 |  |  |
| 0:00 | -1:12:29 |
As we close in on the end of the year, Jonah’s rumination proves to be a pretty sizable roundup of all the news that has been fit to print throughout the week. In addition to discussing attempts to relitigate the series of unfortunate events surrounding Jeffrey Toobin, the inaccuracy of our current Cold War metaphors in regards to China, and the ongoing conflict over wealth inequality, Jonah also finds the time to dip into several classically nerdy topics. Such subjects include the accidental genius of bad Kung Fu movies, how They Live isn’t nearly as Marxist as the academy would have you believe (and the fact that they try to prove that it is “just helps to prove how dumb Marxism is”), and how David French’s taste in films has made Jonah a nihilist.
Show Notes:
-The origin of the “alien visitor” thought experiment
-A chin-stroking (so to speak) piece on Jeffrey Toobin
-This week’s Remnant with Matt Continetti
-Jonah’s “New Cold War” column
-This week’s Remnant with Scott Winship
-Remnant Episode 100 with Thomas Sowell
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Thanks Jonah, good discussion of your Dispatch content for the week. Curse you though, now I have to take time to see a B movie, when I already don't have time enough for the A movie list!
It's annoying when people bring up the Onan story as an (incorrect!) example of God's judgement on masturbators. God judged Onan for not standing in for his brother by making babies with the deceased brother's widow. The intent was to provide heirs for his deceased brother and children to support his brother's widow. Onan was just being selfish because "he knew that the child would not be his" by the rules/laws/norms in place at the time. This is actually recounted at the page you linked. The account in the Bible is more consistent I would say with coitus interruptus than masturbation. And whatever the method with which Onan "spilled his seed on the ground", God's wrath was not directed at that specifically but at his disregard for his brother's widow and his brother. Not a criticism of you particularly, it seems EVERYBODY, starting with the origin of the euphemism in the late 17th or early 18th century, up to and including Gladwell, misconstrue this Biblical story.
Agreed that social capital is a huge asset that's been lost by so many, from bottom to top of the socioeconomic spectrum. Busy so no time to expand, but I really enjoyed your interview with Scott Winship, wonky as it was.
And yes, glad that the Trump presidency is steadily progressing from in-our-face to just a bad memory.
Hello Mr. Goldberg,
Toward the end of this podcast, you mentioned that you received listener feedback that the Scott Winship podcast was a bit too wonky. My heavens, I think that you barely scratched the wonky surface on this key topic! My vote would be for you to sail the podcast ship deeper into the Sea of Poverty Discussion Nerdery. For example, I think that further expansion on how the success sequence impacts where people end up on the poverty scale will provide greater understanding of some... not all.... but, some of the important root causes of why some of our fellow citizens suffer economic distress. And, yes... yes... there are many instances where people do all the right things, but luck still throws them a lousy curveball and a meteor will destroy the cow barn and Mr. Potter (played by the very talented Lionel Barrymore) will foreclose on the farm. But such caveats aside, there is enough data, observations and information available to emphasize the success sequence virtues. They are worth repeating. In fact, it is ultimately an empowering message.
It has policy implications. The cult of victimology message - whether expounded by the Left (please refer to several thousand NY Times editorial articles written since 1952) or the Right (please re-watch a Trump rally and then take two aspirin) - typically ends up with policy prescriptions consisting of top down something or other programs administered by overly credentialed Washington people. And these good meaning Washington people are often very nice people too! Perhaps clueless, but nice. Hence, the success sequence politely and gently pounded into our collective skulls will help listeners to counteract the cult of victimology. Perhaps it may contribute to listeners advocating for better policy or even stop us from be subjected to smiley faced depicted bad policy. It is like chugging castor oil; not the best tasting, but good for you.
So, I say let's embrace more poverty topic data nerdery! Now, I think I shall go and reread the appendixes of Mr. Murray's Losing Ground.