"There's no reason to believe that 21st century capitalism has the ability to deliver wage growth". Man, what a stupid statement.
There are many smart responses to this, but the main thing I could think of was an old joke: "Q: What did socialists use before candles? A: Electricity"
Want to be nostalgists, try reading books about life 400+ years ago. You might own one or two shirts in your lifetime, and you'd pass them down to your heirs. It's incredible to me that a person speaking on technology that grew directly out of the dynamism and freedom of capitalism, in an industry that only exists because we're not subsistence farmers trying to eke out a living, can badmouth capitalism with a straight face. It's not a credibility generating act.
Yeah this was one of the worst houses of strausses in my time here. Mr. Freddy didn't even answer the questions, but took like 5 minutes to accomplish that. I'm willing to chalk it up to having a bad day or being high maybe.
Just got to the part where he listed who is “bad” and is on the same side as Bari... what a ridiculous exercise. “Guilt by association”. People with poor opinions can be right on others.
There are plenty of people that share Freddie’s position that are unsavory, should we list them off?
So apparently I enjoyed this pod much more than others, but yeah I came here to type basically this.
Interestingly enough, this is both the rhetorical device Bomani uses to never have to touch on anything that may prove problematic to him and what Nick Wright was getting at towards the end of his appearance.
Great podcast as usual when Freddie is on. I like his honesty even though I often disagree with his policy solutions. I personally don’t think the current sports economic model is sustainable in the long-term. Sports is less important to young people. They have far more entertainment options compared to boomers like me.
I think the principle reason sports leagues are promoting progressive social justice initiatives is to hook future high income earners (ie college graduates) into becoming lifelong fans. Meanwhile the blue-collar non college educated are being priced out of watching live games. Thus Canadian hockey clubs like the Winnipeg Jets are struggling to attract fans. Not surprising considering rising interest rates and inflation.
I love the irony of when Ethan asked Freddie about "woke" movies and FDB countered with the success of Oppenheimer. Yet, Oppenheimer's success owes a TON to essentially being subsidized by the biggest, most successful, "wokest" movie of the year in Barbie. I loved Oppenheimer and saw it in theaters but there's no way it makes the money it does without riding the box office coattails of a super feminist and inclusive movie of which created this viral, global sensation.
What evidence do you have that Oppenheimer owes a "ton" of its success to being "subsidized" by Barbie? Christopher Nolan movies have historically crushed at the box office because audiences recognize his pattern of making quality films that deliver.
Well luckily for us, we have another 3 hour plus long historical period piece movie staring the biggest actor in the world and arguably the best director alive, and it’s not gonna do anywhere near the numbers Oppenheimer is.
Oppenheimer would have done better than killers of the flower moon if it wasn’t released next to Barbie, but the barbenhiemer event was the biggest thing in box office surprises in at least the last 10 years and easily made it a billion dollar movie.
It's hard to measure Nolan's past, pre-pandemic box office numbers with what Oppenheimer did because the landscape is so different now but there really isn't a lot of precedent for a looong "talking-in-rooms-biopic" being the third highest grossing movie of the year. Sure, they phenomenon that was "Barbenheimer" boosted both of their numbers but Oppenheimer was the clear beneficiary.
Am I the only one who got so distracted from Freddie’s coughing that I couldn’t even finish the podcast? It was so constant and interrupted his speaking that I couldn’t focus or listen at all.
Ethan says that “perhaps it’s just human nature” to root for the underdog. I don’t think this is true, I think it’s a relative(-to-the-span-of-human-history-)ly new phenomenon. Two books that have really shaped my thinking on this are “Dominion” by Tom Holland (about the Christianization of Western culture) and “The WEIRDest People in the World” by Joseph Henrichs (about the ways in which modern Western culture is alien from history and other modern cultures). Romans watching gladiators fight lions weren’t rooting for the underdog.
Good conversation, though, I like when Freddie’s on.
I didnt say anything mean. it's factual that he couldn't stop clearing his throat and it made it an awful listen to me, others I'm sure didn't mind it. I didn't attack his character or even say that I disagreed with things he said.
I have so many thoughts on this I don't know where to start. Big ticket cultural products are obviously exhausted to the point where it's beyond I think we take it for granted. The relentless repetition, the over-reliance on well known IP, the focus on meta-storytelling, the reliance on multiverses to keep franchises churning, the degradation of effects that make movies look real.
Seriously, how often do you watch a movie and think "these special effects suck!"?
The ideological capture is an interesting point. Normally I don't think you could say it's problem for business, but there's so many other problems that if you really shouldn't give customers more reasons to not pay premiums for your product.
Hi Ethan I do hope you respond to this or at least read it. FDB had a long history of antisemitism both in the past (a tablet magazine article from 2015 specifically names him as a type of left wing antisemitism) as well as his recent writings about Israel. Specifically recently, he has refused to actualy condemn Hamas because he says “it’s so obvious they operate outside his beliefs that it goes without saying that he disagrees with them.” I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough. This is the largest killing of Jews outside of the holocaust and he can’t be bothered to show an ounce of empathy. Furthermore, he is obsessed with the idea of a non Jewish Israel. Here’s the problem, he’s not an idiot, he knows that if Israel does not exist to protect Jews, we’re going to get 10/7 again and again and again. And honestly given his history it’s hard to say that he doesn’t want that. Furthermore, the fact he’s more worried about college students who did something stupid (and also very very poor taste) than babies who were tortured and burned alive is also very telling.
Now, I am a big believer in free speech and not canceling anyone, but I want to ask you why you haven’t called him out on any of this when you platform him on your substack. It’s incredibly disappointing and feels like you’re more interested in having someone you think is internet cool give you attention then actually doing something difficult. I am a big fan of your work, but this feels like a missed oppertunity.
First of all, how am I conflating Israel with Jews? All the examples were either about Jews as a whole, or about issues concerning safety of Jews in Israel, not any kind of policy disagreement. Secondly, as your point does a great job illustrating, trying to hide anti semitism behind “oh I don’t hate Jews just Israel” is an incredibly common dogwhistle. If this was truly the case why have we seen so much worldwide antisemitism after these events, where people are talking about Jews not the policies of Israel.
"Wages haven't grown in years" is one of those stats that was kind of true right after the Great Recession, but then stopped being true over a decade ago. But people like Freddie have not updated their narratives to match the facts.
I’m a big fan of Ethan and Freddie but Freddie is badly over his skis when talking about how business works. In particular, he seems to use the phrase “market rate” to mean “what feels fair to me”, when it’s actually a technical term relating to supply and demand curves. (And I promise you that Netflix et al are not in the habit of charging a rate below what they think the market will bear.)
Ben Thompson would be a much better guest to talk about streaming economics.
Listened to this episode last night. Overall I enjoyed it but as a fan of Reason I do have to take issue with FDB’s take on their coverage of Israel as seen here:
Perhaps more interesting than the squabbling over who is more counter-cultural/oppressed, whether it's the nation of Israel or Palestine, The Free Press or FdB, the soon-to-be-millionaire Jewish students at Harvard or the soon-to-be millionaire anti-Zionist students at Harvard, the people getting tenure now for their Critical Decolonial studies publications or the the people who already have tenure for their Critical Feminist studies publications, would be an exploration as to why, 2500 years after the Melian Dialogue and two generations after Gen-X, the currency of victimization is the collectively agreed upon metric of authority. Although perhaps Zizek has totally cornered that block of the discourse.
“Why Freddie plans to soon retire from his Substack”
Because he only chose Substack because the alternative was manual labor? Because the idea of customer service is anathema to him? I truly am curious but my goodwill is all used up. I can’t even bear to listen to his pompous prolixity.
"There's no reason to believe that 21st century capitalism has the ability to deliver wage growth". Man, what a stupid statement.
There are many smart responses to this, but the main thing I could think of was an old joke: "Q: What did socialists use before candles? A: Electricity"
Want to be nostalgists, try reading books about life 400+ years ago. You might own one or two shirts in your lifetime, and you'd pass them down to your heirs. It's incredible to me that a person speaking on technology that grew directly out of the dynamism and freedom of capitalism, in an industry that only exists because we're not subsistence farmers trying to eke out a living, can badmouth capitalism with a straight face. It's not a credibility generating act.
Yeah this was one of the worst houses of strausses in my time here. Mr. Freddy didn't even answer the questions, but took like 5 minutes to accomplish that. I'm willing to chalk it up to having a bad day or being high maybe.
Just got to the part where he listed who is “bad” and is on the same side as Bari... what a ridiculous exercise. “Guilt by association”. People with poor opinions can be right on others.
There are plenty of people that share Freddie’s position that are unsavory, should we list them off?
So apparently I enjoyed this pod much more than others, but yeah I came here to type basically this.
Interestingly enough, this is both the rhetorical device Bomani uses to never have to touch on anything that may prove problematic to him and what Nick Wright was getting at towards the end of his appearance.
Great podcast as usual when Freddie is on. I like his honesty even though I often disagree with his policy solutions. I personally don’t think the current sports economic model is sustainable in the long-term. Sports is less important to young people. They have far more entertainment options compared to boomers like me.
I think the principle reason sports leagues are promoting progressive social justice initiatives is to hook future high income earners (ie college graduates) into becoming lifelong fans. Meanwhile the blue-collar non college educated are being priced out of watching live games. Thus Canadian hockey clubs like the Winnipeg Jets are struggling to attract fans. Not surprising considering rising interest rates and inflation.
I love the irony of when Ethan asked Freddie about "woke" movies and FDB countered with the success of Oppenheimer. Yet, Oppenheimer's success owes a TON to essentially being subsidized by the biggest, most successful, "wokest" movie of the year in Barbie. I loved Oppenheimer and saw it in theaters but there's no way it makes the money it does without riding the box office coattails of a super feminist and inclusive movie of which created this viral, global sensation.
What evidence do you have that Oppenheimer owes a "ton" of its success to being "subsidized" by Barbie? Christopher Nolan movies have historically crushed at the box office because audiences recognize his pattern of making quality films that deliver.
Well luckily for us, we have another 3 hour plus long historical period piece movie staring the biggest actor in the world and arguably the best director alive, and it’s not gonna do anywhere near the numbers Oppenheimer is.
Oppenheimer would have done better than killers of the flower moon if it wasn’t released next to Barbie, but the barbenhiemer event was the biggest thing in box office surprises in at least the last 10 years and easily made it a billion dollar movie.
This article touches on it but it's also pretty obvious, right?
https://time.com/6297101/barbie-oppenheimer-box-office-hollywood/
It's hard to measure Nolan's past, pre-pandemic box office numbers with what Oppenheimer did because the landscape is so different now but there really isn't a lot of precedent for a looong "talking-in-rooms-biopic" being the third highest grossing movie of the year. Sure, they phenomenon that was "Barbenheimer" boosted both of their numbers but Oppenheimer was the clear beneficiary.
Am I the only one who got so distracted from Freddie’s coughing that I couldn’t even finish the podcast? It was so constant and interrupted his speaking that I couldn’t focus or listen at all.
Ethan says that “perhaps it’s just human nature” to root for the underdog. I don’t think this is true, I think it’s a relative(-to-the-span-of-human-history-)ly new phenomenon. Two books that have really shaped my thinking on this are “Dominion” by Tom Holland (about the Christianization of Western culture) and “The WEIRDest People in the World” by Joseph Henrichs (about the ways in which modern Western culture is alien from history and other modern cultures). Romans watching gladiators fight lions weren’t rooting for the underdog.
Good conversation, though, I like when Freddie’s on.
Happy to say I don’t get it. It’s not because of politics or perspective although I happily admit I think Freddie’s are childish and obtuse.
The real problem is that Freddie is boring. He says the most cliched and silly paeans to the old ways and Ethan thinks they’re smart and revelatory.
Everyone has a few blind spots: this is Ethan’s. I’d rather listen to a five hour play-by-play analysis of a cricket match than Freddie.
freddie also can’t go one sentence without clearing his throat and it’s an awful listen
He clears his throat five times in one reply. After a while, I'll I heard were the throat clears and it started to drive me insane.
I normally listen at 3X speed, so any verbal tics usually go unnoticed. This was a HARD listen. So much throat clearing!
He probably has to clear his throat for some reason and it's outside of his control. Also, statements like this are just mean spirited.
I didnt say anything mean. it's factual that he couldn't stop clearing his throat and it made it an awful listen to me, others I'm sure didn't mind it. I didn't attack his character or even say that I disagreed with things he said.
I have so many thoughts on this I don't know where to start. Big ticket cultural products are obviously exhausted to the point where it's beyond I think we take it for granted. The relentless repetition, the over-reliance on well known IP, the focus on meta-storytelling, the reliance on multiverses to keep franchises churning, the degradation of effects that make movies look real.
Seriously, how often do you watch a movie and think "these special effects suck!"?
The ideological capture is an interesting point. Normally I don't think you could say it's problem for business, but there's so many other problems that if you really shouldn't give customers more reasons to not pay premiums for your product.
Hi Ethan I do hope you respond to this or at least read it. FDB had a long history of antisemitism both in the past (a tablet magazine article from 2015 specifically names him as a type of left wing antisemitism) as well as his recent writings about Israel. Specifically recently, he has refused to actualy condemn Hamas because he says “it’s so obvious they operate outside his beliefs that it goes without saying that he disagrees with them.” I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough. This is the largest killing of Jews outside of the holocaust and he can’t be bothered to show an ounce of empathy. Furthermore, he is obsessed with the idea of a non Jewish Israel. Here’s the problem, he’s not an idiot, he knows that if Israel does not exist to protect Jews, we’re going to get 10/7 again and again and again. And honestly given his history it’s hard to say that he doesn’t want that. Furthermore, the fact he’s more worried about college students who did something stupid (and also very very poor taste) than babies who were tortured and burned alive is also very telling.
Now, I am a big believer in free speech and not canceling anyone, but I want to ask you why you haven’t called him out on any of this when you platform him on your substack. It’s incredibly disappointing and feels like you’re more interested in having someone you think is internet cool give you attention then actually doing something difficult. I am a big fan of your work, but this feels like a missed oppertunity.
This conflation of Israel and Jews, similar to conflating Hamas and Palestinians, feels even more antisemitic than anything FdB has written.
First of all, how am I conflating Israel with Jews? All the examples were either about Jews as a whole, or about issues concerning safety of Jews in Israel, not any kind of policy disagreement. Secondly, as your point does a great job illustrating, trying to hide anti semitism behind “oh I don’t hate Jews just Israel” is an incredibly common dogwhistle. If this was truly the case why have we seen so much worldwide antisemitism after these events, where people are talking about Jews not the policies of Israel.
Freddie is simply incorrect about wage growth in the 21st century. Median real wages in the US are up significantly over the past 23 years: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
"Wages haven't grown in years" is one of those stats that was kind of true right after the Great Recession, but then stopped being true over a decade ago. But people like Freddie have not updated their narratives to match the facts.
Freddie de Boer is Malcolm Gladwell for Millennials.
Ta-Nehisi Coates for neckbearded white dudes who home brew mead and call soccer “football” in an American accent.
This doesn't sound like a compliment haha...
Depends on how you feel about Malcolm Gladwell (or Millennials for that matter). I think the comparison holds either way.
I love Freddie and Ethan conversations. Two quick things... Newspapers didn’t necessarily giveaway their stuff for free on the internet because they wanted to, Googles market power probably dictated it: https://open.substack.com/pub/mattstoller/p/googles-war-on-publisher-paywalls?r=2gsooz&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Secondly, Ethan’s woke cudgel for Hollywoods issues is and has been a function of market power, which is what Freddie touched on. I strongly recommend this piece from 2019: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-slow-death-of-hollywood
I’m a big fan of Ethan and Freddie but Freddie is badly over his skis when talking about how business works. In particular, he seems to use the phrase “market rate” to mean “what feels fair to me”, when it’s actually a technical term relating to supply and demand curves. (And I promise you that Netflix et al are not in the habit of charging a rate below what they think the market will bear.)
Ben Thompson would be a much better guest to talk about streaming economics.
Listened to this episode last night. Overall I enjoyed it but as a fan of Reason I do have to take issue with FDB’s take on their coverage of Israel as seen here:
https://reason.com/2023/10/26/palestinian-americans-are-americans-too/
And here:
https://reason.com/2023/10/25/ron-desantis-palestinian-students-censorship-free-speech-israel/
And here:
https://reason.com/2023/10/16/blaming-hamas-shouldnt-mean-ignoring-the-palestinians-plight/
There’s a few other examples as well but don’t want to be accused of being Matt Welch’s sock puppet account
Perhaps more interesting than the squabbling over who is more counter-cultural/oppressed, whether it's the nation of Israel or Palestine, The Free Press or FdB, the soon-to-be-millionaire Jewish students at Harvard or the soon-to-be millionaire anti-Zionist students at Harvard, the people getting tenure now for their Critical Decolonial studies publications or the the people who already have tenure for their Critical Feminist studies publications, would be an exploration as to why, 2500 years after the Melian Dialogue and two generations after Gen-X, the currency of victimization is the collectively agreed upon metric of authority. Although perhaps Zizek has totally cornered that block of the discourse.
“Why Freddie plans to soon retire from his Substack”
Because he only chose Substack because the alternative was manual labor? Because the idea of customer service is anathema to him? I truly am curious but my goodwill is all used up. I can’t even bear to listen to his pompous prolixity.