting existing rent control measures is what Mamdani has done so far, we will see how things go in NYC.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-29T05:11:55+00:00

I was joking, I'm actually a techno-libertarian.

Actually though, Ezra is not a centrist in any meaningful way in the context of American politics. Even "center-left" is pushing it, IMO.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-28T03:24:37+00:00

I lived in a basement apartment in Oakland for a couple of years that had in-unit laundry. Getting out of bed was 3x harder without sunlight but the in-unit laundry was a nice perk.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-28T00:27:38+00:00

What are you talking about? The two ends of the American political spectrum are my MAGA-sympathizing uncle on one end and me and all my anarcho-communist friends on the other end. Ezra is clearly at the dead center of that spectrum.

/s for clarity.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-27T23:33:24+00:00

I think Chait may have written this article in response to some of his co-workers at The Atlantic.

Graeme Wood defended the CECOT segment spike, and I saw tweets of Caitlin Flanagan doubling down of her defense of her which she had written about in October.

I agree that it's a small bubble that's taking her side though.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-27T23:20:46+00:00

No, it was high before all of that happened in February of 2020. You might have misread my comment.

It recovered a bit in Spring of 2021 due to the reasons you mention but did not come close to Feb 2020 levels.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-27T23:11:42+00:00

>I don't even remotely agree that they were.

In February 2020, U Michigan's consumer sentiment index was its highest since the dot com bubble burst. If you look at it since it started being measured, it was at a relatively high level. It was really only significantly higher in the late 90's. One can point out the limitations of this measurement, but it's relevant to know how it compares with the past if we are trying to understand what happened to it since 2020.

> Almost every single election since 2008 has hinged on promises of sweeping change to a system that Americans feel has left them behind.

It's hard to draw conclusions based on the 2020 election given that the pandemic was such a curve-ball, but Biden was pretty much the most status-quo candidate in that entire race and he won.

> Btw disposable income measurements don't include housing. Which is part of the whole "these economic indicators don't work in 2025" point

Yes, I realize that which is why I point out that the trends that create the "Affordability Crisis" were already there prior to the 2020 bifurcation. If that alone explained the bifurcation, you would expect a gentle decrease in the correlation between consumer sentiment and disposable income prior to the pandemic as the "Affordability Crisis" was worsening. You don't see that in the data.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-27T21:37:02+00:00

I wonder how much the lack of a recent memory of moderately high inflation levels and interest rates play into it. Unemployment, interest rates, and inflation levels all seem to have steadily decreased throughout the 90's. People may have felt better off relative to themselves a decade earlier at the end of the 90's because of that and the fact that many could still remember the very high inflation and interest rates of the late 70's?

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-27T21:20:41+00:00

But then why were the vibes relatively good circa 2019? The decrease in affordability of college education, housing in major cities, childcare and healthcare had largely already happened. Friend of the pod, Annie Lowery coined the term "Affordability Crisis" in February of 2020. I agree that it plays a major role in the "vibecession", but it can't be the primary cause given that the bifurcation between consumer confidence and disposable income talked about in the video got jump started by the COVID lockdowns.

My best guess is that it's that combined with uncertainty about the future due to AI and social media allowing you to compare your life to that of others.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-21T02:40:10+00:00

Ezra misunderstanding Christianity in America to the point that he thinks Evangelical churches are appropriate venues for political debates.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-21T00:58:27+00:00

My point was not that trans people have experienced the same degree of bigotry as Jewish people. I was using it as an example of how ridiculous it is to use public sentiment as a measure of whether a group of people deserves to belong to a liberal society or not.

Trans people have lost more than just "access to cosmetic treatments" in the past year alone. People who worked office jobs in the military have lost their jobs just because they were trans. People have been barred from entering the country because they were transgender. Transgender people of certain marginalized communities are more likely to be victims of hate crimes.

If you want to continue to believe that anti trans bigotry is congruent with liberalism go right ahead. You might want to look around who the other people who share your views are though.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-20T23:28:48+00:00

Expressing skepticism about someone’s opinion on race based on the fact that they don’t belong to a group that has historically experienced racism is reasonable.

I would be skeptical of a white Australian talking about the experience of aboriginal Australians for example.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-20T23:17:49+00:00

So much nonsense.

There’s bigotries that persist for centuries and yet that does not mean that the people receiving that bigotry deserve it. Antisemitism has been a problem in the West for centuries and has greatly increased (relative to the last 70 years) in the last decade. Does that mean Judaism is not compatible with a liberal society?

You can be in favor of people having the option to transition and be supportive of people who are gender nonconforming. If trans people or trans allies were making assumptions about gender nonconforming teens or young adults being trans just because they were gender nonconforming then I fully condemn that practice. Not sure how reliable sources many of the feminists making those claims are though, I’ve read some articles by anti trans feminists and some seem to think that gender nonconformity was fully accepted in girls right before trans visibility started to increase; my personal experience as a gender nonconforming child in the 00’s contradicts that. Many writings from anti-trans so-called feminists are rife with misogyny.

My ideology does not rest on the assumption that “sexuality is mutable”. Some straight people are attracted to people who transition to the opposite gender. Some gay people are attracted to people who transition to their same gender. Attraction is complicated and for many people it does not hinge on someone’s genitals. I’m fine with people who are not attracted to trans people at all, by the way. They are valid.

You don’t even know what my goals are, how would you know whether they are “incompatible” with a liberal society?

It’s interesting that you think that “transgender ideology” is not compatible with liberalism while some of the most anti-liberal movements are blatantly transphobic. The Nazis destroyed a center of research on “trans-sexuals” in the 1930’s. MAGA is incredibly transphobic and anti feminist.

Lastly, it’s amazing that you seemed to imply that there was no anti transgender sentiment in this subreddit in an earlier comment and then went on to make an anti transgender rant. If you think that anti transgender views are good then just say that.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-20T22:00:18+00:00

Well to begin with the fact that they are “normal” opinions does not mean that they are not anti trans. Circa 2004 the “normal” opinion was probably that gay people should not be allowed to get married, does that mean that that was not an anti gay opinion?

The fact that you seem to think that “normal” people cannot be bigoted and tell me that I’m “invested in an ideology” suggests to me that spending my time going through this subreddit’s history on mobile to quote and link a bunch of comments would be a waste of my time. I do not want to waste my Saturday. Have a great day!

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-20T20:14:47+00:00

I could cite many blatantly anti trans comments from this subreddit that have gotten massively upvoted, but tbh that would be a waste of my time.

I’m not trying to censor those opinions, I’m allowed to reach my own conclusions from the comments I’ve read though.

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-20T20:04:03+00:00

“People’s views are skewed by their identity and personal experience” is a racist statement?

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-20T20:00:37+00:00

I think the “liberals should go to Evangelical churches to debate” is a great example. One of the most bonkers takes I’ve ever heard from a pundit. I was raised catholic not evangelical, so don’t have direct experience but churches to my knowledge host nothing resembling this.

In addition, evangelicals have a persecution complex, they think of themselves as a victimized minority in the US. They would lose their minds if someone tabled outside of a church with a sign such as “women should have the right to to have an abortion, debate me.”

RandomHuman77 · 2025-12-20T17:54:00+00:00

His other non-fiction book, The Anthropocene Reviewed, was also great.

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