I Prefer Transcripts To Podcasts

Transcripts form the backbone of The Epic Of KuklaM*A*S*H, but this post is about a transcript of an Ezra Klein podcast on The New York Times (All The News For Your Tiny Dicks) web site and two paragraphs attributed to Mr. Klein that approximate the cognitive flatulence I feel when thinking about or interacting with far too many of my fellow citizens. I often suspect there are at least 8 billion too many people on our dying planet, with at least 330 million of them living in our nation of miserable fucks.

Chew on these words for a few minutes, while I say I told you so.

I try not to let the depth of my pessimism here out of the box too often. But I will say that, for me, the coronavirus experience so deeply affirmed my worst fears about the politics of climate change. Which is, in the models of many climate-change advocates, the mental models people have — not advocates for climate change, but advocates for doing something about it — I think there’s a view that, eventually, this will get bad enough that of course humanity will have to act. There will be big enough storms, big enough droughts, whatever it might be.

And I think what you saw during the pandemic, which is a punctuated period of suffering of unimaginable scale affecting everybody all at the same time with death tolls in the millions, is that the amount of suffering people will get used to, and still not really be willing to sacrifice, is astonishing.

Have a great holiday shopping season.