Dreaming Against the Machine - Episode 22： Balancing on the Abyss, with Dave Karpf

00:00:00.000 Welcome back to Dreaming Against the Machine. I'm your host, Adam Becker. This week's guest

00:00:07.680 is our first returning guest. It is Dave Karp, again, who you may remember from a very early

00:00:14.640 episode where we talked about a couple of books that we both didn't like. And this week, Dave,

00:00:20.880 who is a professor of political communication at George Washington University and the author of

00:00:25.080 several books. Dave and I are going to be talking about both the horrors of staring into the abyss

00:00:33.240 of the tech industry and the current political moment, but also what we do to be able to keep

00:00:41.860 doing that work in our daily lives, because that work is tough. It is soul crushing. And so we need

00:00:48.700 things that can restore our souls. Whether or not you believe in a soul, I think it's important to

00:00:55.060 work on taking care of it and so that is what we're talking about this week we're talking about

00:01:01.180 balance and so here's dave i blame vibe coding it is 2026 everything's just slightly worse all

00:01:13.920 the time oh if only there were a word for that coined by someone who's been on this podcast

00:01:18.860 uh um yeah this is gonna be awesome use all of this it's perfect yes uh welcome to dreaming

00:01:29.380 against the machine uh this is our first repeat guest dave welcome back you know what this means

00:01:37.320 what does this mean it means that your book didn't suck that's true that's true excellent

00:01:43.460 callback yeah you are one of the few people who has read it so far yes and i'm i'm honored and

00:01:49.220 relieved to be invited back because we did say what it would mean if i wasn't yes that's right

00:01:54.880 turns out your book does not suck um but we are we are not here specifically to talk about your

00:02:00.860 book although i think we should have you back when the book comes out i think that's my third visit

00:02:06.240 and you'll discuss what the fifth visit will be about right that's true yes sandwiches yeah no

00:02:12.660 that's that's a promise if we bring dave back five times we were talking about this before we hit

00:02:18.620 record then the fifth time you know the same way that snl does like a special thing when someone's

00:02:24.380 been a five-time host dave as a five-time guest gets to pick the topic and the topic that he has

00:02:29.240 chosen in his infinite wisdom is sandwiches i've got a lot to say no i i believe that anyway but

00:02:36.360 today we're not talking about sandwiches uh today we're gonna be talking about how we deal with

00:02:44.780 things and the state of the world and how you and i as people who sort of stare into the void

00:02:51.040 professionally um recharge our batteries so let's start by staring into the abyss and then it'll

00:02:59.460 stare back and then we're gonna go touch grass sound good that sounds great i also i do want to

00:03:05.660 point out i think i've been invited back because i i think i'm the number one fan of the podcast

00:03:10.040 oh since i do both listen to every episode and frequently text you about it that's true you do

00:03:16.480 and i also think that you may be the only former guest of the show that has also been like called

00:03:26.700 out on the show with like a hi dave um i'm pretty sure the only other people that i've done that

00:03:32.480 with are my parents who are not guests on this show and will never be guests on this show sorry

00:03:37.740 mom and dad um but uh i don't think he's from alondra nelson also who oh that's true i am so

00:03:46.600 in awe of and yeah i listened to your podcast while running so i'm like listening to you talk

00:03:51.260 to somebody who i hold in such high regard and then towards the end of it you mentioned me and

00:03:56.020 i was like this is awesome and then she said hi dave and i like almost broke my stride i was like

00:04:00.220 it was it was fantastic it was fantastic love the podcast this is fantastic we're gonna we're

00:04:07.500 gonna have you come in and like cut an ad for the podcast uh this is great like i said let's start

00:04:12.940 with staring into the abyss dave what have you been thinking about lately there's a couple things

00:04:18.060 i've been thinking about yeah one of them is like everything's ai all the time yeah and there are

00:04:24.460 these different discursive communities staring at the AI abyss and thinking that the other side

00:04:31.140 doesn't get it. And I'm in the AI critic camp. I've written a few times about why the data center

00:04:37.400 protests are good and we should have more of them. And this is kind of our one best leverage point to

00:04:42.520 pop the AI bubble and maybe restore the power balance and have some sanity. But the thing that

00:04:47.840 I keep on noticing is the people talking about AI in different ways. It's not that each side

00:04:54.640 thinks that the other is wrong. It's that they think that the other side, what they're looking

00:04:58.660 at doesn't matter. This actually goes back to a thing that's in Corey Doctorow's new book that

00:05:02.920 he mentioned on the podcast with you. Corey had this great example of using AI for a radiology

00:05:11.860 department and how one way that you could do that is provide these excellent machine learning tools

00:05:17.820 to radiologists and say, okay, we're going to buy these expensive tools and you are going to use

00:05:22.720 them to do your job more effectively so you can save more lives. And that's a way to use AI that

00:05:30.500 is a positive future. I love it. It's great. Then he points out that that's not the way they're

00:05:36.560 using AI. They are selling these things to radiology departments saying this way you can

00:05:41.440 have fewer radiologists and we can just kind of split the difference on the savings and everyone

00:05:46.420 will make money, which of course then means that more people will die of cancer because

00:05:51.120 it won't catch quite the same amount of, of, of cancer.

00:05:55.060 Like they'll do their jobs more poorly, but also look at the savings.

00:05:58.780 And the, the point there, like that, that's, this goes back to the trend of, you know,

00:06:03.060 Ted Chiang wrote several years ago now about how the problem with AI is capitalism, right?

00:06:06.840 Like the, the question we got asked is whether AI is going to be the new McKinsey.

00:06:09.860 And he meant that in the bad way.

00:06:11.360 So I think a lot of AI critics are looking at this and saying, we are terrified by this, or we are outraged about this, because we can see so clearly what capitalism is about to do with this stuff.

00:06:23.680 And on the other side, you have people saying, well, but I mean, that's a capitalism thing, not an AI thing.

00:06:30.440 Look at all the cool stuff that, you know, like AI is now apparently, again, I heard about this on the pod, but like AI is now helping to solve Erdu's problems in math.

00:06:39.640 Yeah. Right. Like if you're a mathematician, there's some cool shit that you can do with it that you couldn't do three years ago. Yeah. And the underlying question is this question of which of those, like both of those don't get to matter to you at the same time. We have to decide amongst all the phenomena happening in the world, which one should we pay attention to? And so these camps are essentially saying like, yeah, yeah, I see your thing is happening. I don't care about it.

00:07:02.040 which comes back to a notion of sort of politics and what we value,

00:07:06.960 but we end up arguing about AI as a way to argue about these other things

00:07:10.240 and sort of where should we cast our attention?

00:07:12.740 Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

00:07:13.920 I was giving a talk about, well, about the general stuff in my book 0.99

00:07:19.000 and the beliefs of these fucking people. 0.98

00:07:22.040 And I had people asking me like, you know, well, but isn't this like, 0.99

00:07:26.500 aren't you painting the tech billionaires as being really monolithic?

00:07:29.960 and do they really believe this stuff and you know but aren't there good things that we can

00:07:35.120 do with ai and i was like yeah that's not that's not uh you know the last thing that you said is

00:07:41.300 not wrong there are some good things that we can do with ai but that's not the thing that i'm

00:07:45.900 talking about i'm not saying that absolutely every single thing that ai does is terrible i'm saying

00:07:51.900 that you know the way it's being used is bad the way it was created is bad and yeah we have a

00:07:57.640 capitalism problem and the other thing though that i'm thinking and that i was thinking about

00:08:02.220 as you were saying all that dave is yes that's a debate that's happening but the wider debate

00:08:08.560 within the media about ai is still dominated by not by voices from like you know the the people

00:08:18.240 critical of ai like us but instead um you know people who are either really pushing ai as the

00:08:26.460 inevitable future or you know the critics are people like you know the the rationalists and

00:08:33.760 effective altruists uh people like yodkowski or mccaskill or ord saying well no you know the

00:08:39.260 problem with ai is that it's going to you know uh destroy the world and turn into paperclips

00:08:44.120 um which is just like a small tweak on the ai utopian view that you know ai is inevitably

00:08:51.620 going to be able to do anything and i get really frustrated looking at this and you know i wrote 0.90

00:08:56.420 yeah i wrote that piece saying you know calling the ai doomers useful idiots for the ai industry

00:09:01.460 and i still believe that but it's still hard to get people to listen to this and you know i've got

00:09:08.980 i've got people asking me about like oh the other astrophysicist who talks about ai publicly uh max

00:09:16.680 tegmark at mit he runs the foundation of the future of life institute rather um and tegmark

00:09:23.580 is you know also a cosmologist in fact does exactly the same kind of cosmology that i did

00:09:29.880 for my phd uh i cited tegmark's academic work in cosmology in my phd thesis and in the papers i

00:09:36.900 wrote in grad school you know and tegmark is also out there saying oh yeah you know the ai

00:09:42.020 doomers are right and super intelligent ai is inevitable and coming soon and it's it's going to

00:09:47.420 you know it could be an existential threat to us yada yada yada and and i'm just sitting here

00:09:52.620 being like man they are listening to him because he's an mit astrophysics professor which gives

00:09:57.420 him approximately zero credibility on this subject um but um but that's just not the way

00:10:04.400 that it's seen and on my worst days that makes me despair of ever actually making an impact about

00:10:12.700 this stuff and like getting anybody to listen about any of it what strikes me is an awful lot

00:10:17.800 of tech futurism is built around this idea that we can have a better society and a better politics

00:10:24.940 without worrying about society or worrying about politics yeah exactly like it's a bit of an escape

00:10:30.360 hatch yeah um yeah we can solve social problems using technology right like technology will

00:10:37.020 will just do it yeah um and again like my my whole shtick uh this is this is in the book

00:10:43.120 vaporware incorporated and it's you know the stuff i've been doing for the past eight years now

00:10:46.120 is reading tech futurism's past and drawing lessons from the futures that never arrived,

00:10:54.140 right? Because these are things that they're promising now, and we don't know what the future

00:10:57.240 is going to be, but we can see them promising them back then and say like, oh, well, in retrospect,

00:11:01.800 some things are obvious, and maybe if it was obvious then, we should pay attention to it.

00:11:05.660 So again, it's sort of a project to figure out where should we put our attention. But the biggest

00:11:10.760 thing that comes out of that is like the the future is not inevitable the tech future is not

00:11:16.200 inevitable the way that it develops is a political puzzle and you need to actually pay attention to

00:11:22.900 society and pay attention to politics because if you decide not to pay attention to it like that

00:11:27.660 that too is a political decision and then you're just saying like find sam altman and elon musk 0.99

00:11:32.520 and that crowd they'll just work it out for themselves and like no those guys are fucking 1.00

00:11:37.860 idiots the thing that they're going to work out is just how to make money for themselves out of it 1.00

00:11:41.560 yep while socializing the problems right like this came up for me a few months ago 1.00

00:11:45.860 amidst one of the many waves of outrage that grok was a csam machine right like yeah grok is allowing

00:11:54.620 people to generate child sexual uh abuse material that's illegal but nobody was bothering to do

00:12:02.740 anything about it with x and again if you're from a certain case like if you're from either 0.67

00:12:10.300 the camps that you mentioned right like if you are one of the ai doomers then you look at that 0.58

00:12:15.480 and say like yeah no this doesn't matter i'm worried about the end of humanity yep right and 0.99

00:12:18.960 if you're an ai bloomer then you're looking at this and saying yeah yeah like some terrible

00:12:23.480 people are using it for terrible things but we're gonna live forever and solve you know like solve

00:12:28.760 all of physics any minute now

00:12:30.040 with our space data centers

00:12:32.120 just to make you upset.

00:12:34.060 Yes, yeah, no, no, no.

00:12:35.900 Data centers in space being mentioned

00:12:37.700 specifically to trigger me, amazing.

00:12:39.720 Right, yeah.

00:12:40.220 Yes.

00:12:41.100 Again, for fellow listeners

00:12:42.820 who listen to every episode,

00:12:43.980 I think we should collectively

00:12:45.240 put together like a bingo chart

00:12:47.440 of things that cause reactions

00:12:49.320 from Adam,

00:12:50.540 and then we can feed them

00:12:51.260 to repeat guests 0.85

00:12:52.300 so they can get a rise out of you.

00:12:53.820 Eh, eh, eh?

00:12:55.240 Aren't you glad you brought me on?

00:12:56.600 Welcome back to

00:12:57.320 Dreaming Against the Machine, Dave.

00:12:58.760 why are we friends

00:13:01.360 exactly

00:13:03.560 but to finish the thought

00:13:05.940 those two camps are looking at

00:13:08.420 the Grok CSAM problem

00:13:10.240 and not seeing a problem

00:13:12.160 it's not that they say that's nothing

00:13:13.880 but they're saying that doesn't rate

00:13:15.640 that's not the thing that matters

00:13:17.360 and then tech critics like you and me

00:13:20.500 are both looking at that and saying

00:13:21.600 well that's bad

00:13:22.420 and also looking at that and saying

00:13:24.580 this both rates

00:13:27.140 and we could see this coming a mile

00:13:29.180 off. Yep. Right like every

00:13:31.140 tech critic who pays

00:13:33.020 attention to media was saying

00:13:35.260 circa 2022

00:13:36.220 like oh well this is gonna

00:13:38.700 decimate the news and 0.79

00:13:41.140 get us full of AI slop

00:13:42.760 because it's good

00:13:45.180 enough to have ad

00:13:47.080 links to it and doesn't cost

00:13:49.160 anything. So like we know exactly how this is

00:13:51.100 gonna work and the response

00:13:53.020 wasn't no no you're wrong. The response

00:13:55.080 was essentially this this doesn't matter yep and then instead they would bring in like uh i think

00:14:00.760 it was uh um harari and a couple other people wrote a piece for the new york times being like

00:14:05.220 no no this will end democracy because it'll do precision microtargeting it's like guys that's

00:14:10.240 not that that's a fun fantasy for you let's kind of pretend that like i don't think that's real

00:14:16.180 like it could be real someday but we're far off from that and there are these real problems that

00:14:22.280 we could expend government energy and sort of demand solutions to that would make the world

00:14:26.920 a better place but it's all just a question of sort of where what what we decide actually matters

00:14:32.600 and therefore what becomes part of the public conversation and dictates politics i'm going to

00:14:37.240 be deliberately spicy here and say that we knew that that new york times piece was not true because

00:14:44.240 tarare wrote it but um um yeah yeah um but yeah i mean a lot of books though he sells a lot of

00:14:53.420 books he sure does so does malcolm gladwell but he's still a waste of space um anyway um hating

00:15:00.160 on malcolm gladwell definitely goes on the bingo card oh my god uh yeah no i you're completely

00:15:05.700 right of course when i was interviewing people for more everything forever i interviewed the og

00:15:11.580 ai doomer eliezer yodkowski and at one point yodkowski said to me you know i i asked him

00:15:17.080 about climate change and he said you know something to the effect of and he used this

00:15:23.060 specific analogy he said uh yeah you know the people working to prevent catastrophic climate

00:15:28.040 change uh you know they're like the people working to keep the bridges up um you know keep

00:15:34.160 bridges from falling down i i think that that's important work but it's certainly not nearly as

00:15:38.180 important as preventing ai from ending civilization and destroying the earth and it's like okay um

00:15:46.440 yeah but one of those things is real the other one's a sci-fi fantasy that has absolutely no 0.67

00:15:52.060 justification other than like your own unhinged writings and again this is i feel like this is a

00:16:00.080 common theme whenever you and i chat whether on air or else but i i would be fine with him having

00:16:05.640 that hero complex

00:16:07.780 if he had no power.

00:16:10.240 Well, yeah.

00:16:10.840 Right?

00:16:11.080 Like, if we did a really good job

00:16:13.920 of funding maintenance,

00:16:16.280 of keeping the bridges up,

00:16:17.660 of responding to climate shocks.

00:16:20.560 Yeah.

00:16:20.840 Like, if we were doing that really well,

00:16:22.900 and off to the side,

00:16:24.280 there were futurists saying,

00:16:26.340 there's a low probability

00:16:28.180 really bad thing

00:16:28.880 that nobody has thought about,

00:16:30.000 and I want to holler about it

00:16:31.020 and maybe occasionally get an op-ed.

00:16:32.860 Like, that's actually a society

00:16:34.200 that I'm fine with.

00:16:35.540 Yeah.

00:16:35.640 in a society where we don't fund keeping the bridges up and we just decide and this is one

00:16:43.000 of my favorite bits in your book because you caught a thing i never caught which was the sam

00:16:47.480 altman and matt like actually offering up three like three wishes yes that the ai god will just

00:16:53.980 grant in order to solve climate change yeah it's like god damn it that's so good well we gotta be

00:16:58.060 friends um but like like that's why i'm friends with you is because you found a like a better 0.64

00:17:03.300 sicko quote sam altman quote that i did right like that's what our friends was based on just

00:17:08.300 just to be to to to fill in our listeners here dave read more everything forever before we became

00:17:14.760 friends um i that's why i was like this is a good book well we should be friends yeah no i i met

00:17:20.240 dave because i came across some of his writing online and then asked him to review like a

00:17:25.600 manuscript of the book uh a late stage draft and uh and like give me feedback on it as an expert

00:17:32.640 and his response was we should be friends which i think that tells you a lot about dave yeah i also

00:17:38.960 want to add for people who follow me on blue sky and know about my hate reading habit or listen to

00:17:43.540 the earlier episode know about it like i feel like that should really cement my public identity as a

00:17:48.840 book snob that i spend a lot of my time trashing awful books and then if i read a book that i

00:17:55.320 really like i'm like all right this this is now it's like this has to be one of my friends because 0.71

00:17:59.740 i really like your but like it's all just like are you a good writer and if not that i hate you

00:18:03.500 and if so they're like all right let's be buds pure snob energy from me that's like my entire

00:18:10.160 identity i guess oh man i mean i god the last two book reviews that i wrote were me basically

00:18:17.580 you know trashing books and yet uh like uh what yet kowski's book in the atlantic and

00:18:22.880 really bad book about space in the new york times that was just filled with you know basic factual

00:18:28.660 errors um but um uh but but i you know despite the fact that i've done that i feel like dave

00:18:36.900 you are just way better at hating on books than i am like i'd like to think that i've had a bit

00:18:42.420 of a bad influence on you um right but i think it's also what that is just me like committing

00:18:49.340 to the bit right like yes you can write one hell of a hate read review but some part of you feels

00:18:55.340 like i shouldn't do that i should have a a podcast where we imagine better futures well also i don't

00:19:00.840 i want to read books i like dave i don't want to read books i don't like i as i told you last time

00:19:07.680 one in like 20 books that i read is a hate read i know but like i don't go into like

00:19:13.080 i i don't pick up books to hate read them unless it's for work but yes no i yeah we talked about

00:19:21.820 this last time i don't want to just be a rehash you're right hate reading as praxis is a real

00:19:25.780 thing anyway you were saying centrally this ends up being about politics yeah and when it's tech

00:19:32.440 futurism a lot of the game is pretending that it's not politics yeah and i would also like as a social

00:19:37.620 scientist this is a thing that i see amongst a lot of well-meaning social scientists too

00:19:42.280 like there there are a lot of labs that have been set up now to study how ai is used and can be used

00:19:50.260 By talented, well-meaning people who have a theory of the world that says, we're going to study how you could have a trustworthy and safe AI, and then we will make recommendations that some government of some sort could adopt.

00:20:06.600 and like all of that is like decently worthy work that much of it ends up falling flat with

00:20:15.920 me because it's like guys you understand that it the government that you have in mind is the

00:20:20.780 trump administration that is just gonna award allies so long as they get a kickback and i know

00:20:26.640 that you know that and i also know that you are pretending otherwise because if you recognize the

00:20:34.640 government like these are you know u.s you know u.s academics if you're in europe you know maybe a

00:20:39.540 different situation but there's a lot of u.s academics that have just sort of decided i'm

00:20:43.480 going to make recommendations for a pretend government that doesn't exist because otherwise

00:20:49.060 i would be uncomfortably in the advocacy space and i don't want to do that and that again ends

00:20:53.660 up being a version of like even though this all ends up being about politics and society

00:21:00.020 We end up choosing a pretend version or a pretend model of politics in society so that

00:21:05.460 we don't have to deal with that messy stuff.

00:21:07.620 But the messy stuff is how power gets decided and how the world gets built.

00:21:11.100 So we kind of got to lean into it.

00:21:13.220 Okay, we're going to stare into the abyss.

00:21:14.500 I'm going to go even deeper, I'm afraid.

00:21:16.520 Two things.

00:21:17.200 First of all, I mean, yes, there are people doing good policy work for an administration

00:21:22.120 that doesn't exist, but they're also not even really the ones getting coverage in the

00:21:28.540 media. And like, okay, I'm a working journalist. That's maybe why I'm a little, like, just keep

00:21:34.240 focusing on media and doing media criticism here live on the show. But there was a piece

00:21:40.500 in the New York Times, like a day or two ago, that lit up my group chats. And you can tell,

00:21:48.100 by the way, that I'm part of the coastal liberal elite because I have signal group chats. But no,

00:21:52.860 but lit up my group chats because we were all just so pissed about it.

00:21:56.220 And it was a piece speculating about whether AI had become conscious

00:22:01.460 because of the existence of AI email slop.

00:22:05.260 I didn't see that piece and please don't send it to me.

00:22:07.760 Okay.

00:22:08.540 Again, this is not a video podcast.

00:22:10.300 Dave has removed his glasses and is rubbing his eyes.

00:22:13.300 I think that means that I get a point, right, Dave?

00:22:15.920 Yeah.

00:22:17.880 Next bingo card is going to be for you.

00:22:20.440 uh we're coming for you man um credit where credit's due the guy who wrote it cade matt's

00:22:27.260 got a great quote from allison gopnik uh a psych professor at cal at uc berkeley who said uh

00:22:34.440 something to the effect of like uh no what absolutely not um i don't remember exactly

00:22:42.060 what she said she she was much more articulate and and it was a much better zinger than that

00:22:46.540 um but you know it's a good it was a good line but no i mean essentially like they found some

00:22:51.820 dude who got some money from some you know ea affiliated non-profit or ea affiliated foundation

00:23:00.440 i think um some dude who posted a paper on the archive the the physics and math and computer

00:23:09.320 science preprint server basically saying i got a bunch of ai email slop does this mean that ai is

00:23:14.340 conscious uh you know okay so the archive uh i'm gonna i'm gonna talk about scientific research

00:23:22.900 publishing for a minute because i guess i don't like having podcast listeners um the the archive

00:23:28.760 um spelled a-r-x-i-v because the x is pronounced like the greek chi which the x looks like

00:23:35.720 um the archive is a website where originally physicists and now also also mathematicians

00:23:43.500 computer scientists in a few other areas, can post papers that they have finished but have not

00:23:50.720 gone through peer review yet. So it's very different from having a published peer-reviewed

00:23:55.880 paper in an academic journal. Now, as you might imagine, this is for nerds. And what that means

00:24:05.440 is, for the most part, people don't look too much at the archive unless you're in those areas or

00:24:11.440 journalists covering those areas but uh as every physicist knows there are also a lot of crackpots

00:24:18.180 attracted to our field uh and so there are certain areas of the archive that you need to

00:24:23.980 that are that are protected in a certain way like you need to basically be vetted by other people

00:24:31.440 in the community in order to be able to post there because otherwise like the sections of

00:24:35.740 the archive that are supposed to have papers about like what's going on at cern or string

00:24:39.020 theory or something like that are just going to be like some um someone who's you know working

00:24:45.300 through some sort of personality disorder or serious you know schizophrenic episode posting

00:24:50.560 their own theory about how everything in the universe is actually made of the number two

00:24:55.760 or you know the other sorts of things that that end up in a certain folder in my email inbox

00:25:00.100 and um and i feel like this thing that was covered in the times is evidence that we don't actually

00:25:06.720 have enough of that gatekeeping on the archive um uh not that i'm generally in favor of gatekeeping

00:25:14.060 or gaslighting or girl bossing as the meme would have it but um i uh well okay no i am in favor of

00:25:20.760 girl bossing i suppose but um but yes um but in any event i just can't believe that this was a

00:25:29.100 thing and that this is what's getting coverage and not um you know and also that this is the

00:25:33.580 kind of thing that's getting funding right you know that these are the people going in-house

00:25:38.320 at these at these ai companies that these are the people getting funded by tech billionaires like

00:25:43.740 dustin moskovitz who you know uh puts billions of dollars toward uh ai safety research and and

00:25:52.240 not toward you know people who are actually talking about the real harms imposed by the

00:25:56.740 technology that actually exists uh and so like i i have cobbled together enough money to be able

00:26:07.740 to keep paying rent and keep feeding babka and and keep feeding myself um and dave you have uh

00:26:14.920 you know as mark andreason says uh you you have an unaccountable position up on top of an ivory tower

00:26:19.740 and mark andreason of course is always right i'm the real elite yes you're the real elites yeah

00:26:23.980 not mark mark's the the the plucky david going up against you the goliath look i'm an associate

00:26:30.980 professor yeah and he's on the board of meta yep so i think i'm i'm the real elite right like i'm

00:26:38.780 i'm the gatekeeper and yeah and he has billions of dollars and you i'm i'm shot in the dark here

00:26:44.540 have a mortgage and yeah uh also uh uh the brett stevens thing i just said i i should i should

00:26:53.280 explain this because again i want to embarrass dave um but also i want to laud dave dave once

00:26:59.300 uh called brett stevens the new york times op-ed writer a bedbug and a metaphorical bedbug a

00:27:07.460 metaphorical bedbug metaphorical yes he he quite explicitly said that he was making a metaphor and

00:27:14.100 that the bedbug in the metaphor was brett stevens and in response brett stevens wrote to dave's

00:27:19.360 dean to try to get provost oh even better provost to try to get dave fired he so this was if people

00:27:31.600 look up brett stevens on wikipedia there's a whole entry about this stuff i still have a wikipedia

00:27:36.140 entry but i influenced his um yeah this was like bed bug week on twitter back in 2019 so yeah i

00:27:42.980 there was a headline that there were bed bugs in the new york times newsroom and everybody was

00:27:46.540 riffing and making jokes about it my joke was the bed bugs are a metaphor the bed bugs are

00:27:50.900 brett stevens uh nobody retweeted that joke i thought it was good nobody else did and then

00:27:55.660 he emailed me and the provost of the university uh saying that i had set a new low for decency

00:28:01.640 on the internet really wait wait hold on hold on hold on and this was in 2019 2019 so that's after

00:28:08.240 trump was elected president but that was a new low for decency that that was a new though it's

00:28:14.920 also after four years after gamergate too whoa yes jesus christ yeah yes but yeah so he said that

00:28:22.000 and since i'm a strategic political communication professor and an old organizer i was like i i

00:28:27.600 think i know how this goes so i shared that and that went viral the fact that he said he was

00:28:31.780 trying to abuse his power like that he then like the next day he went on msnbc uh and they asked

00:28:38.580 him about it uh and he insisted that he wasn't trying to get me fired he just wanted my boss's

00:28:44.860 boss's boss to know how his employees were behaving which you know makes sense of the sentence but not

00:28:50.780 the paragraph like he wanted me to get in a lot of trouble for the thing that i had said yeah he

00:28:55.160 then wrote a new york times column later that week uh saying that the nazis had radio uh nazi

00:29:00.540 propagandists had radio and today we have twitter and the most vulnerable people on twitter are

00:29:06.160 centrist colonists who face attacks by, like, leftist professors.

00:29:13.240 So he did end up calling me a Nazi in the pages of the New York Times.

00:29:17.520 Wow.

00:29:19.160 Yeah, it was a whole thing.

00:29:21.200 But, you know, that did make me internet famous for a week.

00:29:25.480 So I guess that was fun.

00:29:27.540 The fun thing for me, of course, was I remember when all that went down,

00:29:32.320 didn't remember your name,

00:29:33.920 found you years later

00:29:35.220 and sent you this manuscript of my book.

00:29:37.100 And it was only after all of that went down

00:29:39.480 and we became friends

00:29:40.200 that I realized that you were the bed bug guy.

00:29:42.760 By the way, I may be shooting too high,

00:29:45.500 but my real personal goal for Vaporware Incorporated

00:29:49.160 is that the book does well enough

00:29:51.620 that I become known for something

00:29:54.020 other than being the bed bug guy.

00:29:56.200 Because it is seven years

00:29:57.640 and I'm still mostly known as the bed bug guy.

00:29:59.840 i'd like i'd like to i'd like that to be like the second thing like oh he's the vaporware

00:30:03.660 incorporated guy and also the bed bug guy i don't know dave i mostly think about you as the posting

00:30:09.760 long hate read threads on blue sky guy sure but that means that you're very much in my niche

00:30:15.020 well i suppose that's true anyway going back to staring into the void um there are i suppose bed

00:30:21.220 bugs in there but but the the last thing i wanted to say before we talk about like okay how do we

00:30:26.780 handle this on a personal level it's just the political situation right and i mean i think

00:30:32.160 that's part of why i keep talking about media coverage of all this stuff because i you know

00:30:38.120 the media is falling down on that too here in the u.s and and and i should say yes i'm talking about

00:30:45.440 the political situation primarily here in the u.s um you know i'm in the u.s dave's in the u.s um

00:30:51.500 uh i should bring in more global guests on this podcast and that is a goal that we have going

00:30:57.840 forward but right now we've got the midterm elections coming up and uh you know going going

00:31:05.240 back to my signal group chat someone in one of those group chats just this morning said uh i i

00:31:09.720 feel like i can't even deal with the midterms and they are in a sense just getting started uh last

00:31:15.240 of the primaries i think are happening today or or you know in a couple of weeks and and one of

00:31:21.220 the depressing facts about american politics that i always have at my fingertips um as i don't know

00:31:26.840 a masochist is that during presidential years most people who end up voting don't even tune

00:31:32.100 until after labor day and uh this isn't even a presidential year uh and that's i think the second

00:31:39.220 scariest fact i know about the electorate after i think the the hands down all-time winner is that

00:31:45.680 swing voters are low information voters which explains so much and is also just the kind of

00:31:51.320 thing that will keep you up at night at 4 a.m yeah most political news that we on blue sky obsess

00:31:59.280 over does not reach most voters and that is a lot of that is self-selection right like they have

00:32:04.920 looked at politics and said this is depressing this uh when it affects me only affects me poorly

00:32:11.720 and i don't feel like i have agency over it and so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna pay attention yeah

00:32:17.240 and that was true back in the main the era of the mainstream media like when we had mainstream

00:32:22.960 broadcast media but then their information and diet included like it's you know the like in the

00:32:28.900 olden days like the 1950s at six o'clock there were three tv channels and they all had the news on 0.98

00:32:36.340 and so you would your choices were i can watch the news or i can talk to my damn family and so 0.55

00:32:41.020 everybody got a little bit of political information because they were watching 0.98

00:32:43.060 the news and then hell back in the nineties,

00:32:46.220 just with cable people started saying like,

00:32:49.180 well,

00:32:49.300 if I don't want to watch news,

00:32:51.240 then I can just put on sports center instead,

00:32:53.120 or I can put on E entertainment instead.

00:32:55.100 Yeah.

00:32:55.540 So that,

00:32:55.960 that fracturing,

00:32:56.860 which is now a generation ago,

00:32:59.540 yep.

00:33:00.220 Already expanded this gap between those who choose to follow politics and

00:33:04.940 those who don't.

00:33:05.940 And then on top of that,

00:33:07.160 sort of Trump figured out a decade ago that all politics is spectacle now.

00:33:10.540 Um, so we figured out how to sort of master attention while never facing any real, at least electoral costs for being the worst. 0.91

00:33:20.560 Uh, and we've been kind of trapped in that pattern ever, ever since with everything, just getting like degrading and falling apart, you know, like it's, it's a few months since we talked, like during those months, like, I think now we have the all clear to eat lettuce, but there was like a solid month in there where might make you shit yourself to death. 0.98

00:33:39.060 Yep.

00:33:40.540 right like those are those are things that aren't supposed to happen yep and now they are and like 0.51

00:33:45.980 some of that stuff does break through right like when people are shitting themselves to death

00:33:49.200 because lettuce even the politically inattentive are like i don't know man some some weird stuff's

00:33:53.300 going on right like they're also aware that like gas prices are up and apparently we keep ending a

00:33:57.700 war that we keep being in yep so like little bits like that do end up percolating out but also it's 0.99

00:34:03.440 also depressing that if you part of your identity is i don't follow politics it all sucks you are

00:34:09.340 probably some of those people are looking at this and being like, yeah, don't, don't, don't tell me

00:34:12.200 about that. That's a nightmare, right? Yeah. I mean, I sometimes wonder like, okay, how much of

00:34:19.660 my political identity was forged by growing up in a house where we didn't have cable. And instead,

00:34:25.820 every morning when I was eating breakfast, I was listening to NPR. I wasn't always paying

00:34:29.600 attention to it. Um, but it was always there, uh, like in the background, I do think that electoral

00:34:38.060 politics matters, right? I mean, obviously I think elections have consequences and these things

00:34:43.200 matter and voting matters. And that doesn't mean that I think that we can just vote our way out of

00:34:47.820 this crisis, but I do think that we have to vote and that voting is part of the answer to this

00:34:53.880 crisis. But it's just, I feel like in any sane world, well, in any sane world, we wouldn't be

00:35:00.320 in this situation in the first place, but in any sane world, you know, the Democrats would be

00:35:05.800 beating the anti-Trump anti-corruption drum way louder than they are in a way more organized way

00:35:13.480 some of them are but but party leadership i think should be doing more and the democrats would be

00:35:19.740 you know well ahead in the races for the house and the senate and the good news is that they're

00:35:26.460 you know their chances of taking the house look pretty damn good and their chances of taking the

00:35:31.100 senate which looked really bad because of the particulars of this year's senate map are now

00:35:35.120 looking like fairly plausible like a coin flip but as as good quote-unquote as that is that's

00:35:43.740 still really goddamn scary and depressing so i i come to this as somebody who is like

00:35:48.660 especially like i am especially old when it comes to this stuff 0.67

00:35:52.440 what what what the hell do you mean by that day so like my my political identity

00:36:01.300 is if yours is tied into growing up with npr yeah i joined the sierra club when i was in high school

00:36:07.760 um they have a student run arm called the sierra student coalition and they also have local groups

00:36:12.300 and state chapters so when i was a high school student i got involved in environmental organizing

00:36:18.060 and like helped protect a forest in maryland help uh kill a bad highway project in maryland that

00:36:23.840 five years later they ended up building but we did kill it for five years so my my introduction

00:36:29.180 to politics was through the work of civic like civil society and civic movements early on in

00:36:36.720 the 90s which meant and then like i i ran the sierra student coalition trainings for a bunch

00:36:42.080 of years so like by the age of 20 i had already been doing this stuff for a while and you know

00:36:48.420 then i was on the board of the sierra club throughout the aughts and then i became a

00:36:51.500 political science professor you know well i'm a political science phd and uh teach political

00:36:56.320 communication. So it's been decades and decades of sort of being an old hand and watching stuff

00:37:01.000 get worse. And the, like the reason that I mentioned that is so many of the problems now

00:37:07.980 are long simmering problems. Yeah. Like I, like I was earning my PhD during the era of the

00:37:16.800 blogosphere. Yes. And one of the exciting, yeah. And so like one of the exciting hopeful things

00:37:21.400 then was small dollar donors like people with not a lot of money to spend were able to come

00:37:30.920 together online and raise enough money to compete with the the rich people in funding candidates

00:37:36.620 and that was actually like that was really exciting in 2006 2007 yep and then a couple

00:37:42.520 years later citizens united happened yeah and like i used to for years and years i would get

00:37:47.160 calls from journalists who were like yeah so does that mean that the promise of the internet was

00:37:51.320 a lie because the small dollar donors aren't so powerful anymore.

00:37:55.200 And it's like, that's not an internet story, like happening alongside this story of now

00:38:00.700 online communities can do collective action together.

00:38:03.380 There was also a decision by the Supreme court to say, well, money is speech and who are

00:38:09.260 we to stand in the, in the way of somebody speaking as much as they want.

00:38:12.480 So no more caps on billionaires.

00:38:15.080 Right.

00:38:15.400 And that's now led to like one of the ways that the democratic party often frustrates

00:38:19.820 me, is members of the party leadership, they simultaneously want to draw a contrast with

00:38:26.580 Trump, and they also want to be able to financially compete and not get blown out.

00:38:32.000 The Democratic Party elites, if you take something like crypto, both want to stand up to it being

00:38:38.500 noxious and terrible, and also are saying, well, this election cycle, if our candidates

00:38:44.180 stand up against crypto, that's going to be another eight or nine figures that get dropped,

00:38:48.520 making it harder for us to get elected and hold power at all right so then in the near term they

00:38:53.880 end up being like a bunch of them end up being compromised as hell yep and the explanation of

00:38:58.180 why are you so compromised is well there's a supreme court decision 16 years ago and we've 0.88

00:39:03.900 kind of been fucked and everything's been getting worse ever since and like on the on the grand 0.96

00:39:07.720 scale i think a lot of our problems still go back to fucking reagan yeah it's the reagan era where 0.99

00:39:13.320 we start telling the broad story that government and governance can't solve any problems it can

00:39:19.640 only ever be in the way yeah that that story ends up becoming a bit of the american mythology in the

00:39:24.920 90s both parties are sort of playing with it yep we had a few moments there were like you know like

00:39:29.560 obama was trying to play against it but only a little bit because again sort of compromised for

00:39:34.020 all these structural constraints yep but you know that if you spend your and my entire lifetimes

00:39:40.100 basically telling the world that government can't do good things then people will eventually believe

00:39:45.920 you yep right like i i have a a small podcast with a colleague of mine uh it's just about

00:39:50.800 political communication stuff mostly for our students but like one of our running risks

00:39:54.560 because he's more moderate than i am one of our running riffs is how much he likes mom danny and

00:39:59.740 the thing that both of us love about mondani is like mom danny is just very clearly communicating 0.94

00:40:03.680 like yeah government can do good shit and look it will like we're gonna fix the parks and everyone 0.78

00:40:08.440 will be happy right like government provides these goods and services that make people's lives better 0.92

00:40:13.280 yeah and like that's not particularly leftist of him like that is a message of government like it's

00:40:18.660 just like an anti-reagan message of like no actually government makes people's lives better

00:40:23.000 and we should have civil society yeah and also we'll have to grab the taxes to do it like that

00:40:28.120 social contract started fraying in the fucking 1980s yeah and here we are 46 years later

00:40:37.080 dealing with the mess of it like it is a giant mess and one of the things that keeps me up at 0.90

00:40:42.140 night is even if the democrats win in this election there's going to be an assumption

00:40:47.220 of like okay now you guys are in power you're going to hold him accountable and things will

00:40:50.620 get better right and the answer is like well no they still can't pass legislation the supreme

00:40:54.400 court is still a handful of partisans doing whatever he wants uh trump keeps on like violating

00:41:01.340 the constitution and the court just says like we don't fucking care trump cronies own the entire

00:41:05.660 media system like as it is it's going to take at least a decade to repair all the damage that he's 0.91

00:41:11.500 done and in that decade people are going to find themselves saying like why is it taking so long

00:41:16.480 why are you so compromised yep and the answer is because we've been around for a long time

00:41:20.780 and all these problems are devilishly hard to fix none of which gives gives me a lot of hope though

00:41:26.480 at least the thing that i would note is a lot of these things become possible once people get behind

00:41:33.760 the basic proposition that yeah government has a role to play in our lives and let's have civil

00:41:38.340 society and have it work better like a revitalization of that is long overdue and maybe

00:41:43.160 as things fall apart we find the grist for some renewal but like like even if the like i hope the

00:41:50.680 midterms go well like i'm real worried that they don't but if they go well like that's just the

00:41:55.140 start of a very long process because of how deep the rot runs unfortunately we still live in

00:42:02.240 capitalism, and that means we need to talk about our partners and sponsors. But fortunately,

00:42:06.880 our partners and sponsors are great. And if you want to support Dreaming Against the Machine

00:42:11.320 directly, you can join us on Patreon, where $5 a month gives you the chance to ask questions

00:42:16.700 of upcoming guests and a dedicated stream of cat pictures. We love our patrons, and we also love

00:42:23.720 being a part of the Multitude Collective at MultitudeShows.com. Multitude is a podcast

00:42:28.260 company made up of passionate people creating shows you can count on. Shows like Spirits.

00:42:34.040 Spirits is a history and comedy podcast focused on everything folklore, mythology, and the occult,

00:42:39.820 told through the lens of feminism, queerness, and modern adulthood. Every week, mythology buff

00:42:45.300 Julia and her childhood best friend Amanda get together to learn about a different story from

00:42:49.960 mythology and folklore over drinks. Everything from the mythological origins of major franchises

00:42:55.580 like Lord of the Rings and Wonder Woman to modern urban legends to a roundup of werewolf

00:43:00.240 stories from around the world. Dive in at spiritspodcast.com or search for Spirits

00:43:05.920 wherever you download your podcasts. And here's a word from our sponsors.

00:43:12.360 Dave, I think I agree with everything that you just said, but I also really feel like

00:43:16.960 I need to note that when you said that Citizens United was 16 years ago, I'm pretty sure that 0.91

00:43:21.400 i instantly aged like i don't know a decade um because how can that possibly be fucking true

00:43:30.980 so i think that's enough staring into the abyss um yeah we're gonna talk about uplifting stuff

00:43:37.860 yeah uh because this is dreaming against the machine look you were talking about the sierra

00:43:42.540 club and i feel like that's a good transition to where i think both of us get what we need

00:43:49.660 in order to be able to keep doing this kind of work?

00:43:53.300 Because for me, at least, the answer is I go outside.

00:43:56.160 And in fact, lately, specifically,

00:43:58.100 I've been going to the Sierra Nevada.

00:44:00.440 Because David, you did leave out one thing,

00:44:02.180 which is, yes, you were on the board

00:44:03.360 of the Sierra Club throughout the aughts,

00:44:04.980 but you are also once again

00:44:06.440 on the board of the Sierra Club, are you not?

00:44:08.640 I did sign up for another term.

00:44:10.720 They're three-year board terms.

00:44:12.260 I'm currently deciding whether or not to run

00:44:13.660 for yet another, because I'm going into my third year.

00:44:17.060 But yeah, I spent six years on it in the aughts.

00:44:19.660 another three now and might be another three on top of that so yeah i mean let's let's get into

00:44:25.120 this like okay every we just talked about a whole bunch of heavy stuff and we could do that for

00:44:29.020 another two hours and we're not going to do that um which is tough for both of us i know um but

00:44:34.300 instead let's let's talk about how we've been dealing with this because like yeah uh you know

00:44:40.900 we both look at this stuff professionally i know that a bunch of the podcast listeners also look

00:44:44.960 at it professionally and the ones who don't are looking at it you know just because they keep up

00:44:49.540 with the news and other sorts of people who would listen to a podcast like this um and i mean the

00:44:56.640 question that i get more than any other or at least actually that's not true anymore and i'll

00:45:03.480 get to that in a minute but what used to be the question that i got more than any other about more

00:45:08.020 everything forever was how did you write this book without going insane how did you spend all this

00:45:13.040 time looking at these terrible things and these terrible people without going insane and my usual

00:45:17.540 joke answer is you know uh well that question makes a lot of unwarranted assumptions about my

00:45:22.420 mental health but um because you know the setup's right there um but um but you know um the real

00:45:31.080 answer is touching grass right i went outside and and spent as much time outside as i could and i

00:45:38.100 still do that um and i mean i will say one of the other things giving me hope actually is now that's

00:45:43.680 not the question that i get the most often the question i get the most often is okay what can

00:45:48.400 we do what concrete things can we do right now to fight back against these people which is where i

00:45:54.480 want people to be i don't want it to be oh my god how are you not insane how have you you know

00:45:59.740 like kept from falling into the pit of despair although we're about to talk about that i want

00:46:04.940 it to be okay how do we fight this what do we do um and i've talked about that on this show and

00:46:10.940 we'll keep talking about that and we just had two episodes in a row essentially about that but this

00:46:15.860 time we're going to talk about what we do to take care of ourselves because i think that that's

00:46:19.740 important too yeah no touching grass is is what i do um i spent much of the last month and a half

00:46:27.860 going camping as often as i can you know i went backpacking in the sierra nevada earlier um i

00:46:36.020 I almost said earlier this month, but it's not August anymore.

00:46:38.480 It's September.

00:46:41.000 But yeah, I went backpacking this year in Nevada and climbed a 14,000 foot mountain.

00:46:50.300 What?

00:46:50.920 Yeah.

00:46:52.080 No, I climbed Mount Langley, which is a few miles south of Mount Whitney.

00:46:59.400 I mean, we started from 11,000 feet, so don't be too impressed.

00:47:03.320 Yeah, no, climbed Mount Langley.

00:47:04.520 um we we hiked out to a basin at 11 000 feet and camped there for a couple of nights to acclimate

00:47:14.700 and then we hiked up to the top of the mountain and it was you know a 15 mile hike in one day

00:47:23.540 um uh not backpacking i mean you know we backpacked into the to the basin but you know we left our

00:47:29.260 stuff at base camp and and you just took you know light backpacks up with like a gallon of water on

00:47:33.500 bats uh but um but yeah and didn't look at my phone and didn't have an internet connection

00:47:40.560 for most of a week and came back feeling amazing um and then hung out here with my cat and read

00:47:51.600 books and yeah um and i think i don't know the the you know we were talking about like the things

00:48:04.700 that the tech industry wants and the ways that it's you know sort of changed the narrative of

00:48:09.520 of our politics and you spend a lot of your book talking about that but the one of the consistent

00:48:15.380 things that i think the tech industry has wanted for a long time is to mediate every single

00:48:20.540 interaction that we have with other people and with the world around us through screens or other

00:48:27.100 technological devices that allow them to track and monetize and whatnot um you know hence the

00:48:33.300 rise of smartphones hence the rise of social media hence the attempted rise of you know things like

00:48:40.020 smart glasses um and i think that spending time out in the real world made of stuff with living

00:48:51.480 things that are not people and with people who are not just glued to their phones um

00:48:57.640 is one of the best antidotes to dealing with and thinking about all of this stuff that i can think

00:49:04.680 how do you deal with it i think about about it a lot in terms of balance yeah i would say well

00:49:11.580 while i'm still involved with the sierra club and like still certainly try to have some political

00:49:18.020 impact in the world i'm less of an activist than i was when i was 20 sure um and i sometimes think

00:49:25.300 about sort of what would 20 year old me think of me now and there are things that he would respect

00:49:29.520 and there would be things where he would say like man you lost your edge and the response that i

00:49:34.260 20 year old me is i have a balance now that you did not have back then yeah um so like that that

00:49:40.240 challenge of burnout but also like figuring out how to live a life in overwhelming times

00:49:47.440 is largely how i think about it um i actually um i get out into nature a lot less than i wish i could

00:49:58.140 um some of that is i live in a city and uh like i i really love and value getting to

00:50:05.520 spend a lot of time in my children's lives yeah and that also means that like an awful lot of a

00:50:10.440 weekend is spent hanging out with a nine-year-old and a six-year-old um doing things that they're

00:50:14.800 going to find entertaining and every once in a while they will go outside but like it's an awful

00:50:18.200 lot of like going through soccer practices sure or watching louis but louis great um so it's about

00:50:25.000 sort of figuring out how do i create those spaces that sounds corny to say nurse the soul but like

00:50:31.560 that's what it actually is you know some of it is like i do a lot of reading now i've been and like

00:50:37.180 alongside the the hate reads like i'm planning on writing a review of this but um there's this book

00:50:42.620 how we disappear by thomas malaney is my favorite book that i read in the past month specifically

00:50:49.180 because it's a book that only he as an author could have written like i don't want to spoil

00:50:53.180 it for listeners it's a subtitle is a personal history of information um he's a history professor

00:50:58.580 at stanford um who after the loss of his parents found himself thinking through sort of how do we

00:51:04.920 catalog an archive of life and it's just this extraordinarily unique book because it is he is

00:51:12.080 so present in it like another person could not write that book and i've found myself thinking

00:51:17.060 while i was reading it because i'm not a historian and my parents are thankfully still alive so i

00:51:21.300 I have a lot in common with the book, but I just found myself really enjoying in this

00:51:25.480 age of AI where everything is becoming interchangeable and the same, getting to read something that

00:51:32.720 is so unique to the author, right?

00:51:35.780 Like he wrote the book that only he could read and there's something really beautiful

00:51:40.080 about that.

00:51:40.900 So I think seeking out art, whether, you know, art, literature, whether it's nonfiction

00:51:47.060 or fiction, I read a lot of fiction too.

00:51:48.480 So, yeah, like finding things that speak to me or are spoken by a person that only they could say that is in their voice.

00:51:56.380 Like, that's a thing that I try to create time for.

00:51:59.760 I also I was mentioning to you, I listen to every one of your podcasts and I usually I'm doing it.

00:52:04.560 I now run like six times a week.

00:52:06.140 I'm training for a marathon, not a video podcast.

00:52:08.660 So people can't see.

00:52:09.320 But if you could see me, you'd be like, he doesn't look like a marathoner.

00:52:11.940 And like, no, I'm not.

00:52:13.160 but you know and like like some of that is i've always been a person who like like all my research

00:52:16.800 methods are akin to dares that i give myself right so like i've always lived a life of like

00:52:22.760 whatever i get it my wife used to say that i like i had zero hobbies that i wasn't also semi

00:52:27.400 professional in like anytime i find a thing i like i probably do too much of it which again is

00:52:32.460 the reason why i care about balance but yeah like i decided to get into running for health and now

00:52:37.160 that's part of how i get to disconnect is there's like a good hour or two every day well hour most

00:52:42.500 days and then two on the weekends where i'm going on a long run and like listening to a podcast

00:52:47.200 or listening to some music but also just sort of alone being in my body and being in my thoughts

00:52:52.660 so like carving out those spaces so that it's not all either what tech is giving to us or

00:53:00.320 like i used to say about you know both with tech and also about politics that like my profession

00:53:05.140 is one where you stare into the abyss and come up with something clever to say and like i love that

00:53:09.720 i have a life where i get to do that but also there's there is a way like that can easily become

00:53:12.960 too much particularly in these times yeah so i like i think finding those bits that give me a

00:53:17.720 sense of balance and joy so i can really be present in analyzing what's going on and saying something

00:53:23.860 clever or you know trying to aid in the political impacts and the fights against data centers or

00:53:28.880 climate change or any of that like finding that balance so that you can be present and enjoy the

00:53:34.000 life you have like that's all of it yeah no I mean I don't think that it's corny at all to say

00:53:41.600 that you're trying to nourish your soul or rather I do think it's corny but I don't think there's

00:53:47.140 anything wrong with being corny I think I've said this before on this show but like I think that

00:53:52.920 being corny is an important part of thinking about how we make a better world right yeah um

00:53:58.800 you know because like okay what is it to be corny it's to be genuine and open about a feeling

00:54:06.000 in a way that might be cliched but um but but cliches are cliches for a reason um and we want

00:54:15.080 to be open to experience and to be open to experiencing our feelings because that

00:54:19.820 because otherwise what the hell are we doing here and i also like i love that you use the

00:54:25.000 word balance because i've been thinking a lot about that word right like i um i have been able

00:54:31.680 to go on so many camping trips this summer because i got a gig a couple of gigs um this this coming

00:54:42.820 up in the next few weeks and months that uh i knew were going to pay me and there were contracts

00:54:47.760 signed and i was like okay so i have money coming in so that actually gives me some flexibility

00:54:52.320 uh to go out and try to find some balance and some some work-life balance which you know

00:55:01.600 on the one hand you know i i generally blame the difficulty that i have with doing that

00:55:09.520 on being a freelancer uh and you know being my own boss on the other hand you said something

00:55:14.620 else that i relate to really strongly which is you know uh the thing that your wife said about

00:55:19.060 you that you have no hobbies that you're not you know semi-professional at the way i think about it 0.98

00:55:23.660 to myself um is you know i don't i don't fuck around right i do if i'm gonna do it i do it 0.99

00:55:28.700 first of all sometimes it's okay to fuck around right you know like uh i i hear that if you want 0.91

00:55:35.620 to find things out fucking around is a good way to do it but um but um yes that's right and actually 0.99

00:55:45.820 there's a linear correlation between them if you want to find out more you should fuck around more 0.99

00:55:50.320 but um and as a very curious person therefore uh it stands to reason that i should fuck around 0.92

00:55:56.200 um a lot but it's actually i know this aside but like that's actually a great description of

00:56:01.880 some of the research methods i like and then analyze and find out like that's 0.75

00:56:07.800 there it is that's social science man yeah associate professor of fucking around and 0.82

00:56:11.780 finding out at george washington university fantastic um finding ways of being less intense 0.94

00:56:17.920 for a little bit as a break as a treat you know i think i think we're both relatively intense people

00:56:24.280 and it's that sort of intensity that i think your wife was describing when when she was saying that

00:56:28.760 about you know your your hobbies and i you know like i got really into hiking and now i'm you

00:56:34.960 know going on on backpacking trips for several days and climbing 14ers uh because that's what

00:56:40.240 i want to do uh climbing hiking 14ers i'm not a rock climber i'm not going to get into rock

00:56:45.000 climbing i don't think um but um but like but the point remains um you know i mean not that

00:56:53.020 that's that big a deal but like i think that work hard play hard is not always great right like

00:57:02.100 what if you work hard and then go sit in a sauna for a while right like uh or a hot tub or whatever

00:57:09.560 i i i just finding balance is i mean this is this is why i spend so much time outside touching

00:57:21.760 grass um and i think that it's it's really i don't know i've been spending a lot of time thinking

00:57:27.380 about that and like work-life balance is just sort of it's notoriously difficult for freelancers

00:57:32.480 it's notoriously difficult for journalists um it's notoriously difficult for people who have

00:57:38.340 podcasts that they for whatever reason decided were going to come out every week because they're

00:57:43.320 I don't know um some kind of masochist but um I um I really think that's part

00:57:54.560 I don't know part of what I find myself getting sucked into when I look into the abyss especially

00:58:02.680 when i'm looking at the political situation in the u.s um is i got sucked into the idea of like

00:58:09.260 this is the whole world and i don't just mean like the u.s is the whole world which is not true

00:58:14.720 but but also like the idea that like this current political crisis this ongoing rolling political

00:58:23.260 crisis that is the trump administration um is the whole world there is nothing else there is

00:58:31.800 no other place to be there is no past there is no future there is only this um and and i think

00:58:39.400 that that's a deliberate impression that that they would like to give that this is everything

00:58:43.900 that this is the only thing this is the only thing that matters and one of the things that i like

00:58:50.800 about getting out into the world is it just immediately puts the lie to that you know you're

00:58:56.620 you're out hiking up at well above the tree line on a landscape that looks like some other planet

00:59:05.220 and there's you know nobody there how could this political crisis be the biggest and only thing

00:59:14.920 that matters how is that possible when when you're faced with something like that i'm not saying it's

00:59:20.380 unimportant of course it's important that's why we do the work that we do just the sense of

00:59:24.740 perspective that and the balance that comes with that uh i think is what's really hard to keep in

00:59:30.640 mind in this moment the way i'd articulate it is you want to be present in the moment and take

00:59:37.280 seriously what's happening what's at stake and also have enough balance and perspective in your

00:59:43.220 life to take this moment seriously while also knowing that there's going like there will be

00:59:47.980 other moments right like the world is not going to end the world might be getting worse and if we

00:59:53.960 get overwhelmed by that then we lose the ability to do much about it it means like being present

01:00:00.740 and serious in it and then also taking the time to be present in your own body in the world in nature

01:00:08.240 but the one other thing that we haven't mentioned that um i think matters for for balance and

01:00:14.160 sustenance and sort of making it through like one of the most rigorous findings over time in social

01:00:18.380 movement studies is that people join movements because of the cause and then they stay because

01:00:23.540 of the community yeah um and that is you know like we're living through bad times there are

01:00:29.400 if we imagine alternate universes like the alternate universe where kamala harris won

01:00:32.900 is isn't is better like it has a bunch of problems but like a bunch of things are in fact better

01:00:37.600 yep um and like we can mourn that a bit and also the movements that have arisen to fight back

01:00:45.120 while people are like we would rather not be brought into that moment because of terrible

01:00:51.140 things happening there's also joy and connection that comes through the work of standing together

01:00:56.240 and like taking that seriously and finding sustenance and nourishing nourishment in it

01:01:01.660 this is one of the challenges of people allowing a lot of their political identity to be online

01:01:06.180 yeah is if you're an atomistic fighter then you are denying yourself the ability to

01:01:11.280 be in community with people and we know that that's part of what sustains us and gives us

01:01:16.120 balance and joy and keeps us in the fight so you got to do that too no i mean i think that this is

01:01:20.860 also one of the reasons why uh we're going to win because tim waltz was right in 2024 when he said

01:01:27.500 these guys are weird the average federal gop staffer is just terminally online and has been

01:01:36.400 completely poisoned by this and is incapable of touching grass and has no sense of perspective

01:01:42.240 or balance and just you know says and does stuff that are completely disconnected from the reality

01:01:47.480 of the world um and and that's not just because they believe in like a failed broken ideology

01:01:54.220 that is not connected to the world like that's full of you know racism and misogyny and other

01:01:58.840 things that are you know just wrong about how the world is but also because they are

01:02:07.080 online in a way where they just simply cannot turn it off yeah and i think that we need to

01:02:13.160 not fall into that trap. And, and I will also say that that durable result in, in social

01:02:21.600 organizational studies that you were just talking about absolutely rings true to me. I mean, you

01:02:26.520 know, like I got into the work that I'm doing right now because I cared about it, but it's

01:02:32.300 because of the people that I have met in this community, many of whom I've brought onto this

01:02:38.580 podcast um that that have made it feel sustainable to stay engaged with this work and like the new

01:02:45.320 friends that i have made just since i finished this book have brought wonderful things into my

01:02:51.860 life and and and so much friendship and community including you dave and for all that i give you

01:02:57.860 i am glad that we are friends likewise so all that all those concepts are kind of sandwiched

01:03:03.240 together and we're gonna leave it there thanks for coming on dave

01:03:08.840 i get a point for that right oh god uh well it's a good thing that we don't have a scoreboard

01:03:17.020 um i think that's one to one yeah that's probably right yeah one to one okay well

01:03:22.920 until next time dave thank you for coming on to this podcast the only downside is it's gonna feel

01:03:28.560 weird listening to myself on a run next week but thanks for bringing me back on it's great having

01:03:34.280 you in my friendship network and i'm so glad that the podcast has been going well and really glad to

01:03:38.300 be talking to you again thanks dave you too and making you feel weird is what this show is all 0.70

01:03:42.480 about thanks again to this week's guest dave carp even though we give each other shit uh next week

01:03:52.960 We've got Emily Bender, and we're going to be talking about linguistics, stochastic parrots, and all that.

01:04:00.500 To submit questions for future guests and to suggest other guests, and to see more pictures of Babka, join the conversation on Patreon.

01:04:10.220 You can also find us on YouTube, on Instagram at datmpod, on the web, and on Blue Sky at dreamingagainstthemachine.com, or just find us wherever you get your podcasts.

01:04:21.920 Dreaming Against the Machine is a proud member of Multitude Productions.

01:04:26.000 Our executive producer is Nick Carissimi.

01:04:28.740 Our theme music is by Jared Emerson Johnson.

01:04:31.820 Our show logo is by Nick James.

01:04:34.540 And our fearless leader is Babka, the greatest cat in the observable universe.

01:04:39.440 I'm Adam Becker, and I'll see you next week.

Dreaming Against the Machine - September 08, 2026

Episode 22： Balancing on the Abyss, with Dave Karpf

Episode Stats

Transcript