Central Air

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This week: is it “depraved” to worry about whether AIs can feel pain? A lot of people in Silicon Valley really buy into the idea that they might be building the machine god, and they think this might even be a good idea, even if they also think we might end up enslaving the machine god and/or that the machine god might kill us all. Mike Solana, founder of Pirate Wires, joins us to help understand these influential weirdos and the influential weirdos they disagree with. We also, necessarily, talk some about what consciousness even is.
In cocktail hour this week for paying subscribers:
* SlutCon, an annual conference in San Francisco with lanyards and PowerPoints and what-not that is organized by an honest-to-god prostitute and which for some reason is popular among the AI safety crowd.
* The Cornell Seven case — which, rather like Silicon Valley, is an object lesson in why straight people shouldn’t be allowed to do ketamine.
* The bizarre conspiracy theory that James Talarico was in an mental institution, and how Republicans have mis-learned the lesson of the successful “they/them” ad.
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.centralairpodcast.com

This week: Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and host of the The Focus Group, joins us to discuss persuadable voters and the extensive conversations she has with them (the topic of her new book How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time). We talk about what drove these voters away from Democrats (high prices), what’s driving them back to Democrats (high prices), and what politicians should say and do in an economic environment where the government has limited ability to deliver relief from high prices. And since this is Central Air, we talk about the bond market, and why it’s very important to these voters, even if they don’t realize it.
That’s for all listeners this week. Paying subscribers get to stick around for cocktail hour, when we discuss:
The immigration trap facing the next Democratic president.
The president’s odd choice to go nuclear on Tom Cotton over Daylight Saving Time, and
In the wake of the drama at Last Ditch Bar, are lesbians okay?
Upgrade your subscription to hear the whole episode at www.centralairpodcast.com.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.centralairpodcast.com

This week: with another “MeanToo” scandal in the news — that’s when a politician gets in trouble, not for sexual harassment but because someone thinks they were mean — we thought it was a good opportunity to ask Dave Weigel, Semafor’s intrepid politics reporter, whether anyone in Alaska is likely to care that Mary Peltola, Alaska’s Democratic candidate for Senate, called someone a “retard.”
Plus: other developments across the Senate map and what kinds of candidate oddities matter these days, and in cocktail hour (for paying subscribers), we talk about the revealing conversation Nikole Hannah-Jones had with her daughter on “This American Life” over the weekend, and we close with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s likely ambitions to run for Senate or president.
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.centralairpodcast.com

This week: Jonathan Chait joins Josh, Ben and Megan to talk about Nikole Hannah-Jones' candid and thought-provoking essay reckoning with her decision to send her daughter to a neighborhood public school that was low-performing — and outrage from her daughter, now in high school, that she could have chosen a different path for her. We also discuss why Democrats have seemingly lost interest in making 'let's improve public education' part of their political project. And then we take on another thorny topic: the division within the Democratic Party about support for Israel. Paying subscribers hear that conversation and cocktail hour, in which we discuss pretty bad cocktails, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh raising rates last week, and the Paramount deal.
To hear the whole episode, upgrade your subscription at www.centralairpodcast.com.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.centralairpodcast.com

This week: first, we are obligated to discuss Josh's newly blond hair and if it's a sign he's in crisis. Then: are we in the midst of a gay crisis? The first gay treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has failed at his quest to keep the 10-year Treasury yield under 5%. The gays Donald Trump detailed to the Kennedy Center have failed to produce a vibrant-yet-MAGAfied performing arts center. And now "the makers of AI keep saying AI might kill us all” has really broken through to the general public.
For paying subscribers: the absurdity of the president’s inflationary promise of $5,000 checks for every American (if they re-elect Republicans), the Calvinball rules of standing that have let the president build his illegal ballroom, and his sad and petty (and losing) campaign to get his name installed on the Kennedy Center, and Donald Trump Jr.'s sad and pitiful oligarch-funded second wedding. Finally, the AIs weigh in on Josh's hair and whether it carries a deep meaning.
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