Tangle - The Sunday Podcast: Isaac and Ari talk about Wisconsin and Alabama, if Biden did drop out, and porn (really).

Episode Date: February 25, 2024

On this week's episode: Isaac and Ari talk about Ari's the news out of Wisconsin and Alabama, if Biden should drop out of the race and who could replace him, Isaac's Friday subscribers-onl...y piece on porn and its effects on children and young adults, and as always, the Airing of Grievances.You can check out our latest YouTube video where we tried to build the most electable president ever ⁠here⁠ and our interview with Bill O’Reilly ⁠here⁠.You can⁠⁠ subscribe to Tangle by clicking here⁠⁠ or drop something⁠⁠ in our tip jar by clicking here.⁠⁠ Today’s clickables: Story selection is challenging (1:09), Wisconsin and Alabama (5:50), Biden loan story (16:41), The Ezra Klein piece on why Biden should drop out and our thoughts (19:34), Who would replace Biden? (32:35), Discussing Isaac's Friday subscriber-only piece on porn and its effects on children and young adults (38:42), The Airing of Grievances (54:24)The response to our ⁠⁠first-ever Tangle Live event⁠⁠ was better than we could have imagined and we're excited to announce we're running it back on ⁠⁠Wednesday, April 17th in New York City!⁠⁠ We'll be gathering the Tangle community at The Loft at City Winery for a conversation between special guests about the 2024 election moderated by founder Isaac Saul with an audience Q&A afterwards. Choose Seated General Admission tickets or VIP Tickets that include a post show meet- and- greet, Tangle merch, and the best seats in the house. ⁠⁠Grab your tickets⁠⁠ fast as this show is sure to sell out!Buy your tickets⁠⁠ here⁠⁠.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:01:05 your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. I'm here with our trusty managing editor, our new podcast co-host, Ari Weitzman. Ari, how are you doing?
Starting point is 00:02:03 I'm all right. A little bit of the sniffles today. So I apologize to anybody's ears who might be offended if my voice starts to get raspy. Hopefully it sounds all right though. How are we doing so far? You sound fine to me, but you're already kind of, you know, you've got the raspy congested Jewish thing going on already and now you're going to throw a cold in the mix too? Settle down. Why don't we just move on? And I was looking for something to use as my grievance this week. So maybe I'll just use the way you introed me and we can circle back. That could be a good one. We can circle back. So this is really interesting. We were just, we were kind of just talking about this on Slack and I decided I want to talk about it on the podcast. I just realized, so it's Friday
Starting point is 00:02:47 or it's Thursday, February 22nd when we're recording this. We were off Monday for President's Day. Great holiday. It doesn't get talked about enough, just a random day off in February because it's George Washington's birthday or something. Let's come back to that too then. A lot to unpack already. I realized that we just had three straight stories. All of our coverage this week was dedicated to investigations, which I think on the one hand is kind of just indicative of where the country's at. On the other hand, it gave me pause. Is this right? Is this what we should be doing? On Tuesday, we covered Fannie Wills' testimony, which is ostensibly tied to the Trump-Georgia election fraud case where she's basically standing trial for this relationship
Starting point is 00:03:40 we had. Then we covered the ruling in the Trump fraud civil suit case where he's being ordered to pay $350 million to the state of New York. And then today we published a story that's about this arrest of the Biden informant. And I'm just like, Jesus Christ, this is where, I mean, I looked back at that and I was like, that is kind of nuts. I mean, and just to put that in perspective, you know, like looking back on our coverage from the last month, you know, from, from just February, we've got foreign policy debates about what to do about the U S troops being killed in Jordan.
Starting point is 00:04:23 We've got the border crisis and my solutions to it, and then the Senate's border bill. We've got social media hearings and the debate about legislation with social media. We've got an appeals court ruling on whether Trump's immune or not, Michigan mom convicted of a mass shooting, Tucker Carlson, Vladimir Putin interview, NATO stuff, an election update, Democrats win the New York third congressional district. So we've got a lot of policy election type stuff, but all of a sudden we just didn't for a full week and it made me feel kind of icky. It reminded me, just you listing what we covered in the last week before breaking down the stuff that we did the month prior reminded me of a comment that you made when we were editing the piece on Trump's civil suit
Starting point is 00:05:11 ruling, which was that you were just feeling exhausted by all this coverage and all of the investigations and prosecutions into Trump and compile the ones about Biden and Hunter. Just felt like a lot. And you were trying to say, you adapted that a little bit in your take about how we really should be focusing on the things that matter the most. And I remember, do you remember what my response to you was when we were arguing about that? Or not arguing, we're just discussing it, was the people to blame the most are the ones who are under investigation.
Starting point is 00:05:43 So on one hand, I would love also to be focusing on policy stuff and news that is really impacting the most people. But what's in the news is in the news because there are investigations into business dealings in Ukraine and everything that Trump's ever done. Not to equate the two, and I think obviously we saw why Biden's case, the most recent one about the FBI informants, different. But certainly Hunter Biden is in the news for reasons related to his behavior. Trump is in the news for reasons related to his behavior. If we're constructing our blame pyramids, the people to blame first are the ones who are behaving in public in the way that's garnering attention in the news media. I like that blame pyramid a lot. I just, I, and I don't think it's our fault. I mean, one of the things we, when we've talked about this before in Tangle and
Starting point is 00:06:37 maybe even on the podcast is, you know, story selection bias and how that, that is an story selection is an act of media bias. And we have to think about the reasons we decide to cover certain things. And we have these different criteria as a team for why we pick certain issues to cover. One of them is just salience, like how many people are talking about this? How dominant is it? And I think the three stories we chose this week were the dominant stories that we're getting. 100%. Yeah. You look across the mainstream media, you look across all the major newspapers, even the alternative media outlets
Starting point is 00:07:11 were all talking about these three issues. But then I just did the little, just the hypothetical thought experiment of take these investigations off the table. What would we have covered this week? And I put this little list in our episode notes. But in Wisconsin, there was, you know, the governor of Wisconsin, one of the most important swing states in the country, just signed new legislative maps into law. Huge story, huge deal.
Starting point is 00:07:38 We had this ruling in Alabama, which I haven't even spent much time reading about because I've been so focused on other stuff, but basically the state Supreme Court effectively declaring frozen embryos like children, huge ruling, I mean, implications for abortion rights. And after that ruling, we see that the Alabama Supreme Court rules that embryos created through in vitro fertilization are considered children. And then two of the state's biggest IVF providers suspend services. So that's a huge story. And then Biden's student loan thing where he forgives another 150,000 people's loans and is also planning to send this email so everybody whose loans were forgiven
Starting point is 00:08:26 knows about a big political story. I mean, these are like real policy debates. And I guess, again, I think we made the right call about what to cover, but it just gave me pause. These feel like almost more important issues. And again, to your point about the blame pyramid, maybe the takeaway is really look at how damaging just these candidates are and the investigations are to what our country's focusing on, where this stuff, this really important stuff is getting drowned out by whether Fannie Willis was dating her special prosecutor before after she hired him, which just sucks.
Starting point is 00:09:06 Yeah. And if there's any one story that could have been bumped, I think that's the one that maybe could have been bumped the most. Obviously, everything has implications. So it's not as if it's a completely irrelevant story and there was a huge amount of coverage on it. And on the other hand, to go with that, you don't want to try to fight story selection bias based on what's being covered so much that you're avoiding the things that you should be talking about because they're so salient in the media. So if we say, you know, this Fannie Willis story doesn't interest us a whole lot. I'd rather talk about Wisconsin. I'd rather talk about Biden student loans, which I don't think had even dropped at that time yet. That's still an exercise of our own bias to say the things that we think should be interesting to other people.
Starting point is 00:09:56 So that's a bit of a tightrope to walk. But let's just say that you could have put any one of those three stories in last week. Which one of those three do you think is most interesting to you? I was literally just going to ask you this question. That was the next thing out of my mouth was asking you. You probably have an answer to it. Okay. How about we both say our answer at the same time? That'll be really fun for listeners to hear. Yeah, let's do it. All right. You ready? Three, two, one. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. I would say, I mean, I think the Wisconsin things may be more important
Starting point is 00:10:33 because it's, I don't want to say more important. I think nationally it has larger implications because it's going to change the balance of Congress, which affects the federal government. Because it's going to change the balance of Congress, which affects the federal government. It's symbolic of where the state is that the Supreme Court and Democratic governor, the state Supreme Court and Democratic governor are sort of leaning a little bit left, looking ahead to 2024. All these signals that maybe this is a favorable thing for Biden. But none of that is the reason why I think it's the most interesting story.
Starting point is 00:11:06 Why do you think it's the most interesting? That these maps were voted more approvingly by the Republican legislature. Because Wisconsin currently has a Republican-controlled legislature, and that's part of what inspired this change from Governor Evers of Wisconsin, the Democratic governor, where it says that he was the one who recommended these maps himself, which is also an interesting detail. But the fact that Republicans are more enthusiastic about it, this map that benefits Democrats than Democrats are, is interesting. It sort of speaks optimistically to the bipartisan nature of fixing gerrymandering. But then you dig into why and Republicans are saying, well, it's the best of all the bad outcomes. All of these maps are bad. They're bad for not just us, but the people of Wisconsin. Democrats are saying, this is a map that doesn't get the most benefit to us of the ones that were out there.
Starting point is 00:12:01 Only four Democrats joined Evers at the bill signing process. They were not enthused about this bill. So it seems like both sides are kind of lukewarm about it, which is probably indicative of it being a good solution and maybe a good, like a lot of interesting detail to dig into for why it was a good solution and maybe how it could be replicated. That is very interesting. I did not, I mean, again, I hadn't read much about that, but basically what happens to me is like whatever stories we're covering, I just get so immersed in and I'm spending so much time with that I almost have blinders on to the things that are happening outside of that. So it's like I was tangentially aware that this was happening and did not pick up on the nuance of that. That does make it a lot
Starting point is 00:12:46 more interesting to me and maybe something that is more deserving of the tangled treatment. I guess my perspective about the IVF thing was it felt so much newsier. There's a state Supreme Court that's saying that frozen embryos are getting the same rights as children or deserving of the same rights as children effectively. And again, I have not read the court case, but it sounded really interesting. I mean, this is from the NBC News article about it, that the court determined on February 16th that the clinic's failure to secure a storage area violated the state's Wrongful Death Act, which says an unjustified or negligent act that leads to someone's death is a civil offense because the frozen embryos killed by negligence of this clinic. To me, honestly, part of me is interested in this because I think it's the rational extension of a lot of pro-life views. I mean, one of the things that frustrates me sometimes about pro-life positions or people
Starting point is 00:13:58 in the pro-life movement is they just sort of draw these arbitrary lines that are politically convenient. Whereas this is like, I think, if you're going to take this pro-life position, this is kind of the place with really conservative laws about abortion. But the state Supreme Court doing this is no joke. And it makes me wonder if this is kind of a new battleground. I think politically for Republicans, to be clear, this is terrible. It's an awful position to stake out. I mean, they're losing on this issue already. losing on this issue already, I think starting to file like civil lawsuits about wrongful deaths for what happens to embryos is not politically going to play very well. Maybe it will in certain places in Alabama, but, um, you know, already there, this clinic is shutting down. So these
Starting point is 00:14:59 women who are very pro life and probably want to have kids and are trying to use these clinics to get pregnant are now being deprived of that opportunity because of this ruling. So it's sort of like this counterproductive thing. But yeah, that struck me as the story that I saw and I was like, oh, holy shit, we need to cover that. And then it just didn't get in. So I think that would have been my pick for that reason. at. And then it just didn't get in. So I think that would have been my pick for that reason. I don't think I agree fully with some of the things that he said. I don't think I agree necessarily that this is the logical conclusion of having a pro-life argument. I think there's lots of ways you can still believe that an embryo is a human life, which I know we've talked about before. We sort of agree on what that means. We don't believe. I think it's fair to say we both don't see an embryo as equivalent to a human life. But I don't think believing that it is means that you have to legislate it to the fullest possible way if you have an ethic that tries to be pragmatic about it and say we want to prevent as many as
Starting point is 00:16:06 possible. And the more that we pursue a policy that is really, really strict, the less we're able to accomplish a goal of trying to minimize abortions. I think it's okay to have that pragmatic philosophy. And I also don't know if I agree that it's going to be too consequential in the long run. Alabama, I think, already has a federal precedent and still furthering a state of stalemate in terms of what defines a human life. Yeah, I mean, maybe not consequential on the national level, but if five states in the South sort of, you know, if this lawsuit invites other people to make similar challenges and the result is these IVF clinics shutting down or these states starting to draw hard lines about viewing an embryo as equivalent to human life and deserving of all the same rights and liberties and stuff. That to me seems, I mean, that could get really interesting and kind of nutty from a lawsuit perspective and all the stuff that kind of pops up as an extension of that. Again, politically, I think terrible for the Republican Party, the opposite direction they should be heading. Yeah, we agree there. Yeah, but like, you know, and I mean, of course,
Starting point is 00:17:38 that's a subjective thing. I also think like all the data just shows that even the fall of Roe v. Wade sort of out of step with how a lot of Americans feel about abortion. And this is so much further down that road in terms of restrictions. So I don't know. Super interesting story. I think maybe we'll have to cover one of these next week, maybe on Monday. Again, I'd be partial to the Alabama story, but I think the Wisconsin one has a lot of juice too in a lot of ways. sort of think this isn't going to be that, or even if it is a big deal, him, the story, the headline being that Biden is sending an email to everybody saying, I just canceled your loans. And whether or not that's fair, whether or not that's going too far, or whatever you want to say about it, I think my reaction is summed up by something that Mark Joseph Stern said at the live
Starting point is 00:18:43 event that we did in Philadelphia last summer, which was in response to this claim of Republicans blocked Supreme Court appointments before the election in 2016. That motivated people to go out and vote for Trump. And that was unfair. That was breaking norms. And it was so disruptive. How could they then hypocritically say that they should ask for an extension of the opposite policy when it comes to the end of Trump's term, saying, no, we should appoint these seats now. We can't boot on them. And Mark Joseph Stern essentially said, that's politics. Henry Olson said the same thing. It's just, yeah, okay, there might've been a standard, but if you're in control, you use whatever levers you can to further your agenda. I think it's brilliant, honestly. It's good politics.
Starting point is 00:19:36 It is. It's Trumpian politics. This is what Trump is so good at, is talking directly to people, taking credit for things. It's all the stuff that Biden and his team have just sucked at. They do things that are genuinely popular when people hear about them, the child tax credit or the infrastructure bill, stuff that has bipartisan support in a lot of spaces that the majority of Americans support. And then you see this polling on like, do Americans know about this bill or this policy? And it's the vast majority still don't. And what Trump was so good at was that communication element. He just dominated the media attention. He has a simple way of talking about things. He put his name on the STEMI checks that went out to people. And to me, this is that. It's like,
Starting point is 00:20:24 put his name on the stimmy checks that went out to people. And to me, this is that. It's like, Biden's going to email everybody whose loans he forgave. That's really smart politics. 150,000 people who are going to tell five friends they got that email. And you have like a million people here about this policy now. So I think it's really smart politics. I know there are people freaking out about it. But it's like, to me, it's him basically mimicking some of the tactics Trump used. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. break. Speaking of Biden, I know this thing that we want to talk about that came up in a reader question this week. You and I, I sense, had some disagreement that I think is maybe worth poking at, but also I think it's just a really interesting concept. And I'm more and more on board the more I think about it, which was this Ezra Klein monologue basically calling for Joe Biden to drop out of the race. For those of you who didn't listen to it
Starting point is 00:21:32 or didn't see the reader question this week or hear it in the podcast, basically Ezra Klein made the case that Joe Biden's a good president in his view, that he's done a lot of good for the country, as there's obviously lifelong Democrat, liberal, progressive, whatever you want to call him. He's got left of center views. I think he's very pragmatic. And so I'm not surprised to hear him make the case that Biden's been a really good president. But he sort of lays out this distinction that he's capable of being a good president and leading the country, but he's not up for campaigning for president heading into 2024, which I thought was an
Starting point is 00:22:11 interesting distinction to start. And then he effectively fleshes out this argument of why he thinks Biden should drop out. And I want to be careful not to overstate the significance of this, And I want to be careful not to overstate the significance of this, but also not to understate it. Ezra Klein's a really important person, I think, in left politics. And a lot of people listen to him. His podcast is under the New York Times banner. It's super popular. It's probably their second most popular podcast behind The Daily.
Starting point is 00:22:44 People in the political orbit are talking about this. Every like insidery newsletter that I follow and, you know, politics journalists who I follow, everybody's talking about this. So people inside the Biden administration are definitely talking about this. And I think he sort of pushed an idea and fleshed out a real actual tangible plan for how Biden steps aside and someone else comes in. I found it pretty compelling. I mean, he made the argument that basically he's down in the polls. You listen to his speech in Gettysburg from a month ago and compare it to his speech four years ago when he launched his 2020 campaign,
Starting point is 00:23:32 there's a totally different energy to it. And Democrats could dominate the media, the earned media attention by sending this to the convention and letting the circus go on and having days or weeks of nonstop attention on their party, on the people coming up in their party, the bench behind Biden. Let them fight it out. Let them give speeches. Let them make a case. Then you have this sort of electric delegate vote where we pick the candidate and you go into the convention not knowing who it's going to be. And then the candidates come out. And then you get to say, hey, look, here's somebody who's not Biden, who's not Trump, fresh face, probably a younger candidate, and go into an election where they have a very limited amount of time to kind of get all the opposition research. Republicans have a
Starting point is 00:24:17 limited amount of time to get all the opposition research to put them through the conservative media ringer. And the person comes out with a Biden endorsement, surely. So I don't know. I think it's still very unlikely and unrealistic, but he pitched it in a way that made it sound plausible and smart to me, which surprised me a little bit. Yeah, I think it's a good argument. I think he presented it in a really good way. And I think the novel thing that he introduced was this ability to say, if you're a left-leaning person, Biden's a good president. He's capable of being a good president. He's not capable of being a good president and campaigning. That's too much. That's a new idea, I think, that he introduced with that podcast. The problem with it to me, the pivotal moment is that it doesn't really matter how many Democrats or left-leaning people hear that argument and are compelled by it. It only
Starting point is 00:25:12 matters if one person does, which is Biden, because it rests on this point of this is why Biden should drop out. Okay, what if he doesn't? The rest of this is kind of moot. I'll ask you, so what if he doesn't? What do you think we do with the rest of his argument about trying to nominate somebody at the convention? What should delegates do if Biden says that he still wants to run? I mean, I think the delegates need to, they're bound to cast ballots for the candidate who wins the primary in their state. So like, you know, faithless electors are a thing. There are various reasons throughout history that people have done that. And I think maybe there are appropriate times to do that, but very, very, very, very limited. So I think, yeah, if Biden doesn't step aside and he wins the primary, which he's surely going to do, then they need to make him the candidate. I guess it's like, I hope he steps aside maybe is my wishful thinking is sort of where I come. I mean, this isn't a big secret. Like, again, we have this policy of not endorsing candidates. This is not some Trump endorsement, obviously. I've just said in the newsletter before, I would much prefer if neither of these
Starting point is 00:26:31 candidates were the candidates in the race. If I could press a button and make that happen and watch whoever wins an open primary on the Republican and Democratic side without Trump or Biden in the mix go against each other, I would press that button 10 times out of 10. So I think it's an interesting proposal because despite the fact that Biden is going to win the primary, I think it's been structured in a way and the party has coalesced around him in a way where this isn't a real primary. Biden isn't running against Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or Kamala Harris. Or even RFK. Yeah, or even RFK. He's running against Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson and Cornel West. This isn't a real primary. So, you know, respect to Dean. We had him on the show. I thought he gave a very good moderate pitch. I think in an actual open primary, he could maybe even get some
Starting point is 00:27:22 traction. He's getting obliterated. He's laying off staff, whatever. Respect to Marianne Williamson. She keeps stepping into these races with a very specific, idealistic, I think, vision for the country. I disagree with her on a ton of policy stuff, but she seems like a really awesome person. She's like a humanist. She cares. I respect where she's coming from. She's already dropped out of the race. It's February. She's like a humanist. She cares. I respect where she's coming from. She's already dropped out of the race. It's February. It's over. So there's no real primary happening. Given that, I think it's worth throwing it out there that there is something about this process that is not very democratic. And so if a bunch of electors went rogue because they were like, Biden is not fit, they'd have some sort of argument to stand on. But ultimately,
Starting point is 00:28:10 it's up to voters to make that call. And voters have picked Biden in a lot of ways. And so I think he's going to be the candidate. But yeah, you're right. It doesn't happen unless he steps down. So I don't think that's going to happen. If I were pitching Biden on stepping down, I think my pitch would be basically what Ezra Klein said, which is you got a lot done that you wanted to get done. You did some things you promised. One of the core promises of your candidacy in 2020 was that you were going to be a bridge to the next generation. You are going to be 86 at the end of your term if you go through with this. And the worst thing, the thing that could destroy whatever legacy you have would be sticking it out, not being fit for this campaign and the job,
Starting point is 00:29:01 and losing to Trump, which was the whole reason that you ran for president allegedly in the first place. Whereas think about how different your legacy would be if you said, I'm going to pass the baton. And even if the person you pass the baton to loses, you're still being respectful of the fact that, you know, a lot of people are really concerned and don't, the majority of the country and the majority of Democrats don't feel like you're in a place to do this again. And you get to say, I hear those people and I'm going to respond to it. And as you're giving that pitch to the president,
Starting point is 00:29:36 you make sure that you have a big picture behind you of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just to drive the point home about legacy. You bring up another picture that's just the polls that show this is you versus Trump. See how these lines are really, really close to each other. And then you bring up the poll that says this is Trump versus generic Democrat. And you see how these lines are very, very far apart. And then you let Mr. Generic Democrat run. Yeah. I mean, I do actually think that the RBG thing is kind of potent. I mean, really,
Starting point is 00:30:07 like she did, there are people, lifelong feminists, progressives, whatever, who idolized her and now loathe her because of what happened in the wake of her basically gutting it out. When there were people like Obama and other people around her urging her to step down so they could fill her seat with someone who shared her worldviews and jurisprudence. And it didn't happen. And it was a huge gift to the right. I think that's a totally fair comparison. I would say the one caveat to all this, which I didn't really talk about in the... I didn't address fully in the reader question because there's just not a lot of space to do that. But I do think it should be said. One thing that I maybe... And this is just occurring to me
Starting point is 00:30:54 now that Ezra maybe is not totally right about is this idea that Biden is losing the election. I understand he's down in the polls, but we have talked about this. We did this whole piece on it after the elections a couple of weeks ago. Democrats are dominating electorally, and they have been for the last four years. And that's not an opinion. That's not a take. It's just the reality. They've won almost every contested special election. They picked up a Senate seat in 2022. They crushed the red wave that never came. And now they're close to basically being in a 50-50 split in the House.
Starting point is 00:31:41 And they're almost certainly going to pick up House seats in 2024 and take the majority back, regardless of what happens with the presidential election. They're in a position of strength. And also, by the way, Biden is crushing Trump in fundraising. The Democratic Party and Biden as a whole have way more money, and they're raising way more money, which is generally a sign of enthusiasm. So, you know, a couple split polls that are showing 50-50 or maybe Trump up by a point or two, There's also polls showing Biden winning that get way less press coverage for reasons that I think are self-evident. But, you know, I don't necessarily buy Ezra's argument that Biden is losing right now or that he's the underdog in the race. he's the underdog in the race. What I do buy is that he doesn't look up for it and he doesn't feel up for it and that voters are going to have a big issue with that. And that's a huge risk. That's just as big as all the legal threats and Trump insanity that's going to come into play. It's just like, I think I'm a pretty normal dude
Starting point is 00:32:45 and I try to be open-minded and I look at Joe Biden and I'm like, he doesn't look great. And this is prom queen as much as it is policy voters. And this is not a great candidate for prom queen. And that's important for people to keep in mind right so and to clarify i think that that may be a term of art just making sure that people know what you mean by that by prom queen you mean just like candidate appeal popularity contest yeah it's a popularity contest right and in that regard so as i mentioned, that the poll that shows generic Democrat wins in this election,
Starting point is 00:33:26 if you were the grand king, Mr. Normal Dude of the DNC, who do you run as the most generic Democrat? Or alternatively, the person that you think has the best chance of not losing voters or of winning against Trump? It's a good question. I am cautious to make a, yeah. It's not about making an endorsement. It's about saying something that maybe opens up a whole other can of worms. I mean, I would say if I were the, I mean, this is fine. We can do a hypothetical. If I were the DNC chair and got into my head I had to pick somebody off the Democratic bench to replace Biden to beat Trump, I would pick Gavin Newsom. I think he comes with a lot of baggage because there's a California thing that people think California sucks and is a terrible state of baggage because there's like a California thing that people think California
Starting point is 00:34:26 sucks and is like a terrible state. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about the things that are wrong with California and why it's broken. And also California by a lot of metrics is actually doing extremely well. I think he would have zero chance of picking up the kind of Trump-right Republican voters, but he doesn't need those. I've seen Gavin Newsom go on Fox News and sit across from Sean Hannity and defend Biden's record. And he's way better at it than any other candidate I've seen, except for maybe like Pete Buttigieg, who has like nothing close to the experience that I think is necessary. Gretchen Whitmer would be great. I think a governor, I say this because it's somebody with executive experience. I mean,
Starting point is 00:35:12 Gavin Newsom can say, I've been running a state with the sixth largest economy in the world or whatever it is for however long he's been in office and I'm qualified. I think Gretchen Whitmer is fairly popular in a swing state and would be a great person to run. I think there'd be a lot of enthusiasm about the first female president. I think that would be a smart political play. She could actually win, I think, some independent and Republican voters. She's not super progressive. Either one of them would be my pick, but Gavin Newsom has gone through the media ringer. I've seen it happen. And seriously, if you're interested in this, go just YouTube Gavin Newsom, Sean Hannity.
Starting point is 00:35:58 I mean, he goes into Sean Hannity's show and I'm not saying he's right about anything. I'm just saying the optics of it, the politics of it, he mops Hannity. And from my perspective, it's not particularly close. He defends California's record. He defends Biden's record. He's prepared for all the gotcha questions. And they're buddy-buddy, and they seem to have a pretty cordial relationship. But he's on Hannity's turf. He's on Fox News in a show with Hannity. He's got his producers. He's got the earpiece in. He's got the notes. And I mean, I think basically Gavin Newsom cooks him. And so that to me alone is enough to think that he would be really good on the debates. He'd be really good getting introduced to the country. But he comes with some baggage too, which is,
Starting point is 00:36:49 I mean, every politician does who's been around for a while. So it could go south for sure. Which is why there's no such thing as a generic politician in the first place. But yeah, I do think it's interesting how friendly they are. It's how cordial Hannity and Newsom are. I think that's kind of refreshing to have. I think people like that. I do too. I mean, they have a way of talking to each other. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back.
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Starting point is 00:37:55 Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. That, I think, encapsulates the way some of the respectful disagreement could and should happen.
Starting point is 00:38:17 I think, I mean, Hannity is a performance artist. Most of the, all the Fox News primetime hosts are at this point. Most primetime hosts are. So, you know, he puts on an act a little bit that like he's in a persona on those shows. I know people and I've heard from people who interact with him privately and he's a lot more moderate politically than he puts on on his show is basically what I've heard. And he acts like a little bit of a blowhard every now and then, which is frustrating because I think he has such a big influence in platform. But I think the way he acts with Hannity is indicative of the fact that he doesn't view the largest democratic state governor as the epitome of evil.
Starting point is 00:39:04 He's their friends, and it comes through when they talk to each other and argue. But yeah, I don't know. I saw that and it had a very big impact on me and how I viewed Gavin Newsom. And I think regardless of what happens this year, if I were a betting man, he'd be my odds-on favorite as the Democratic nominee in 2028. I think he could run a really good campaign. Or he could end up like Ron DeSantis and just all the hype doesn't survive once he gets put in front of the national public. I guess we'll have to wait and see because I don't think it's going to happen this year. Like you said, I don't think Biden's ultimately going happen this year. Like you said, I don't think Biden's
Starting point is 00:39:45 ultimately going to step aside. I would take the field in 2028 personally. I think when it comes to other attractive alternatives, I think Pete Buttigieg is still somebody that a lot of people like for good reason. And I know that he's been not in the public eye as head of the Department of Transportation under Biden, except for the train derailment in Ohio, which wasn't exactly good press for him. But I think once he gets, he's a great campaigner. And I think once he gets back on the trail, that'll come out again. And I also think five years is a long time. out again. And I also think five years is a long time. Again, we're talking about a hypothetical for 2024, which is very unlikely to happen with Biden dropping out. And if we're just prognosticating about 2028, it's a little bit of what we're doing. There's a lot of people that we aren't talking about or that we aren't even aware of who I'm sure are going to have their moment in the spotlight between now and then. Definitely. All right. I want to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about porn. Fun.
Starting point is 00:41:02 We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. Before we get out of here and do our grievances and all that and wrap up, I mean, I think one of the purposes of this podcast is to give some podcast listeners some insight into the Friday members-only additions that we push out in the newsletter. And I mentioned this actually in the newsletter, but I didn't bring it up on the podcast today, but we're doing something by the time you guys hear this, it'll be out already on Friday, doing something a little bit different than usual, which is I'm writing this piece about pornography. And this has been interesting. This is like a real, ethnography. And this has been interesting. This is like a real... First of all, it's been fun.
Starting point is 00:41:52 It's an originally reported piece. I spoke to a few different people for the story. We're going to have three people quoted in it. Did a bunch of research on my own and emailed some folks and got some questions responded to. I kind of came into it not really sure whether I was interested in this topic or not, but I've left sort of feeling like it's really important and it's definitely going to touch the political world. It already has in a lot of ways, but I think it will in a more meaningful way very shortly because there's a lot of people pushing to regulate the porn industry. And I sort of got convinced that they're right, that this is like an actual issue that should be thought about the way we think about fast food and social media and like a commerce, a product that's out there that has a lot of risks and a lot of harm and is addictive and dangerous for children and people of all ages. And there need to be more
Starting point is 00:42:47 conversations about it, which sort of surprised me. It wasn't how I expected to feel going in. So the focus for you then is more on public health for the people consuming the product of pornography and less on the production and health and, I guess, morality standpoint of the people that are producing it. Totally. And it's interesting to talk about it now because Ari actually hasn't seen this draft. Not yet. Yeah, I've been working on it sort of on my own for a few weeks, a couple months now. But yeah, I mean, the way it was positioned to me by some researchers that I took, that I accepted the framework for was just that, that this isn't about, it's not about how the industry works. It's not about, this particular story is not about safety
Starting point is 00:43:42 in the industry. It's not about the morality of porn. This isn't a religious thing. These are all really secular people. They're research-based. And they're really adamant about that because the kind of anti-porn movement is typically coming from religious nonprofits and groups and things like that. These are sociologists who are saying that the research that we've done all falls into one bucket, which is that this is really harmful for kids. And it's basically fucking up the sexual development of America's teenagers
Starting point is 00:44:15 and young adults, specifically with men and boys. Some of the stuff that I learned that I didn't really know about is now today, the average age of, uh, of a boy who views pornography for the first time is nine to 11 years old. Really? That shocked me. And, and one of the things the researcher said to me that was really resonant for me was like, this isn't your dad's porn anymore. I'm 32. And when I was a teenager, I was looking at Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions or stealing a Playboy or something. And the way that it got described to me, that really resonated with me was you open that magazine and there's this finite thing. There's 40 pictures you can look at and you spend an hour with it and you're a teenage boy going through puberty and then it's over and it's done and you've seen the magazine and whatever. What we have today is like terabytes and terabytes, unlimited porn on the internet that's not accessible just like hiding in your
Starting point is 00:45:27 room with a magazine you stole or whatever, but is accessible on your phone, on your iPad, on your computer at school. Anywhere you have an internet connection, basically you can get to it. It's interactive. There's like OnlyFans, there's these like live video chats. there's like only fans there's these like live video chats it's like specifically caters to any kind of fantasy you want so you can find basically anything with like a google search and then all the free sites these like the whatever she was saying one of the research i spoke to is saying like all the free kind of like pornhubub.com, whatever, the stuff that they primarily feature is like violent porn. It's like hardcore. There isn't like you go to Pornhub.com now,
Starting point is 00:46:14 which I would never, ever do. And it's not medium core, soft core porn on the homepage. It's all hardcore porn or what would have been considered a core porn on the homepage. It's all hardcore porn or what would have been considered hardcore porn 10 years ago. And so that is the stuff that these kids are getting interested in. And then they have five or six years. This was the other really interesting thing. So nine to 11 is this average age of when they view porn for the first time. But the average age for first sexual contact is still like 16, 17,
Starting point is 00:46:49 the same as it's been for a really long time. That's, you know, the average age that these kids start, whatever, having actual sex or oral sex or whatever it is. And so they have this five or six year window where their entire sexual template is being developed by porn and not real physical interactions
Starting point is 00:47:06 with other people. So when that starts, their whole world is like the shit that they see on porn websites. And I never thought about it like that. And then it was explained to me and I was like, that seems really bad, like really, really bad. And I'm not some prude about this stuff, but I was like, I think anybody can understand why that's really dangerous. So I see the parallels pretty clearly between having something that is infinitely accessible and dangerous for a usability pattern with social media. I see the parallels also, even with drug access, where somebody who sees themselves as very laissez-faire, either libertarian or socially liberal, might say, I don't want to criminalize
Starting point is 00:47:51 or demonize usage, but I also can see that there's a limit to how much usage would be good for a person. And those parallels all make sense to me. The thing that seems challenging is this idea of we have to protect the children. And that's something that always makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up a bit. Because doing things in the name of protecting children tends to always come with unintended consequences. Not too long ago, we ran a piece in the Sunday from a reader who was writing about letting children play outside by themselves and how, as a result of stories about human trafficking and abduction and stranger danger, a lot of parents have become hypervigilant towards seeing a child by themselves and seeing that as abnormal and bad and dangerous. Whereas if you're same age range, if you're 8 to 11, being outside on a playground unsupervised for 10, 30 minutes is probably a good thing. I know when I was a kid growing up, I could go outside and my parents would tell me, just come back when the streetlights turn on. I would be unsupervised. I'd be going around to different houses, knocking on doors, seeing who was out around my age group to just go outside and play with and then go play release at night and do a bunch of stuff by myself without parent
Starting point is 00:49:10 supervision or just with other kids. And the question then comes to me with porn of if this is something where access like this does seem like a danger and usage in a way that's habitual does seem like it would be bad. And development of an idea of what normal sexual behavior is would seem to be skewed, if that's what you're basing it on. But I wonder how many kids are actually using it to that degree where it is harming the way that they're interpreting normal behavior. Is that something that you explore? Yeah. So we talk about the scale of the problem, which I would say that element of it definitely
Starting point is 00:49:57 surprised me. I did not realize how vast the porn industry has become. One of the stats that I found that I was kind of pointed to is that porn websites now get more visits than Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter combined. And 30% of all the data that's transferred across the internet now is porn. There's some sources related to this. There was like a, what was interesting about this was there was an infographic I found that was from a porn website that was citing all these statistics as a way of being like,
Starting point is 00:50:38 everybody watches porn. You should too. It was like a promotional thing. And when I saw it, I was like, that doesn't seem good. That's like a big issue. In terms of how many kids, you know, like adolescents, whatever, are viewing porn, I got some, ran into some frustrating roadblocks on that because I asked questions about it. And one of the common answers that these researchers I spoke to gave was, we don't have good data because A, kids aren't liable to share whether they watch porn or not.
Starting point is 00:51:15 That's not you. You ask a 13-year-old boy that, he's not going to give you an honest answer or be interested in talking about it. B, we're sort of on the cutting edge of the research side of it. So what a few of these researchers, the sociologists I spoke to said was, we're about to see in the next few years, this huge wave of peer-reviewed papers and stuff that are going to come down. They have some now and they talk about what their research says now. And we talk about that in the piece, but they're like, this is a growing, one of these women has been researching and writing about this for 40 years. And she was like, we are just at a tipping point now where this is becoming like a mainstream issue. And it's not just being dismissed as, you know, religious prudes,
Starting point is 00:52:01 whatever, who are worried about it. So in terms of the scale among kids or what percentage of kids, I don't remember having hard numbers in my notes. And if I do, I haven't gotten to them yet as I'm writing it out. And it's possible that's in the article. But if I remember correctly from the interviews, that was one of those questions that I broached where the response was like, this is one of the issues we have is, you know, we're just, we, we don't have great data and we don't have great visibility into the scale of the problem aside from what the porn sites and, you know, internet traffic tracking sites tell us about how many people are consuming this stuff and how often, which is massive. I mean, it's huge. There's more people going to porn sites than Amazon and Twitter
Starting point is 00:52:52 every day. I mean, it's kind of hard to wrap your mind around. So two things also with that. So I'm also wondering how much that's new or different. I think people have made the joke about the internet is for porn ever since it's been around. I remember one of the first... Yeah, Grandpa already describes memes. I remember one of the first memes I ever saw was just somebody opens a laptop for the internet and it has two buttons and it is illegally download music or get porn. And I am curious how much that's changed. So that's not something that I think you have to answer now. I'm sure you get into that in the article. But the other thing that I wonder about is what you've
Starting point is 00:53:39 advanced from the researchers is a theory of unhealthy sexual development. And what I'm curious about is how fleshed out or demonstrated that theory could be. I like this idea of measure the outputs. So if you're concerned about something and you want to gauge the health of a process or of a population, you measure the thing you care about. So if I care about heart health, I don't want to measure obesity. I want to measure heart conditions. That makes the most sense. Otherwise, I'll just find working variables. So if we're concerned about porn affecting sexual development in kids, we should try to get data about sexual development of kids. What do we know about the way kids are developing and is this having an impact?
Starting point is 00:54:26 Yeah. So this is, I'll read you one of the quotes and then I think we should probably wrap just because we're coming up on over an hour here, but this is from Gail Dines, who's a professor of emerita of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College in Boston. And she was the one who I spoke to who's been studying this stuff for like 40 years. She describes herself as a radical feminist. She has a really funny quote actually in the story that I pulled where she gets asked this question of like, oh, are you like an evangelical Christian? And she's like, no, actually, I'm like a radical feminist Jew. And that's how I came to this story. But yeah, she said, what the studies show is that earlier that kids get to it, and the more a boy watches it, the more likely he is to be anxious, depressed, want to try out the things he's seeing in
Starting point is 00:55:25 pornography. The more likely he is to sexually harass girls in his school, the more likely he is to bully girls in the sex thing, the more likely he is to develop premature ejaculation and also have trouble with erections into adulthood. So this is like what she says the studies they've done have bared out. Again, it wasn't something I expected to be totally convinced by when I went into it that it was a big issue, but I think I've been sold on kind of the scale of it. And I think that'll be reflected in sort of the tone and the tenor of the piece tomorrow. Though I did talk, obviously this is Tangle. So I sought out some dissenting opinions, spoke to an adult performer who honestly was more receptive and more open-minded to the perspective of the researchers than I was
Starting point is 00:56:16 expecting and offered some opinions that I thought were really interesting about, you know, how to address it and how we should think about it. But all that stuff's going to be in this Friday edition. If you're listening to this now on Sunday, it's been published. So you should go to readtangle.com and check it out. And it'll be a members-only piece, so you'll have to subscribe to read it. But I think it'll be worth your time. And hopefully we don't get added to the numbers of traffic that indicate people are on the internet for porn yeah that would be nice um all right let's uh let's wrap it up we'll jump into our grievances the airing of grievances
Starting point is 00:57:00 as iran blows upon him i realized there had to be another way do you have a do you have one of your grievances ready i do it's pretty weak tea but i think that's the reason why i should go first i appreciate it i i feel like my my grievance is a little weak to you this week too but i kind of have to get it off my chest because it's been bothering me and this is my safe space to do that. Yeah, it is. Well, so yeah, I wasn't very personally aggrieved this week, but this is a thing that I'm dealing with. I think also this is a really bad way to caveat it. This is more than 50% my fault. So I can't really complain about other people too much. It's on me. I get it. That's a theme of your grievances is that it comes back to being your fault, kind of? Well, I think the more you take ownership for the stuff that goes on in your life,
Starting point is 00:57:52 the happier you'll be. But anyway, so about two years ago, I went to a Frisbee tournament, which is a thing you and I do a lot. And I put my name down as one of the people who would be responsible for the rental cars, which if you've done that, maybe alarm bells are going off in your head. Then I had to go to the airport early. So somebody else returned the car for me again, alarm bells. And he texted me when he did. So everything seemed fine. A couple of weeks later, to me when he did so, everything seemed fine. A couple weeks later, again, this is summer of 2022,
Starting point is 00:58:32 I got an email from some company I've never heard of saying, there's damages to this car that you rented through a car company that I won't name. And I was like, oh, no, there wasn't. I reject that. And I got it through my credit card, so I talked to them. And months went by and they said, well, you have to file a claim with them. So I had to go through these hoops and download all of this information about takeover receipt from the credit cards company saying this is proof that I made this purchase. I purchased it through an intermediary, so I had to get the contract through them as well. I also had to go to the car rental insurance company and get the contract through them. So that's two different proofs of purchase and a third, if you count the credit card, as well as my insurance information, lots of stuff, send it into them to make sure they
Starting point is 00:59:19 can manage the claim. And then I thought, okay, you two are just going to talk. So the people that are representing the car, the car rental company are going to talk to the people representing my credit card, and I'm out of the loop. Months later, I get an email saying, hey, this isn't upload my insurance again as a driver that was insured at the time. So I did that. This is now we're getting into 2023. A lot of things are happening in my life around summer of 2023. I'm changing jobs.
Starting point is 01:00:00 I'm starting to work for this small media organization called Tangle. I'm getting ready to move and sell my house. Things fall off the table a bit. I keep getting emails from the insurance company with the car rental insurance telling me that this claim's open. And I'm like, forget it. Like, if I just wait, you guys, I'm sure are going to figure this out. I don't want to be involved in this. And then it kept getting emails. And I noticed that the emails were not very enforceable with their language. So I thought maybe they're just making a stink and it's going to go away, which again is a red flag. Again, my fault. But it got until this past month when I got another letter in the mail that had to get
Starting point is 01:00:43 forwarded from my previous mailing address to me saying, all right, seriously, now you have 10 days or else we're going to charge you $3,500 since you can go into collections. I was like, all right, I'll see what's going on. Turns out that the insurance that I uploaded, my proof of insurance as a driver, I gave to the credit card company, didn't have the right timeframe. So I had to contact my insurance provider, get proof of insurance for two years ago, download it and send it to them. And hopefully that's enough. This situation is still ongoing, Isaac. So I don't have a resolution yet. I'm sort of stuck between these two companies that should
Starting point is 01:01:25 be talking to each other that have all the information that they need. But I don't know if I'm going to get a bill that says you owe us $3,500 and we're going to garnish your wages unless you pay it immediately, or if they're going to actually be able to discuss with one another. But again, that's kind of my fault. That honestly does not sound like weak tea to me. That would infuriate me. That sounds like something that would make me so frustrated to get, and I would have handled it the exact same way you did. I would have just ignored it for, at some point I would have just said, I'm going to stop responding to these emails. And if there's real money at hand, these people will figure it out.
Starting point is 01:02:07 That's kind of exactly how I was thinking about it. And it has been this source of background anxiety for me for about a year. But I have to say, it kind of reminds me of the SurveyMonkey thing. Yeah. And I was going to bring that up, actually, as the grievance for this week. But I figured it wouldn't be good to aggrieve ourselves with a company that we're working with. So I was leaving that one off the table. Also, that should be my grievance, not your grievance. Well, I'm the one dealing with it currently.
Starting point is 01:02:33 So you delegated it. That's true. Yeah. Survey Monkey's fine. Survey Monkey's fine. We have nothing officially bad to say about it. Okay. So I'll give mine really quick.
Starting point is 01:02:43 This is also sort of a white collar grievance, which maybe that's just like a theme, but it's the theme. I, okay. I hate scheduling meetings with people. Ari knows this. It's one of, it's like one of the team ethos things on Tangle that I bring up every now and then is like, I want, if we're going to do a call or a meeting, I want it to be 15 minutes long. And I've sort of been forced by the realization that sometimes long meeting team meetings are actually necessary that we now have like a standing hour long meeting with Tangle, but it took a really long time for me to do that. And I just like calls are very intrusive for me. They, they break up my day in a way that just makes my work stop and
Starting point is 01:03:27 start. I'm best head down doing research, writing uninterrupted six, eight hours in a row. And when I have a bunch of calls throughout the day, I find myself, my productivity just crashes. So a couple of years ago, after realizing how unbelievably stupid the whole system for making calls in the white collar world is, we're like, you email somebody and they say, oh, I'm free Wednesday, three to five. And you're like, oh, I'm not free that time. What about Thursday, two to four? And they're like, oh, I'm not free that time.
Starting point is 01:03:57 You have like four emails back and forth. And then you schedule something. I was like, I'm going to get a Calendly, which for those people who don't know, Calendly is a great resource app, website, whatever, highly recommend it. You just literally send somebody a link to your schedule. You make the settings you want in your schedule. That person books a time with you. It like auto creates a Zoom and all this stuff. It's so convenient. It's been unbelievably great for me. It's changed my life. That's how I felt about it until like a month ago, because this thing started happening, which I think is a totally insane decorum in this white collar world of
Starting point is 01:04:37 people making Zoom call meetings with each other, is what used to happen is somebody would email you and say, oh, hey, can we, like, I want to chat. I'm so-and-so from this company. I'm interested in talking about this. Do you have a minute to chat? And I say, yeah, sure. Here's my Calendly. I send them the link. They book a time and then we get on. It's like a one email thing. People are doing this. Several people have done this to me now. I hope none of them are listening to this call. They're booking meetings on my Calendly without reaching out to me first. So I just want to say, this is, I think this is like, I don't, I think this crosses a line to me. I'm like, yes. I'm if, if you have a new thing that
Starting point is 01:05:21 you think should be a call, I want the email that's like, hey, we have a new sales pitch for this product. Do you have time to chat? And I say, yeah, sure. Here's my calendar, whatever. But what's happening is I'm seeing meetings pop up on my calendar. And then I'm like, oh, what's this meeting about? And I go look up the email that's associated with the meeting. And I have no emails from this person for like a year and a half. And then I realized that they just booked and I'm going blind into a 25 minute chunk of my day that they've booked that I don't know why I'm spending the time, like what the purpose of the meeting is or why we're talking. And then I have to reach out to the person and say, hey, I saw you booked a time. Like,
Starting point is 01:06:02 what's this about? And oftentimes it's like, oh, I have this new thing I want to present to you or whatever. It's something that should be an email, like the classic, this didn't need to be a meeting. And I'm like, this is insane behavior. Just because you have this link doesn't give you free reign. I want the email first. You seem skeptical of my position here. No, I'm considering it because every time I've ever used a cat only from somebody, that was one of the things they liked about it was, loot me out. If you want to talk to me, just make a meeting. I'll talk to you then. But I'm realizing that every person I'm thinking of has been a coworker within my organization, like a manager or somebody in a different team. So if
Starting point is 01:06:44 I want to talk to them, they're really busy. I put 15 minutes on, they could just show up without having to go through the extra work of trying to organize the time and find when works for both of us. It just takes care of itself. And I wonder in that regard, if there's a way where you can have a setting that says anybody outside my organization, they cannot unilaterally make a meeting. I don't think that setting exists. It would be nice. And to be clear, I agree. If you were to book a meeting with me on my Calendly without saying anything, I would just be like, oh, Ari needs 25 minutes to talk, whatever. That's fine. That's great. If you're outside somebody's organization, email them and ask them to meet before you just go dig up their Calendly link and book a thing.
Starting point is 01:07:28 So what I did, this happened today to me. I got this thing. I got a notification that somebody had booked something on my Calendly. I looked up the email. The last correspondence we had was like seven months ago. There's no context for why they're booking the thing. So I just deleted the meeting immediately and sent them a notification that I canceled it. And then I just waited. And like 10 minutes later, they emailed me and said, Hey, Isaac, like, I want to talk to you about this thing. And I was like, Oh, sure.
Starting point is 01:07:52 Like, here's my Calendly link. You can book a meeting sometime next week. But like in the future, I'd appreciate it if you just like send me an email. So I knew what the meeting was about first. Okay. Well, that I think that's reasonable. I think it's, there's this, I feel like misuse hack of the Calendly tool that managers I've worked with have used where they just book a meeting with themselves every afternoon that recurs for three hours. So nobody can schedule something in that time. And then if they decide they want to talk to somebody, they just move it around. That sounds like it could work, but it also sounds like an unnecessary workaround. That reminds me, that was a detail that I left out.
Starting point is 01:08:27 Now what this has forced me to do is now I'm three weeks ahead on my calendar blocking like two, three hour blocks during the day so people can't book meetings with me. So I've now, it's created like a new work thing for me where I'm like every week at the beginning of the week, I'm just blocking off hour-long blocks throughout the day so nobody can book a meeting because I am so annoyed by the fact that people are abusing the Calendly link, which to me, it's just, I don't know. It undermines the spirit of the, like, reach out, tell me why you need to talk, I can tell you whether I'm interested or not, and then you book a meeting. That's how the thing goes.
Starting point is 01:09:05 It also seems like it undermines the spirit of have a tool that makes things convenient. And if there's just some setting that says external to my organization, we need confirmation first, it seems kind of intuitive that that would exist. But I've used software tools in the past couple weeks that the things that I think would be intuitive aren't there. And every time I have a frustration as a user of some piece of software, I always have this little thought that said, in the back of my mind that goes, and people think that AI is going to take over the world and we're going to be overrun by robot overlords. We can't even get websites to work normally. We can't get features that people actually want. That's my own little rant about the people who think technology is going to come too powerful. It's like, we can't even make elections secure with voting technology. It's a whole other can of worms. But I mean, talk to any software engineer, they'll tell you what's the best kind of voting technology to use.
Starting point is 01:10:05 And they'll say paper. Anyway, sorry, I did open up in a different avenue there. My bad. That's all right. Speaking of meetings, I need to go because I have a meeting that's coming up in five minutes. Hold on, can I talk to you for 10 more minutes about software? No, that's all right.
Starting point is 01:10:21 Let me get a calendar link for you. We'll be back here tomorrow. Make sure you, hey, if you haven't done this yet, follow the podcast and maybe go give us a five-star rating wherever you rate podcasts. And then also send it to somebody, spread the word. We're in growth mode right now. So we need your help.
Starting point is 01:10:38 Yeah, do that. Thanks. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, Peace. also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. We'll be right back. criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu.
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