For me, the evening post and Saturday post is for the discussion thread - it's like popping in to your local bar to hang out with the regulars and shoot the shit.
The single most important thing is that these be posted at a consistent and predictable time which is announced in advance.
One thing I'll add to this -- I'd also appreciate if the evening post/thread was private (as opposed to public which is what they've been so far). I think that's in line with Joseph's idea of the discussion thread as a spot for regulars, it also helps keep the thread much less likely to spin up drive-by commentors which happens for some of the more contentious public posts.
Thanks for the response! I know the comments are restricted to paid subscribers but there is a trend with public posts (usually just the contentious ones to be fair) where people have joined expressly for the purpose of commenting. It seems like a waste of money to me but it has happened in some notable cases!
I also personally like the idea of not all the comments being out there free floating for people on the internet to find, but I understand that might just be a personal preference.
> where people have joined expressly for the purpose of commenting.
I still remain unconvinced that this is actually happening vs. just seeming that way. Remember, there's something like 20,000 paid subscribers (iirc) while there are only maybe a couple hundred regular commenters.
Huh, I always thought that even viewing this class of threads was paywalled, but I guess that's no longer the case. I personally don't have a preference either way (that's why I have a pseudonym).
I'm pretty sure the research on addiction says that you're supposed to make the rewards unpredictable. So they should schedule the thread at a random time within a 2 hour window so that Slow Boring monopolises the addict's attention as they frantically refresh for two hours for their next dopamine hit.
I was trying to be open minded to new things and also convince myself I don’t have a Slow Boring problem, but you nailed it: the pm discussion threads are exactly like popping into Cheers to hear what the regulars are up to/shoot the shit.
I agree with this, and it's hard to have an unstructured conversation under a post of any length. Lately no one has been bringing up new topics in the evening threads. At the same time, I've also enjoyed Halina's writing. Why not just have two evening posts every day? There could be a Halina post at 4 pm, and an open thread at 8 pm (or whatever). It's the internet, there are no space limitations.
"They’re trying to intimidate other young writers into being conformists who don’t ever try to say anything interesting or controversial."
This is why I seek out and read people like Matt, or Nate Silver, or Megan McArdle, or Noah Smith, who are willing to be non-conformist in this regard. Keep up the good work!
nate silver has become non-conformist to the point of being uninteresting, unfortunately. I understand that he was frustrated with a lot of annoying public health advice that came out during the pandemic but he has been way too slow to recognize that the Trump administration is engaging in an all-out war on professionalism and expertise in a way that is way more dangerous than anything the left engaged in ca. '2018-22.
His whole River vs Village metaphor thing has always struck me as "cool smart daring people I like (and who are like me!)" vs "stuffy people who are lame". Maybe I just don't quite get the whole picture, but it seems like a contrived lens to see politics through.
Ooh, strong disagree there, I think gambling is what's made Nate so good at what he's done with elections (even Matt has said the same), and there are others that have leveraged that risk taking well in other ventures.
I think if you can consistently make money doing it, it's a different kind of thing than most people mean when they refer to someone gambling. Silver may be good or bad in any number of other ways, but he's not obsessively shoveling his quarters into the slot machine in some dismal Wendover casino.
His models are still great but yeah the punditry is turning into that of a overconfident know it all who bases a lot of his takes on "his gut" (ie his personal preferences). Sorry young people but this is all to common: in your 40's you become the person you hated in your early 20's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2zTX88SSpM
This is somewhat Noah Smith’s problem: he’s basically a replacement-level political pundit filling space between the less frequent but much higher value add econ-centric pieces.
I think Noah's issues are basically an exponentially bigger versions of Matt's - already having anti-left tendencies + Twitter, but in Noah's case, he's actually in the group chats w/ the weirdo right-wing Silicon Valley types.
There is no problem with either Matt or Noah. That's just your opinion which you constantly assert as fact.
To add to that, Noah Smith is very much a left leaning Economist, with his support for industrial policy being a particular area of focus.
In terms of his anti-left tendencies, you seem to have forgotten how truly and utterly the left s**t the bed in 2020 and the surrounding years (e.g. Defund the police, Kendi/DiAngelo, all the insanity of the 2020 primary, etc.) and what the impact of that was for anyone left of center, for American democracy, and for the wider world. That's why Smith now talks about the importance of forcefully repudiating all of that and the people who still espouse it.
Also, I'm no fan of weirdo right-wing types, but the same goes for weirdo left-wing types.
He’s right on China - if anything he’s not hawkish enough - but oh good god is he wrong on tech, crypto, billionaires, etc. I paid to subscribe for a while to read his China takes, but then canceled after reading one last piece of crypto-bro apologia
Being forced to live in like, Chicago or Atlanta or Boston or even Houston or some other normal blue city for like six months + being removed from all group chats w/ people in San Francisco would be good for him.
Feels like Nate Silver is a (much) less extreme version Matt Taibbi. His animating impulse is annoyance at 'the experts', which means he has to be contrary to them, even when this pushes him toward ridiculous conclusions. To be fair, he doesn't have anything like the audience-capture problem that Taibbi has...
See, e.g., Sam "Sorry, due to the laws of physics not definitively ruling out the possibility of a false vacuum decay event that destroys the universe, I can only have Hillary at a 99% likelihood of winning" Yang's snark that Silver had her at a 70% likelihood of winning to get clicks.
Didn't at least one of those guys actually eat a bug on TV, since he'd promised to do that if Trump won? At least he's got skin (or stomach) in the game.
I listened to his podcast with Tyler Cowen and they both expressed surprise/confusion that more NBA players had not come out of the closet since Jason Collins like a decade ago.
I thought it was pretty revealing about the sort of epistemological bubble these guys probably occupy.
I recall a general argument that used to get bandied around the internet along the lines of "in any group of people, [#]% is [not straight], guaranteed", without taking into account any sort of selection effects.
I agree that's true with the general population, but, as homosexuality has become more widely accepted over a longer and longer timespan, it seems like at some point the more parsimonious explanation is that there really are substantially fewer than average gay and/or lesbian individuals in certain populations that are subject to strong selection effects.
I think the more conservative and more simple explanation is that gay players don't feel comfortable coming out because American society, and especially a male professional team locker room, is not nearly as progressive as we believe it is.
Put economically, the cost to coming out is higher than Silver and Cowen think. Afterall, the players are the buyers, they are probably intuiting the market better than outsiders.
no, but there are at least 450 players in the league every year, maybe 480-500 if you count 2-way deals and 10 day deals.
So let's say 3% of general population is homosexual? You'd expect like a dozen?
I'm sure that's the true number, I'm just think that their surprise (at the lack of players coming out) is indicative of a limited or idealistic world view.
Where are you getting that from, I've never seen percentage being gay close to that high? Most reporting I've seen shows about 9% being LGBTQ+ and a majority of that being women reporting as bisexual.
It reminds me of all the people here who seem to think Mayor Pete’s problem as a presidential candidate will be leftists who think he’s not queer *enough*. Total bubble.
Lol this style of writing is dead with Gawker man.
"Matt Yglesias, viceroy ex-officio of Washington’s eggheaded centrist cognescenti, originally hailed from the world of blogging — which emerged during the Bush era as institutional liberalism’s would-be secret weapon against the barbarian hordes on its left and right."
You're signaling you're a hyper-literate socialist? You transplanted to Brooklyn to pursue writing? A one of one, to be sure.
What is the "ex-officio" title? What primary office confers the viceroy title? Why's he the viceroy and not just...the roy? Under who's auspices does he project power?
Is it bad to be a member of the cognoscenti? Who not just the "elite?" Which has a more sneering connotation?
I genuinely don't care that a socialist things Matt sucks, that's fine. But get an editor if you write like this, it's exhausting to read.
Agree, also there's a small but real market for hate clicks about libs like Matt, Luke is like one of those dudes who sell "Yankees Suck" t-shirts outside of Fenway, it's hard out there for posters and a man must making a living!
This is painful cringe for everyone involved. As a contrarian myself, the worst impulse of contrarians is the compulsion to engage with bullshit that isn't worth their time.
I actually disagree with Matt's assessment that this guy is a conformist. Conformist to what, exactly? Not the mainstream opinion of actual people who live on this planet. Conformist with the Left Blob?
I like all of the journalists you call out not because they are anti-conformist, but rather that they sound like actual people I know!
This stuff drives me absolutely bananas and I'm not the intended target. No idea how Matt continues to post through it. If I were him I'd be taking some time off by now, but I guess that's what the bullies want.
Wanted to register some more substantive feedback here (since the survey limits added color):
I'd welcome a combination of the formats you've tried so far, with the exception of the general news round-ups (since plenty of those exist elsewhere and SB's niche is to sit outside the steady stream of push notifications readers already receive). I think a rotation among formats would keep things interesting for readers and also allow you, Halina, to experiment with form and structure and better develop your voice. We already get more than our money's worth as subscribers from Matt's morning posts -- use the afternoon as your sandbox!
Yeah, I think Halina/SB should feel free to continuously experiment. The readers here are probably fine with variety or editorial discretion as long as post times are consistent. That being said, it would be great to continue highlighting stuff that's not the top breaking story on NYT/Politico/WaPo/WSJ. I like more policy-oriented topics, so anything that can help steer us in a more productive direction is good. Even "hey this paper I read on xyz was interesting" is good.
Look, some of us, however well-hinged we might fucking come across, are still not THAT well adjusted, and these Saturday 12-1pm threads are a great way to socialize while we’re day-drinking and watching college football.
This is helpful. Thanks, David. We've been trying to figure out how to transition after Ben's departure. I will take it up with the big bosses and you just might see a post on Saturday. No promises though!
I really do appreciate the increased substance in the threads, but it's also OK with me if all you have time for is a quick link like the old days. Especially on a Saturday, when fun weekend duties beckon.
Posts keep me sane while I sit on the floor watching the 1000th loop of a Ms. Rachel song with my kid. Hard to post on the phone while getting hit repeatedly, but please don't make me go to twitter.
So this one time, Boo and I were at the farmers market and I saw raw rabbit on sale, right? And of course, I didn’t buy it right then and there, but I eventually did.
On that fateful day, I buy the “wabbit”, and in due course I roast it for me, Boo, and my roommate-stepbrother.
Except Boo decided that THIS was when she was gonna remember the fate of all things cute. “No, don’t cook Mister Hop Hop!”.
And when I did, she called my dad, who shamed me as I was eating some delicious rabbit, and took her to the Italian restaurant down the road where he just happened to know the family.
I'm pretty easygoing with the topics that are used to anchor these threads, whatever's on your mind I'm sure most of us will find interest in most of the time.
My current questions, not on this form, have to do with scheduling:
--Traditionally, these threads have published right at 5 PM DC time. But recently, they seem to have been oscillating between about 5 and 6. Should we expect a sharp on the hour publish time, or should we anticipate that the publish time might be withing a broader range of time?
--Several other commenters have asked if there will be Saturday threads. I personally don't have a strong opinion on this--I could certainly be OK with taking a day off and doing something else out there in the world, but I would also be OK if there was Saturday posting. I think many are just curious about what the future will be there either way.
I agree with a couple comments here that said news roundups is probably not a good choice. The trick is to pick the one news story that most folks want to say something about. You'll figure it out.
So, the new PSLF regulations are pretty alarming. If they go into effect, they're basically an open door to financially punish any employer that pisses Trump off under the guise of the following language:
"The Department's proposed changes to the definition of qualifying employer align directly with this approach by excluding organizations engaged in activities with a substantially illegal purpose from being included in the definition of qualifying employer, on the basis that such organizations are engaged in activities that are either explicit violations of State or Federal law or are otherwise in direct contravention of established public policy."
Interpreted broadly, this could be used to strip student loan forgiveness qualification from just about any employer who engages in activities "in direct contravention of established public policy", given the policies that the rest of the regs highlight as disqualifying. This could be used to attack universities and museums ("illegal DEI"), hospitals (rendering trans care and care to undocumented immigrants), free speech organizations (defending protestors), state governments (sanctuary cities), immigration attorneys, school districts (education for undocumented children), etc. The Department writes that this will probably only affect 10 employers annually but also predict that this will save $1.5billion, so who knows how targeted these changes will be; it could be a lot of blanket recategorizations, or it could be another weapon to use against employers who piss Trump off.
My loans are supposed to get forgiven in December 2025, so I'll probably be fine, but this is nervewracking generally. It's also just cruel and vindictive to go after public service workers who eschewed higher salaries.
I don't think you have anything to be alarmed about. This administration has never shown a willingness to go after organizations or institutions they don't like.
To be clear, under current PSLF rules, the vast majority of Americans do not work for employers that are eligible for PSLF. Seems weird to claim this can be used to punish any employer when most employers have never qualified.
Okay, that's pedantic. I think it's pretty obvious from context that I'm not talking about every single employer in America and am, in fact, talking about employers already eligible for PSLF.
Thought you were going to come in hot with a take on their new federal directive about forced institutionalization of mentally ill homeless :) For some reason I thought to take a look at r/psychiatry today (it's a practitioner subreddit), and that's what they're freaking out about over there
I just disagree too fundamentally with too many posters in this comment section about how to treat homeless people for that sort of conversation to be anything but demoralizing in this venue.
I’m weird among liberals these days, I expect people to disagree with me and have not only long since made my peace but welcome ideas bouncing off one another. Variety is truly the spice of life and (sadly perhaps) I don’t think our internet comments are having a great deal of influence, positive or negative, on the world at large. It’s just conversation.
I like conversation and discourse and free exchange of ideas, but I’ve had too many conversations about this exact topic devolve into personal insults or hateful diatribes. It’s also a topic near and dear to my heart and it’s exhausting and discouraging to try and engage with people slinging insults and fact-agnostic vitriol when I work in this field.
And since it IS just conversation, there’s no benefit to me stressing out over an internet argument with someone who just wants to parrot Freddie DeBoer at me in bad faith, and a lot of conversations have gone that way.
It seems that these regs are based on the dubious premise that "public service" can be equated to supporting the "public policy" currently in place. If that's what was intended by the law that created PSLF, they would have called it Public Policy Support Loan Forgiveness.
It would be very interesting if they attempted to cut off state government employees, considering that state government actions are also "public policy."
For the evening post, I would enjoy seeing some twitter highlights from Matt from the day—screenshots would be amazing so I don’t reaggravate my latent twitter addiction. Also if I may say so, a few have been a little heavy on bad news—maybe toss in a few positive things, though admittedly not a lot happening in the positive side of the ledger these days.
You can see Matt start to formulate a lot of takes on Twitter, some of which become Slow Boring articles, and you can start to think for yourself in advance what you think of those takes.
And Twitter still remains good for news updates, and beyond the political sphere--it's very useful for me still for football, for example.
In terms of the news from today I was reading the comments on the Washington Post article about ICE and the DCPD stopping moped delivery drivers for traffic infractions and if they were also found to not be here legally - detaining the them for deportation.
1. That's what people mean by disorder vs crime.
2. The comments from the very left leaning Post subscribers were almost universally positive. Given that where does the reluctance to crack down on these types of crimes come from?
Are commenters on Post articles traditionally left-leaning? My experience (which hasn't been updated recently) is that commenters on newspaper articles are usually right-leaning (or nextdoor.com-leaning, at least), regardless of the newspaper.
Is that true of people who leave comments on the articles? This is an extremely highly selected subset of people with paid subscriptions, and I wouldn't expect it to match the opinions of broader subscribers.
The NYT is the exception that proves the rule (and the only exception I have ever seen). I have never spent time in the Post's comment sections, but I would be surprised if it wasn't dominated by the worst right-wingers imaginable.
"Given that where does the reluctance to crack down on these types of crimes come from?"
Cf. also my prior SB comments about city officials acting as though local middle-class taxpayers are some kind of troublemakers for complaining about homeless encampments. How many tax dollars, votes, and/or campaign donations are those camps worth to you as a city council member versus what the adversely affected surrounding property owners provide?
Someone gets hurt, city gets sued, big bad media cycle, politicians berate you and create headaches. So you get the command not to enforce quality of life crimes.
Yes, and also why so many millennial liberals are completely unaware that they are now the moralistic scolds the youth are rebelling against since people like Dobson are irrelevant.
My church used to hand out Focus on the Family flyers, and even back then, in my devout Evangelical days, I found them creepy and off-putting with their “the father is the master of the house, he ought to smack his children for misbehaving” schtick.
Ha, I’ve actually written before about my journey from devout Evangelical to atheist - it came up in the thread where Matt Y called the belief in heaven and hell an example of a widely held false belief.
I’m flattered that you consider my background info to be “lore,” that sounds special 😊
Are you kidding me? Of course I hate the Trump-era GOP orders of magnitude more than I ever hated Reagan-era GOP, for reasons that would take too long to list here. Granted, I was a young child in Poland when Reagan was POTUS.
I thought Reagan was wrong and did a lot of damage to the country policy wise. But it never seemed like it was damage that couldn't be undone, and I was never in doubt about his sincerity or basic belief in democracy, American values, and the rule of law.
I think Trump helps a lot with this since he's Trump - in a lot of ways, despite Vance's attempt to be something else, Vance is a lot closer to the typical judgy Republican.
The undergirding of the GOP is still mostly young Dobson's + the fascists.
So I’ve wrote a lot about how tracking instruction seems unfair and this year I got placed with a top form class from the bottom and it feels absurd.
My students receive instruction plus one year ahead of schedule and are still destroying it. 86/88 on their first unit pretests.
They’re all in completion math and science clubs and even little things like making a craft intelligence makes a huge difference on cutting and folding. My birthday was Tuesday and I got a grab bag of foods and gift cards. So much so I had to bulk order thank you cards after getting literally all the listed supplies by the end of the first week.
People are like you seem so happy this year…it’s wildly unfair.
I feel like a dummy, but can you explain “top form class from the bottom” please? Sounds like a top form class, I don’t understand the “from the bottom”.
One of my many Dark Liberal beliefs: Some people are smarter in some ways than others, it's almost entirely genetic (and thus, not really "earned"), it has potentially huge effects on their life trajectories, and we pretend it's all about quality of instruction in school or "grit" or socioeconomic class, etc. rather than, you know, having a robust welfare state. (Oh shoot, am I channeling FdB?)
It would be flattering to believe that and maybe I have an aptitude for high performers.
But like it’s so night and day that it’s bizarre. Like over 15 years I’ve hated crafting lessons because someone can’t follow fold on the dotted line cut on the black line.
For me, the evening post and Saturday post is for the discussion thread - it's like popping in to your local bar to hang out with the regulars and shoot the shit.
The single most important thing is that these be posted at a consistent and predictable time which is announced in advance.
Yes, we addicts need to be able to know when to expect our nightly fix.
#tellmeImfuckingwrong
Hi, I’m Joseph, and I’m a Slow Boring-aholic.
“When I was a kid, one time I was really bored. It scarred me for life.”
“That was when I started drinking.”
It’s a Connecticut thing: here in the land of steady habits, we need steady suppliers.
Ok so you're in CT come to the happy hour at BAR in New Haven anytime after 6PM on Monday 9/14 thanks
“…Ok so you’re in CT….”
Higher beings like myself don’t really have “locations” as you earthlings understand them.
I just pretend to live wherever it suits the joke I’m telling.
Only lower beings are not in CT. 😜
Or for west coasters…the 2 pm allows me to consistently kill time at work.
If I don't get my daily fix of incestuous slapfights between political pundits on Twitter, I go into withdrawal!
Kramer is the Slow Borer and Halina is Elaine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0nkgibJu8Q (I guess that makes Mr. Peterman Ben?)
Agreed, to me the scheduled time is more important than anything else.
One thing I'll add to this -- I'd also appreciate if the evening post/thread was private (as opposed to public which is what they've been so far). I think that's in line with Joseph's idea of the discussion thread as a spot for regulars, it also helps keep the thread much less likely to spin up drive-by commentors which happens for some of the more contentious public posts.
Hi! Thank you all for your feedback. I really do appreciate it. Comments are always restricted to paid subscribers.
As for the timing, we've been toying with it... It will go back to a consistent hour once we nail down the details.
Thanks for the response! I know the comments are restricted to paid subscribers but there is a trend with public posts (usually just the contentious ones to be fair) where people have joined expressly for the purpose of commenting. It seems like a waste of money to me but it has happened in some notable cases!
I also personally like the idea of not all the comments being out there free floating for people on the internet to find, but I understand that might just be a personal preference.
> where people have joined expressly for the purpose of commenting.
I still remain unconvinced that this is actually happening vs. just seeming that way. Remember, there's something like 20,000 paid subscribers (iirc) while there are only maybe a couple hundred regular commenters.
Huh, I always thought that even viewing this class of threads was paywalled, but I guess that's no longer the case. I personally don't have a preference either way (that's why I have a pseudonym).
I just checked - the comments are universally visible on free posts (including these afternoon/evening posts), and they are hidden on paywalled posts.
I'm pretty sure the research on addiction says that you're supposed to make the rewards unpredictable. So they should schedule the thread at a random time within a 2 hour window so that Slow Boring monopolises the addict's attention as they frantically refresh for two hours for their next dopamine hit.
(music comes in) where everybody knows your avatar
I was trying to be open minded to new things and also convince myself I don’t have a Slow Boring problem, but you nailed it: the pm discussion threads are exactly like popping into Cheers to hear what the regulars are up to/shoot the shit.
I'm trying to think of a Norman Rockwell joke based on the first clause of the first sentence . . . .
I agree with this, and it's hard to have an unstructured conversation under a post of any length. Lately no one has been bringing up new topics in the evening threads. At the same time, I've also enjoyed Halina's writing. Why not just have two evening posts every day? There could be a Halina post at 4 pm, and an open thread at 8 pm (or whatever). It's the internet, there are no space limitations.
Agreed, but note that we are very much in the minority.
Yglesias Derangement Syndrome remains fierce: https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/the-agony-and-the-ecstasy-of-matt
And Matt had a good response as to what this is all about: https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1958481907152245190
"They’re trying to intimidate other young writers into being conformists who don’t ever try to say anything interesting or controversial."
This is why I seek out and read people like Matt, or Nate Silver, or Megan McArdle, or Noah Smith, who are willing to be non-conformist in this regard. Keep up the good work!
nate silver has become non-conformist to the point of being uninteresting, unfortunately. I understand that he was frustrated with a lot of annoying public health advice that came out during the pandemic but he has been way too slow to recognize that the Trump administration is engaging in an all-out war on professionalism and expertise in a way that is way more dangerous than anything the left engaged in ca. '2018-22.
His whole River vs Village metaphor thing has always struck me as "cool smart daring people I like (and who are like me!)" vs "stuffy people who are lame". Maybe I just don't quite get the whole picture, but it seems like a contrived lens to see politics through.
Also I don't like poker but OMG was the last book boring.
I loved the Signal and the Noise and it's hard to believe this tedious mess of a new book was written by the same author.
I just don't really respect people who gamble a lot
Ooh, strong disagree there, I think gambling is what's made Nate so good at what he's done with elections (even Matt has said the same), and there are others that have leveraged that risk taking well in other ventures.
I think if you can consistently make money doing it, it's a different kind of thing than most people mean when they refer to someone gambling. Silver may be good or bad in any number of other ways, but he's not obsessively shoveling his quarters into the slot machine in some dismal Wendover casino.
His models are still great but yeah the punditry is turning into that of a overconfident know it all who bases a lot of his takes on "his gut" (ie his personal preferences). Sorry young people but this is all to common: in your 40's you become the person you hated in your early 20's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2zTX88SSpM
“… your 40's you become the person you hated in your early 20's….”
But don’t worry — in your seventies you have the opportunity to become the person you hated in your forties!
This is somewhat Noah Smith’s problem: he’s basically a replacement-level political pundit filling space between the less frequent but much higher value add econ-centric pieces.
I think Noah's issues are basically an exponentially bigger versions of Matt's - already having anti-left tendencies + Twitter, but in Noah's case, he's actually in the group chats w/ the weirdo right-wing Silicon Valley types.
There is no problem with either Matt or Noah. That's just your opinion which you constantly assert as fact.
To add to that, Noah Smith is very much a left leaning Economist, with his support for industrial policy being a particular area of focus.
In terms of his anti-left tendencies, you seem to have forgotten how truly and utterly the left s**t the bed in 2020 and the surrounding years (e.g. Defund the police, Kendi/DiAngelo, all the insanity of the 2020 primary, etc.) and what the impact of that was for anyone left of center, for American democracy, and for the wider world. That's why Smith now talks about the importance of forcefully repudiating all of that and the people who still espouse it.
Also, I'm no fan of weirdo right-wing types, but the same goes for weirdo left-wing types.
He’s right on China - if anything he’s not hawkish enough - but oh good god is he wrong on tech, crypto, billionaires, etc. I paid to subscribe for a while to read his China takes, but then canceled after reading one last piece of crypto-bro apologia
Being forced to live in like, Chicago or Atlanta or Boston or even Houston or some other normal blue city for like six months + being removed from all group chats w/ people in San Francisco would be good for him.
He's hysterical on Russia also, overrating both its strength and plans to "march on Berlin" as he put it.
Feels like Nate Silver is a (much) less extreme version Matt Taibbi. His animating impulse is annoyance at 'the experts', which means he has to be contrary to them, even when this pushes him toward ridiculous conclusions. To be fair, he doesn't have anything like the audience-capture problem that Taibbi has...
People were really unfair to him in 2016.
See, e.g., Sam "Sorry, due to the laws of physics not definitively ruling out the possibility of a false vacuum decay event that destroys the universe, I can only have Hillary at a 99% likelihood of winning" Yang's snark that Silver had her at a 70% likelihood of winning to get clicks.
Didn't at least one of those guys actually eat a bug on TV, since he'd promised to do that if Trump won? At least he's got skin (or stomach) in the game.
I agree, but at the same time, boo hoo. His ethical responsibility is to block that out and not let it affect him.
Which specific conclusions do you think Silver has reached that are ridiculous?
I listened to his podcast with Tyler Cowen and they both expressed surprise/confusion that more NBA players had not come out of the closet since Jason Collins like a decade ago.
I thought it was pretty revealing about the sort of epistemological bubble these guys probably occupy.
Is there a reason to think there's a large cadre of closeted NBA players?
I recall a general argument that used to get bandied around the internet along the lines of "in any group of people, [#]% is [not straight], guaranteed", without taking into account any sort of selection effects.
I agree that's true with the general population, but, as homosexuality has become more widely accepted over a longer and longer timespan, it seems like at some point the more parsimonious explanation is that there really are substantially fewer than average gay and/or lesbian individuals in certain populations that are subject to strong selection effects.
I think the more conservative and more simple explanation is that gay players don't feel comfortable coming out because American society, and especially a male professional team locker room, is not nearly as progressive as we believe it is.
Put economically, the cost to coming out is higher than Silver and Cowen think. Afterall, the players are the buyers, they are probably intuiting the market better than outsiders.
Isn’t being straight the exception in the WNBA?
And there's the selection effects in the other direction....
Yeah, that's why the WNBA hates Caitlin Clark.
That's the stereotype, but I don't know of any statistics.
Yeah. They’re way too hot to be straight
no, but there are at least 450 players in the league every year, maybe 480-500 if you count 2-way deals and 10 day deals.
So let's say 3% of general population is homosexual? You'd expect like a dozen?
I'm sure that's the true number, I'm just think that their surprise (at the lack of players coming out) is indicative of a limited or idealistic world view.
But it’s more like 10%, nowhere near as low as 3%
Where are you getting that from, I've never seen percentage being gay close to that high? Most reporting I've seen shows about 9% being LGBTQ+ and a majority of that being women reporting as bisexual.
It reminds me of all the people here who seem to think Mayor Pete’s problem as a presidential candidate will be leftists who think he’s not queer *enough*. Total bubble.
It’s because he’s a Riverian.
Lol this style of writing is dead with Gawker man.
"Matt Yglesias, viceroy ex-officio of Washington’s eggheaded centrist cognescenti, originally hailed from the world of blogging — which emerged during the Bush era as institutional liberalism’s would-be secret weapon against the barbarian hordes on its left and right."
You're signaling you're a hyper-literate socialist? You transplanted to Brooklyn to pursue writing? A one of one, to be sure.
Is Ezra Klein not the viceroy ex-efficio of Washington's egghead centrist connescenti? Or does he not count because he doesn't live in DC?
What is the "ex-officio" title? What primary office confers the viceroy title? Why's he the viceroy and not just...the roy? Under who's auspices does he project power?
Is it bad to be a member of the cognoscenti? Who not just the "elite?" Which has a more sneering connotation?
I genuinely don't care that a socialist things Matt sucks, that's fine. But get an editor if you write like this, it's exhausting to read.
Yeah, I think it’s pretty clear that he does not know what “ex officio “ means.
It sounds pretty bad though! Like, you wouldn't want someone calling *you* “ex officio“ now, would you?
My partner found a brand of underwear that he likes with that name! https://www.exofficio.com/
“… wouldn't want someone calling….”
Oh, hell no. It would mean that I occupied an office to begin with.
I would want people to think that I was the current officio.
The Roys are the millionaihs and the billionaihs!!
Great point, I suspect Luke meant "egghead" in a pejorative way (the baldness) not a descriptive way (policy wonk)
Let’s be real: some of this is because bald guys are much more likely to be called eggheads.
Adlai Stevenson tried to own the egghead insult, and it didn't work--he was just going up against a much more popular egghead.
Hard to believe we had a presidential election where both nominees were bald guys. The past is truly a foreign country.
HIMS is cutting off the supply of new bald guys, we may never have another
Surely he's the king, and Yglesias is merely the viceroy. That's why Klein got the NYT gig.
The style is more grating than a zester.
That said, it is a convenient signal to ignore whatever the piece is.
As if without blogging Luke Savage would ever have gotten published anywhere. Talk about biting the hand.
Bro Defector is still alive and kicking.
dunno about kicking, the brain bleed killed the funny parts of Magary's brain and I can't be reading the rest.
Even the WYTS series is losing it--so much that Magary isn't writing it for all the teams now.
Should we throw you a party? Should we invite Tom Scocca?
Agree, also there's a small but real market for hate clicks about libs like Matt, Luke is like one of those dudes who sell "Yankees Suck" t-shirts outside of Fenway, it's hard out there for posters and a man must making a living!
This is painful cringe for everyone involved. As a contrarian myself, the worst impulse of contrarians is the compulsion to engage with bullshit that isn't worth their time.
deHater had a screed calling Noah Smith a loser. It was so losery. Rabbits don’t like Freddie apparently.
I actually disagree with Matt's assessment that this guy is a conformist. Conformist to what, exactly? Not the mainstream opinion of actual people who live on this planet. Conformist with the Left Blob?
I like all of the journalists you call out not because they are anti-conformist, but rather that they sound like actual people I know!
"Conformist with the Left Blob" is how I read it.
Yeah, I didn't read it as claiming the specific individual at issue was a conformist.
How is Noah "Biden is the best president in my lifetime" a nonconformist?
He's unfortunately become very partisan and reactionary.
This stuff drives me absolutely bananas and I'm not the intended target. No idea how Matt continues to post through it. If I were him I'd be taking some time off by now, but I guess that's what the bullies want.
I was just reading that. Not entirely clear how it made my feed. All I could think when I got to the end was "what is wrong with some folks?"
If someone criticizes you like that you know you're doing something right.
Wanted to register some more substantive feedback here (since the survey limits added color):
I'd welcome a combination of the formats you've tried so far, with the exception of the general news round-ups (since plenty of those exist elsewhere and SB's niche is to sit outside the steady stream of push notifications readers already receive). I think a rotation among formats would keep things interesting for readers and also allow you, Halina, to experiment with form and structure and better develop your voice. We already get more than our money's worth as subscribers from Matt's morning posts -- use the afternoon as your sandbox!
Yeah, I think Halina/SB should feel free to continuously experiment. The readers here are probably fine with variety or editorial discretion as long as post times are consistent. That being said, it would be great to continue highlighting stuff that's not the top breaking story on NYT/Politico/WaPo/WSJ. I like more policy-oriented topics, so anything that can help steer us in a more productive direction is good. Even "hey this paper I read on xyz was interesting" is good.
Thanks, Nick!
SATURDAY THREADS!
Look, some of us, however well-hinged we might fucking come across, are still not THAT well adjusted, and these Saturday 12-1pm threads are a great way to socialize while we’re day-drinking and watching college football.
This is helpful. Thanks, David. We've been trying to figure out how to transition after Ben's departure. I will take it up with the big bosses and you just might see a post on Saturday. No promises though!
I really do appreciate the increased substance in the threads, but it's also OK with me if all you have time for is a quick link like the old days. Especially on a Saturday, when fun weekend duties beckon.
Indeed.
https://youtu.be/6Zbi0XmGtMw
No promises that myself or Joseph will be sober. Although his teams are shite.
“Some of us are going to be drunk and watching football at noon on Saturday.”
“This is helpful, thanks.”
David, you should cherish this interaction. Day drinking while watching football is too rarely appreciated.
Day drinking is helpful! 🤣
Posts keep me sane while I sit on the floor watching the 1000th loop of a Ms. Rachel song with my kid. Hard to post on the phone while getting hit repeatedly, but please don't make me go to twitter.
Fuck that hellhole
hop little bunnies hop hop hop
So this one time, Boo and I were at the farmers market and I saw raw rabbit on sale, right? And of course, I didn’t buy it right then and there, but I eventually did.
On that fateful day, I buy the “wabbit”, and in due course I roast it for me, Boo, and my roommate-stepbrother.
Except Boo decided that THIS was when she was gonna remember the fate of all things cute. “No, don’t cook Mister Hop Hop!”.
And when I did, she called my dad, who shamed me as I was eating some delicious rabbit, and took her to the Italian restaurant down the road where he just happened to know the family.
You could do a lot worse than that.
Very soon, this will be our world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNx-ty6SaqQ
Or, you know, for those of us not drinking or watching football (college or otherwise) either!
What do you even DO… 🤣🤌🏽
I'm pretty easygoing with the topics that are used to anchor these threads, whatever's on your mind I'm sure most of us will find interest in most of the time.
My current questions, not on this form, have to do with scheduling:
--Traditionally, these threads have published right at 5 PM DC time. But recently, they seem to have been oscillating between about 5 and 6. Should we expect a sharp on the hour publish time, or should we anticipate that the publish time might be withing a broader range of time?
--Several other commenters have asked if there will be Saturday threads. I personally don't have a strong opinion on this--I could certainly be OK with taking a day off and doing something else out there in the world, but I would also be OK if there was Saturday posting. I think many are just curious about what the future will be there either way.
Hi -
We are toying with timing, but it should become consistent shortly. Just working on figuring out what makes sense for our workflow and readers.
And also tbd on the Saturday post — I'll ask!
Thanks, Halina!
Halina, keep up the good work.
I agree with a couple comments here that said news roundups is probably not a good choice. The trick is to pick the one news story that most folks want to say something about. You'll figure it out.
Thanks, Ken! I appreciate your feedback.
I like what you’ve been doing with the place so my 2¢ is to keep doing it!
So, the new PSLF regulations are pretty alarming. If they go into effect, they're basically an open door to financially punish any employer that pisses Trump off under the guise of the following language:
"The Department's proposed changes to the definition of qualifying employer align directly with this approach by excluding organizations engaged in activities with a substantially illegal purpose from being included in the definition of qualifying employer, on the basis that such organizations are engaged in activities that are either explicit violations of State or Federal law or are otherwise in direct contravention of established public policy."
Interpreted broadly, this could be used to strip student loan forgiveness qualification from just about any employer who engages in activities "in direct contravention of established public policy", given the policies that the rest of the regs highlight as disqualifying. This could be used to attack universities and museums ("illegal DEI"), hospitals (rendering trans care and care to undocumented immigrants), free speech organizations (defending protestors), state governments (sanctuary cities), immigration attorneys, school districts (education for undocumented children), etc. The Department writes that this will probably only affect 10 employers annually but also predict that this will save $1.5billion, so who knows how targeted these changes will be; it could be a lot of blanket recategorizations, or it could be another weapon to use against employers who piss Trump off.
My loans are supposed to get forgiven in December 2025, so I'll probably be fine, but this is nervewracking generally. It's also just cruel and vindictive to go after public service workers who eschewed higher salaries.
I don't think you have anything to be alarmed about. This administration has never shown a willingness to go after organizations or institutions they don't like.
To be clear, under current PSLF rules, the vast majority of Americans do not work for employers that are eligible for PSLF. Seems weird to claim this can be used to punish any employer when most employers have never qualified.
Okay, that's pedantic. I think it's pretty obvious from context that I'm not talking about every single employer in America and am, in fact, talking about employers already eligible for PSLF.
Thought you were going to come in hot with a take on their new federal directive about forced institutionalization of mentally ill homeless :) For some reason I thought to take a look at r/psychiatry today (it's a practitioner subreddit), and that's what they're freaking out about over there
I just disagree too fundamentally with too many posters in this comment section about how to treat homeless people for that sort of conversation to be anything but demoralizing in this venue.
I appreciate it when you share your takes on this subject here, even if I might not always agree.
Same.
I’m weird among liberals these days, I expect people to disagree with me and have not only long since made my peace but welcome ideas bouncing off one another. Variety is truly the spice of life and (sadly perhaps) I don’t think our internet comments are having a great deal of influence, positive or negative, on the world at large. It’s just conversation.
I like conversation and discourse and free exchange of ideas, but I’ve had too many conversations about this exact topic devolve into personal insults or hateful diatribes. It’s also a topic near and dear to my heart and it’s exhausting and discouraging to try and engage with people slinging insults and fact-agnostic vitriol when I work in this field.
And since it IS just conversation, there’s no benefit to me stressing out over an internet argument with someone who just wants to parrot Freddie DeBoer at me in bad faith, and a lot of conversations have gone that way.
Yup, certain things aren't worth the lift even for a confrontational jackass like me.
Also, a lot of those people genuinely don't know what they're talking about on that issue.
It seems that these regs are based on the dubious premise that "public service" can be equated to supporting the "public policy" currently in place. If that's what was intended by the law that created PSLF, they would have called it Public Policy Support Loan Forgiveness.
It would be very interesting if they attempted to cut off state government employees, considering that state government actions are also "public policy."
The survey asked me what I wanted to see less of. That was easy:
1) the “dysphemistic” asshole, and
2) that fucking Muccigrosso.
If you want to make the world a better place, take a look in the mirror and make a change.
I only just now learned that Muccigrosso means Big Cow. That's pretty cool.
Placid and unassuming. Checks out!
Sir! How dare you besmirch two of the funniest and highest-value-added Slow Borers!
Is he back?
My only request for Slow Boring PM is that it contain a sedative that helps me get to sleep, just like NyQuil PM.
Do not drive or operate heavy machinery while taking Slow Boring PM.
Drinking is fine.
I like SB PM. I usually read it on the bus ride home around 8 PM—the amiable short-form pieces are a nice evening transition!
For the evening post, I would enjoy seeing some twitter highlights from Matt from the day—screenshots would be amazing so I don’t reaggravate my latent twitter addiction. Also if I may say so, a few have been a little heavy on bad news—maybe toss in a few positive things, though admittedly not a lot happening in the positive side of the ledger these days.
I would actually rather that somehow Halina stop Matt from posting on Twitter.
I'm pretty sure that you're pulling back a bloody stump if you try to get between Matt and the Twitter app.
The first step is admitting he has a problem. I think he has done that.
Is that your buddy in the wood chipper there?
I concur. Other than our great governor’s gloriously trollish parody posts, there’s nothing good to be had on Musk’s crappy app.
You can see Matt start to formulate a lot of takes on Twitter, some of which become Slow Boring articles, and you can start to think for yourself in advance what you think of those takes.
And Twitter still remains good for news updates, and beyond the political sphere--it's very useful for me still for football, for example.
I’ll take your word for it, having only secondhand experience with Xitter.
I’m willing to change “nothing good to be had” to the more boring “the bad VASTLY outweighs the good.”
It takes some work, but if you calibrate Twitter properly (always use lists from a limited list of trusted accounts), it's still useful.
This sound like a job for Sam Harris. Anyone have his number?
The Twitter highlights are something that I've long ended up just contributing in here on my own volition, heh.
God no.
In terms of the news from today I was reading the comments on the Washington Post article about ICE and the DCPD stopping moped delivery drivers for traffic infractions and if they were also found to not be here legally - detaining the them for deportation.
1. That's what people mean by disorder vs crime.
2. The comments from the very left leaning Post subscribers were almost universally positive. Given that where does the reluctance to crack down on these types of crimes come from?
Are commenters on Post articles traditionally left-leaning? My experience (which hasn't been updated recently) is that commenters on newspaper articles are usually right-leaning (or nextdoor.com-leaning, at least), regardless of the newspaper.
Yes...people who pay to subscribe to the Washington Post are significantly to the left of the median voter.
Is that true of people who leave comments on the articles? This is an extremely highly selected subset of people with paid subscriptions, and I wouldn't expect it to match the opinions of broader subscribers.
Yes. Dude seriously? Who do you think the median voter is?
He's comparing this to people who comment on local newspapers. That's a weirdly right leaning crowd, Washington Post or not.
The most Nextdoory commenters are (or used to be) on local TV websites.
can confirm that WaPo commenters are very much bog standard lefties.
The NYT is the exception that proves the rule (and the only exception I have ever seen). I have never spent time in the Post's comment sections, but I would be surprised if it wasn't dominated by the worst right-wingers imaginable.
certainly true of the Boston Globe’s website.
"Given that where does the reluctance to crack down on these types of crimes come from?"
Cf. also my prior SB comments about city officials acting as though local middle-class taxpayers are some kind of troublemakers for complaining about homeless encampments. How many tax dollars, votes, and/or campaign donations are those camps worth to you as a city council member versus what the adversely affected surrounding property owners provide?
Because only Karens comment on news articles.
It’s because of labor shortages in policing and liability concerns if something goes south.
What liability concerns? Sovereign immunity and all that.
Someone gets hurt, city gets sued, big bad media cycle, politicians berate you and create headaches. So you get the command not to enforce quality of life crimes.
Another take: Matt Zeitlin made a great point today what with the death of James Dobson https://x.com/MattZeitlin/status/1958525448817721700 and on a certain level we libs really have been crushing it.
Yes, and also why so many millennial liberals are completely unaware that they are now the moralistic scolds the youth are rebelling against since people like Dobson are irrelevant.
It's underrated how much more prudish culture was in general.
I'm kind of hoping we settle somewhere in the middle. My most prudish opinion is that politicians swearing any more than occasionally is annoying.
My church used to hand out Focus on the Family flyers, and even back then, in my devout Evangelical days, I found them creepy and off-putting with their “the father is the master of the house, he ought to smack his children for misbehaving” schtick.
"in my devout Evangelical days"
Major lore drop on a Thursday night?!
Ha, I’ve actually written before about my journey from devout Evangelical to atheist - it came up in the thread where Matt Y called the belief in heaven and hell an example of a widely held false belief.
I’m flattered that you consider my background info to be “lore,” that sounds special 😊
Sometimes I'm still unsure if Democrats actually dislike the Trump Republican Party more than they dislike the Reagan Republican Party.
Are you kidding me? Of course I hate the Trump-era GOP orders of magnitude more than I ever hated Reagan-era GOP, for reasons that would take too long to list here. Granted, I was a young child in Poland when Reagan was POTUS.
Eh, I think the important point is Trump's is clearly much, much worse.
In my mind it's a much tighter race, and for the first term Reaganism was still worse, but post-Jan 6th Trump took the lead
I thought Reagan was wrong and did a lot of damage to the country policy wise. But it never seemed like it was damage that couldn't be undone, and I was never in doubt about his sincerity or basic belief in democracy, American values, and the rule of law.
I think Trump helps a lot with this since he's Trump - in a lot of ways, despite Vance's attempt to be something else, Vance is a lot closer to the typical judgy Republican.
The undergirding of the GOP is still mostly young Dobson's + the fascists.
So I’ve wrote a lot about how tracking instruction seems unfair and this year I got placed with a top form class from the bottom and it feels absurd.
My students receive instruction plus one year ahead of schedule and are still destroying it. 86/88 on their first unit pretests.
They’re all in completion math and science clubs and even little things like making a craft intelligence makes a huge difference on cutting and folding. My birthday was Tuesday and I got a grab bag of foods and gift cards. So much so I had to bulk order thank you cards after getting literally all the listed supplies by the end of the first week.
People are like you seem so happy this year…it’s wildly unfair.
I feel like a dummy, but can you explain “top form class from the bottom” please? Sounds like a top form class, I don’t understand the “from the bottom”.
I understood it to mean “last year I was teaching a bottom-performing class, this year I was moved to a top-performing class”?
Ah, gotcha.
One of my many Dark Liberal beliefs: Some people are smarter in some ways than others, it's almost entirely genetic (and thus, not really "earned"), it has potentially huge effects on their life trajectories, and we pretend it's all about quality of instruction in school or "grit" or socioeconomic class, etc. rather than, you know, having a robust welfare state. (Oh shoot, am I channeling FdB?)
Absurd? As opposed to how it should be?
I think maybe at some like cosmic level it’s how it should be but the inequality of it all feels terrible.
Are you sure it's not because you've become a profoundly better teacher since last year? Maybe your classroom management has improved?
It would be flattering to believe that and maybe I have an aptitude for high performers.
But like it’s so night and day that it’s bizarre. Like over 15 years I’ve hated crafting lessons because someone can’t follow fold on the dotted line cut on the black line.
It’s all feels a bit upside down right now.
I really liked yesterday’s single-topic news round-up. I’d love more of that in the future.