{ "episodeId": "SLP466", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "ben_carlson": { "name": "Ben Carlson", "role": "guest", "tag": "BEN" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:09", "start": 8.61, "text": "Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics brought to you by Swan Bitcoin over at swan dot com. You can set up for safe and easy Bitcoin buys. And of course, right now things are crazy, it's volatile, but with Bitcoin and self custody, you can retain control of your asset with Bitcoin. And swan dot com makes it really easy Easy with amazing customer support, free education, and a range of ways to stack sats. You can use the automated recurring purchase plan to accumulate Bitcoin for the long term and avoid the day trading in and out, which often causes many people to lose a lot of funds. 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With Mempool dot space, you don't even have to trust a third party, it's free and open source, you can host it yourself. Now, if you're with an enterprise, Mempool dot space offers custom Mempool instances with your company's branding, increased API limits, and more. Go to Mempool dot space slash enterprise. With everything going on, give yourself peace of mind with high level Bitcoin security hardware. CoinKite dot com make a range of products here, most notably the Cold Card Looks like a little calculator, you can use it to generate your Bitcoin private keys, and you can use it together with software such as Specter Desktop, Sparrow Wallet, or Electrum Wallet or others, and secure your coins. Now, you can use a micro SD card, you can use NFC, or you can directly plug the device into the computer if you're a beginner. So, I often hear some people say the cold card is difficult for beginners. I don't think it's that hard if you just directly plug it to the computer, but of course, you can use it in advanced configurations also, signature, you can have a passphrase, and all kinds of options are available. Go to coincard dot com, use code Livera to order your cold card. So a slightly different one today. My guest today is Ben Carlson. He is a journalist and former editor at The Atlantic and has a long career in the media and journalism industry. Now, this episode isn't directly about Bitcoin, but I think it's relevant for a lot of Bitcoiners. I found it interesting in terms of discussing where things are going with the media and as Bitcoiners were often dealing with the Misconceptions put out there by mainstream media, so I thought it would be interesting to get some perspectives from Ben on the time value of truth, how stories are being covered up in the media, how the media is operating today, and how the model has shifted over time, as well as what we can expect going forward. So now, here's my chat with Ben. Ben, welcome to the show. Thanks, Topham. Good to be here. So Ben, I'm a fan. I've seen, some interesting stuff you've been posting on Twitter. I think you have some interesting perspectives to share. Now, of course, my show is primarily a Bitcoin show, as you probably know, but I think there's some interesting stuff in here in terms of your history, your experience in the, in the world of media and what you're talking about nowadays on Twitter. Do you want to just tell us a little bit about your background and, you know as I understand, you were an editor and a foreign correspondent." }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "03:51", "start": 230.85, "text": "Sure. So I began my career at The Atlantic, which has long been a magazine, but at the time I started, was launching some new digital products, and I became executive editor of one of the first things they launched, called The Atlantic Wire, and I spent the following decade plus of my career going from publication to publication, as many journalists do, from New York to DC, to Hong Kong, to Beijing, and, became a foreign correspondent Correspondent for one of the news agencies, AFP, as an economics writer in Beijing for a few years, and then, ultimately left, which is why I'm commenting a little more candidly about media now than I would have before." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:31", "start": 270.93, "text": "Yeah, and I think that's probably an interesting story to touch on. could you tell us a little bit of that story of why you ended up" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "04:38", "start": 278.4, "text": "leaving? It was twenty seventeen, and I was writing about the World Economic Forum after Trump was elected. The World Economic Forum was seen as a coming out moment for China. The world wanted a, a leader of free trade because there was a, a lot of fear or at least speculation that Trump was gonna pull out of all kind of agreements and cause chaos in the existing trade order. So going into this World Economic Forum, I was sitting in Beijing covering live, the keynote speaker was Xi Jinping, the president of China, and I had pre-written, as many reporters do in this kind of situation, so you can write more quickly and you can put out the story faster, I'd pre-written the narrative that was expected, which was essentially China takes over the mantle of defender of free trade. Well, as he began speaking, and it was a long speech, I was listening, filling in the quotes where they needed to be filled in, but some things started to shift, and I changed what I had written. I was Feeling like the story was incomplete, and what I was adding was context about how China actually restricts trade in all kinds of ways, formal and informal. If you wanna run a business in China, you could tell endless stories about the ways in which businesses are regulated above board and below, and the reality is, it's not a, a country that is open in the way that many, free trade partners are, including the US. So I started putting this context in there, and when I sent it off to my editor, soon as it was- Speech was done, it came back almost immediately saying, \"Uh, we need the-- we need the original story. You need to change it back.\" And so I wrote the version that was necessary, the version that wasn't untrue but incomplete, and at that point I felt like something had broken in me and I didn't want to continue doing that anymore where the narrative had triumphed over what I thought was a more- Honest and helpful and truthful version of the story." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:34", "start": 394.3, "text": "Yeah, that's fascinating, Ben. So can you give us a little bit of detail or explain a little bit this process of pre-writing a story or pre-writing the report?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "06:44", "start": 404.27, "text": "Sure. It's probably more common than you think. It doesn't happen all the time, but you, as a reporter, know more or less what is expected of you from editors, from readers, and so you enter a story with a framework in mind. You won't pre-write every story, but- But in cases where there's fast breaking news, like a major speech, a State of the Union, you'll pre-write most of it in advance, and you know Xi Jinping, the president of China, or Biden, or whoever you're writing about, is going to say a few things that touch on the major issues of the day, and you know what the general narrative is supposed to be, and you write the general narrative, and you fit in things that you expect to find. And so as I'm describing this, you're probably thinking, \"Well, how would you know what you expect to find?\" expect to find. That's where one of the flaws of, of journalism comes out. You have expectations, and so it's human nature to confirm your expectations, even if you were to perceive something without any filter on at all, you might not see it that way. So cognitive bias affects everyone, it affects reporters. And I think it's even more acute when you start letting the narrative shape the story before you even pick up the phone and call somebody or listen to a speech or do whatever the reporting requires." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:01", "start": 481.12, "text": "I'm curious if there's some speculation based on, okay, you might be in the newsroom and talking to your colleagues and saying, \"Oh, look, I think these-- I think he's gonna say this and I think they're gonna say that. Let me include that in my pre-written story.\"" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "08:14", "start": 493.85, "text": "Yeah, all the time. There's a lot of speculation, there's water cooler talk, gossip. I think a lot of reporting is done, in fact, through gossip, and that's, that's not a bad thing. This is how information is traded, especially important information. But it's also human nature to latch onto the juiciest things and to assume that what you would like to find is what you're actually gonna find." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:36", "start": 516.45, "text": "Yeah. And so I guess in that moment, you were finding that-- So I guess bringing it back to the China story in this particular case, you were trying to add some additional detail That you thought would be right to include in the story, and then of course you had that disagreement, and your editor was, is saying, \"Nah, we want, we want this narrative to go out.\" What was going through your mind at that point? Was it like, \"Uh, I'm kind of, I don't really wanna compromise this story here, but I'm gonna have to do it because I need this job?\" Or what, what was the kind of, what was the thinking?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "09:12", "start": 551.97, "text": "If I didn't change it, it would be changed for me. That's the way the places where I've been before. You know, if you want to get published, you need to, find the acceptable way to tell the story, and your editor will give you feedback, and if you don't adhere to the feedback from the editor, either the story doesn't run and you're not a value as a reporter and a writer, you could lose your job or you lose the assignment. Or it'll be rewritten on your behalf. And this isn't, it's not always adversarial, but you internalize it, and like all kinds of, measures of control, they're more effective when they're internal. So in this case, when I was in China, yeah, it was what was running through my head, it was almost instantaneous. I got the feedback, \"This doesn't fly, you're gonna need to change it,\" and so I knew there was no recourse in my mind to changing it, so I did." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:02", "start": 601.52, "text": "Yeah. And at that point, do you think it's" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:09", "start": 609.48, "text": "That they don't, they, they wanna promote a certain narrative. Like, where is the, I guess, 'cause maybe in some cases it's, it's that maybe the editor has a, maybe they have a, in some cases, let's say maybe not in this case, they have a better view of what's happening. Is that possible or not really?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "10:25", "start": 624.92, "text": "It's definitely possible. So the, there are- Always behind the scenes conversations going on at a high level, and I encountered this at The Atlantic, I encountered it at AFP, I encountered it as a freelancer. Things filter down, so editors are talking to their managing editors, and managing editors are talking to the publisher, the person who owns it ultimately in some business sense. And that's where you'll get the general direction on what stories and narratives are important. That's where you really feel it. So, for example, in the case of, this story about Xi Jinping and the World Economic Forum, it was important to my employer at some level that China be celebrated and reinforced and held up as a defender of free trade. Ultimately, why? There's not, there's not usually a, a single business reason or certainly no conspiracy as to why, but there are interests That are more interested in that story. So businesses that are working with China and would like to see more support from their governments are subscribing to the newspapers and buying advertisements in the newspapers. And so you know where, you know where your, your bread is buttered basically, and that, that does filter down unconsciously, I'd say, in, in, in most cases. There are other instances where you'll hear about overt pressure or places where you shouldn't, you shouldn't write. So, I don't know this for sure, but Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. You aren't gonna read stories about Amazon in The Washington Post that you might read in other newspapers. Now, does he have to say that explicitly? I really don't know. I would say the reporters there know that their jobs are dependent on not trying to get through some expose on Bezos or Amazon or anything like that. So you just know ultimately that there's, that there's levels of motivation and interest above you as a reporter that you need to align with." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:16", "start": 735.86, "text": "I see. And even if you were to write a story or in order for you to do that story justice, you might need resources to go and investigate and, you know, you might need to travel or you might need to spend money to go and spend money and time and those- Resources may not be forthcoming if it doesn't align with the narrative, it doesn't align with the interests, it doesn't align with what, you know," }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "12:38", "start": 758.04, "text": "exactly. You won't, you won't be sent to do a story or be approved to get started on a story at all. So the, the process for reporters, for journalists, if you're interested in this, is, this may be new to your listeners, you almost always need to have a, a pitch approved before you go. Or you can, you can certainly be reporting on the side, and if you actually get some scoop, If it's an exciting scoop, a scoop meaning a piece of information that's not public and is relevant and important, and that's another area where your idea of relevant might not be the same as your editor's. But, in most situations, you say, \"This is, this is what I think is happening, and this is what I wanna write about, \"and if the editor gives you the green light on the assignment, then you move ahead, and that's when you can do travel if you're, if you need to travel for it. That's when you, you have the authority to spend time to do the work. So at that stage, you-- that's where a lot of the, the narrative shaping happens. Is, well, that, that's not an important story, you might get that Silicon Valley Bank. I'm, I'm making this up now, but let's say that, you know, Silicon Valley Bank's bankruptcy is actually good for the American economy, and for whatever reason, this is contrary to the preferred narrative of your publication, that pitch isn't gonna go anywhere." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:54", "start": 834.01, "text": "Yeah, sure. And so I'm also curious if you have any views on what's happened with media over the years. Do you see it has gotten worse, or it was always this bad, or, like, how do you kind of view what- What's happened with media over the last, let's say, ten to twenty years? Like the rise of the internet basically." }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "14:14", "start": 854.16, "text": "There was an inflection point that I saw because it was at the beginning of my career, and the inflection point was that things got worse. So I began my career in two thousand and eight, this was after the financial crisis, that was one factor, but not the only one. That was right around the time that publications started to be threatened much more conspicuously by things like Craigslist, which killed the, the, the- classified ads and classified ads. For listeners who don't know what those are, those are personal listings from individual businesses or, or people who are looking to sell something or buy something. They appeared in tons of newspapers and they were huge revenue drivers. And media was a very, very profitable business up until The turn of the millennium, more or less, and then it started to get harder and harder. But when I got there in two thousand eight, advertisers started to be wiped out because of the recession. The di- the business model was changing because print was no longer the top of the heap. Suddenly, digital was where everybody wanted to be, but nobody had a business model. There was no subscription model that made sense. People didn't really wanna pay for online articles, and, and so they didn't. So paywalls weren't really a, a prominent business model at the time. For those who had them, they weren't very successful. And then advertising was also not great. You could sell an ad in The Wall Street Journal or Forbes magazine for thousands of dollars, and on their website, that same ad would sell for hundreds, and that quickly just wiped out, lots and lots of publications. So that was the business side change, and then the, the more editorial change, which I was a part of, to be honest. I was hired as the editor of this publication, that was launching as part of The Atlantic, really their first foray into digital first media, and it was called The Atlantic Wire, and our job was to write high volume, high velocity blogging basically. We would aggregate stories from around the internet, we would add some color and flavor and some personality, some snark, a little bit like the Gawker style, not very strong, but much more so than the other Atlantic stuff. And we didn't pick up the phone ever. We never called somebody to say, \"Hey, is this actually true?\" We would just write about it because we read it on some other site and we would add our own spin on it. And usually the spin would take it in a more extreme direction because we needed to attract clicks. So we, we wouldn't do actual reporting, we would highlight the most sensational aspects of a story to try and attract readers and break through, go viral. And these are two pressures that I was feeling very early on and from two thousand eight until now, being viral, getting traffic Getting people emotionally engaged in a story, those have become the new ways you, you drive readership and your business model depends on it. And so you see a lot of stories that are trying to provoke anger and other emotions that are really negative for society and, and have driven media in a pretty bad direction." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:08", "start": 1027.75, "text": "Yeah, and I, I believe you were commenting on this idea about using anger as, as really the hook because other aspects, even if they are positive aspects, they are simply not as appealing. Can you elaborate on that?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "17:22", "start": 1042.16, "text": "There have been studies on this, and I won't cite the exact study 'cause I can't tell you the name, but it's known to be true that the most viral emotion in terms of internet sharing is anger. If you wanna get people to share something, you piss them off, and that's-- that's not a conscious, strategy that I was aware of, but you, you see it, you see it in the results that you get. And so naturally, people who are measured by their ability to drive traffic, because reporters and writers, if you're not bringing in re- You're not bringing in subscribers, you're not doing your job, you're not valuable. So you do need to draw traffic, and so you learn over time what does that, and that's why you see a lot of stories that seem to exist for no other reason but to make people mad. there are plenty of examples of that, and every month, week, day has new ones. In fact, that, you know, there's this, this meme, you don't wanna be the, the man of Twitter or the person of the day on Twitter, because there's always somebody who's getting dogpiled." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:20", "start": 1099.55, "text": "Oh, the main character thing, right?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "18:21", "start": 1100.93, "text": "The main character thing, right, right. Because it's human nature, evidently, and it's, it's not a good thing about human nature, but it's what media now depends on to generate interest, and, well" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:35", "start": 1115.42, "text": "The business model shifted, I guess, zooming out a little bit, the business model shifted, and because of online expectations about content being free, it drove more click chasing in the form of anger or rage baiting, let's say." }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "18:51", "start": 1131.11, "text": "That's right, that's right. And there's other ways of being sensational too. It's not only driving anger, but there- That's, that is one of the most powerful. Other emotions are, are powerful too, but this is one reason I think you see partisan media coming to the fore again, because your, your audience wants certain beliefs confirmed and others ignored completely. And so the belief about who the bad guys are. And so if you read left leaning media or right leaning media, you see totally different bad guys, and the stories are all hitting those same bad guys, and the good guys are- You don't talk about them as much 'cause those, those don't drive as many clicks. It's really the bad guys who are, defining your, your topics and your narratives of the day, and that's, that's because- They, they, they're just compelling, to your audience and the, the villain. Yeah, that's-- As you" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "19:42", "start": 1182.1, "text": "said, it's, it's knowing where the bread is buttered. So Benjamin, I'm curious, obviously, as you said, your career started in two thousand and eight, but I know you have been trolling through historical videos and things like this, and probably also interested in the profession more broadly, obviously, if you were there for fifteen years. I'm curious if you have any view on even, you know, in the twentieth century, right? In the nineteen hundreds, of journalism allowed these journalists at that time, let's say the seventies, the eighties, the nineties, like, do you think it was different then that it wasn't as, let's say, hyper-parti-partisan?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "20:18", "start": 1218.16, "text": "It wasn't. Post war, and there's an interesting history here that I, I can't give in Great detail, but the broad narrative would be post war, there was an emergence of a professional class of journalists that was sustained by a very defined and somewhat monopolistic, but or more, more oligarchic group of media organizations, the three major networks, I'm talking about the US here, and a handful of major national papers, and then the single or maybe two major papers in each city, and they just dominated, and they were great businesses in a way you could see them as Early Googles, what is Google? Google is essentially a, a media business without any reporters, and of course, the technology is what enables that. That's why the business is so profitable. They've taken the profits from, from all these other organizations. So they were very profitable and they could afford to-- This is sounding really reductionist, but they could afford to have really high- Ethics and morals because they weren't looking to just drive readership for readership's sake. They didn't have to. So there was a-- This is when you see stan-professional standards come to a fairly high level. People like Mike Wallace, whose interviews I've shared a number of times recently, was an astonishingly precise, intellectual, engaged, probing interviewer in the '50s, '60s, and then throughout his career. So that was a golden age that I think has pretty clearly ended. But before then, it was- It was very different. When there was a strong sense of competition among the media, you had the yellow journalism age, and this was in the, earlier part of the twentieth century, and then even at the end of the nineteenth century, really briefly, that's when you see hoaxes being invented to drive subscriptions. There's one that I stumbled across and, and wrote about a little while ago. They claimed on the front page of the New York Sun that life had been discovered on Mars, and for the next fourteen days, they wrote every day- About the discovery and shared pictures of men with wings that had been seen through a telescope, and they attributed all of this to a, a scholar who was real, who was a real person, and when I finally got back to him, but this, this became global news, viral news of, of that era, and this was mid-nineteenth century. He said, \"I'd have no-- I have never been to the telescope you're talking about. I don't know what you're, what you're describing.\" But it was in detail. The whole story was in detail, and it was made up just to drive very successfully, subscriptions. So that's one extreme of bad journalism, bad ethics. And, you also saw, in another way, war mongering, taking place toward the end of the 19th century with the Spanish American War, which people think is to some extent driven by the Yellow Press, Press, who is ginning up animosity against the Spanish in Cuba and urging intervention, and, this is a pattern that we've seen in, in different ways over the last century and, and, it was pioneered then, so it's not brand new, but we haven't seen it like this in 50 years." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:17", "start": 1396.66, "text": "It's also interesting because in some ways, people could argue the internet helps fact checkers and people who are, or at least, you know, citizen journalists who are on the ground and saying, \"No, hang, hang on a sec, that's wrong.\" But in, but on a, in another level, it's also a way that things can get distorted and be exaggerated or, you know, the story can be, you know, invented or things like this. So I, I'm curious where you sort of see that shake out. Like, has it helped us? On net, get closer to the truth or not really?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "23:49", "start": 1428.76, "text": "My feeling right now, having been behind the scenes as reporter, is not enough actual reporting goes on. So a lot of people employed in media, but not just in media, pe-people who share information, put it that way, people like you and me, right? We write about things with honest analysis, and we're intellectually engaged, and we're bringing our experience to bear on it. But at the bottom, somebody had to find a piece of information and verify it. That isn't taking place more now, I think, than, than it was before. It's easier to share, and that, that does help so on. It might balance out if somebody takes a video in, in a remote lo- a remote location where riots are happening or a natural disaster's happening or, or in Ukraine. It does give you a window into that, into that place that was not nearly so accessible before, and that really does have value. But it's easier to fake those things, and it's much harder for people to tell the difference, and especially with fewer and fewer reporters or trusted sources who can verify these things that it actually happened or that- That the context you're seeing is representing the truth, that I wouldn't say has gotten better." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:59", "start": 1499.02, "text": "Yeah, I think that's fair. That's a fair way to put it. And so I'm also curious how you're seeing it in terms of things going forward. Like, is-- as I understand, there used to be a little bit more affinity around the brand name, whereas maybe today, you could argue that there's a little bit more affinity around the individual, that individual journalist, whether it's a, a really well-known journalist like a, a Glenn Greenwald or a, you know? Somebody who's, has a group of followers who really like that person's analysis, their re- their writing. Are you seeing a trend in that direction or, or are you seeing it a different way in terms of where the trustworthiness goes?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "25:39", "start": 1538.87, "text": "I think it's centering on individuals. I think you've got it right, that independent journalists are gaining ground, huge ground, on established brands, and that's, that's because there is a dearth of trust. Everybody wants to find trustworthy information. And we all do. And there's no longer trust in institutions broadly, and then in specific, in specific brand names, in media too, in legacy media. That's not for everybody. Some people really do still see the, the New York Times and the Washington Post as, what they once were, and that's-- they're entitled to their opinion, that's completely valid. But I'd say you'd see more and more and more people- Who get their information online look for an individual person that they trust, and that they've earned that trust through showing their values, saying what they believe in, what they stand against, and then applying that to what they're reporting on. So in, in a way, it's leading toward not necessarily more partisan media. Somebody like Glenn Greenwald, for example, you know that he, he hates dishonesty, he doesn't like false reporting, he's really, really upstanding, I think, as a, as a journalist and a reporter, and cares a lot about fighting against censorship. So- So those themes come through, he hammers people who stand against those things, and he's, you know, constantly promoting Julian Assange, and he has, he has his, his hobby horses and his values, and so because of that, he's drawn an audience of people who care about those things. The reason I pick up that example is unfortunately you're not gonna get the news of the world just from an independent source, an individual source, and that, where you get that replacement, I don't know, a portfolio of people you trust, somebody you read on the economy, the global economy. I don't know maybe somebody read on politics, that, that seems to work reasonably well, but how much can everyday ordinary people who aren't spending a lot of time curating their news consumption and information diet get a good set of sources? I think by and large you'll see people fed stuff on TikTok and other social media platforms and they'll, they'll rely on that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "27:36", "start": 1655.87, "text": "And it goes in all kinds of different directions because in some ways there's also this focus on infotainment, like this kind of, it has to be video, it has to be slick, you know, there's an aspect But then you could also say, at the local level, maybe it's changed the way local media, local newspapers and local radio has, has, has gone as well, because maybe the model has shifted that, you know, that local station or that local newspaper has to find enough of a model to be viable in this internet age." }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "28:09", "start": 1688.91, "text": "The business model really, really matters. I say that with my local newspaper in mind, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia Inquirer has a long history History, many prizes, great reporters. It was recently taken nonprofit, and it's supported now by funders, and there's nothing, there's nothing wrong with that model. However, as somebody who lives locally, you can see the change in coverage because the issues aren't just local issues, they're national issues applied here. So if there's talk about, let's say, the budget or racial tensions or police violence and brutality, regardless of what's actually happening here in the city of Philadelphia, it's gonna be brought as an issue, as a narrative that, that matters, and so you'll find the little pieces of narrative here that kind of fit into it, but it's not based on- I've been evaluating, well, what really matters right now to help people live better lives and help this place thrive? You know, I wouldn't say that it was purely that before either, but I do see a difference, and that's because they're trying to attract funding from national organizations, not just local people. They're not dependent on the local population, and I think that's happening much more broadly. So where do you get good local information? There's not a great answer now, just the business model doesn't make sense for a lot of individuals to sustain, sustain themselves that way. And Pieces that you can try and piece together, but my, my concern there is just between the algorithm and the appetite for violent and sensational content, you're always gonna think things are worse based on what you see on a screen than they probably are if you walk outside." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:45", "start": 1784.94, "text": "This show is also brought to you by Unchained Capital. For those of you unfamiliar, Unchained Capital can make it easy for you to secure your coins using multi-signature. 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So this is an interactive community platform where if you are a builder, a product manager, or a designer, or an engineer, or just an interested person, you can come together, there are events, a mentorship program, as well alongside other Bitcoiners building the future of Bitcoin Layer 2, especially if you are building or interested in Core Lightning or the Liquid Network, go to build on L2 dot com. And now back to the show with Benjamin. Yeah, and that I guess shows also the importance of being able to zoom out and having journalists and people, or at least sharers of information also having that context, right? And I think there are interesting examples. There are websites like, there's that one called, Our World in Data and some- Some of these other ones that talk about human progress and things like this, where you-- we might see, \"Oh, look, look at all these negative stories,\" but actually also look at this multi-decade trend of poverty going down or this multi-decade trend of infant mortality being, you know, better because, et cetera, or more people being able to access energy and things like this. And I find it interesting that some of the media has kind of hollowed out in a way, and so that we're seeing like a weaker quality of analysis and people who just kind of repeat the press release Release or they just sort of regurgitate what the company is saying without really, or what a government is saying without scrutinizing and, you know, being able to skillfully scrutinize. I think that's something that was really lacking for me, and especially in the last few years, obviously with the COVID hysteria, I was really particularly frustrated at how weak the level of questioning was of media with government. but I'm cur-- I'm curious, you know, how, how you, how you are seeing that as well? Well," }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "33:15", "start": 1995.02, "text": "what's shifted over the last couple of years, and you see this coming out in the Twitter Files, which is the, the name given to the reporting about what was going on behind the scenes at Twitter, and there, there have been some recent developments there, what it showed is there was active shaping of the narrative and what was allowed to be said and not. So recently, the news came out that the Department of Energy in the US had determined that with a low degree of confidence, which all such assessments had They think the lab leak explanation for the origin of COVID was most likely. This just came a couple weeks ago. Well, up until very recently, even mentioning the words \"lab leak\" could still get you branded as a, a conspiracy theorist or somebody who was wildly unscientific. And the reason for that is not merely was social media and the government trying to steer the narrative away from that, but media itself. It wasn't ignoring, but what you said about not asking Asking questions, that is true. What was striking to me, even more so over the last few years, is there was policing of what was permitted to be said and not. Policing in the sense that certain whole theories and hypotheses that respected scientists and thinkers were putting forward were rejected and actively branded as wrong-headed, immoral, in need of suppression, in mainstream media. That's, left a very, very strong impression on many people. It sounds like you- You too. That there's a breach of trust." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:48", "start": 2088.06, "text": "I see it like there was just such insufficient questioning about so many of these things. Now, I think cynically, you-- we could say, coming back to the point about people knowing where their bread is buttered, is it that, let's say, Pfizer and these vaccine companies and some of these other people are the ones paying for media, and as the saying goes, he who, you know, he who pays the piper calls the tune, right? So if, let's say, vaccine man-- manufacturers are Paying a lot of the media, or let's say if government is bailing out some of the media, as I know happened in Canada, New Zealand, and other countries, that they will then now not criticize and they will now not ask any good questions, they'll just sort of give the very You know, just very easy interviews, never ask any hard questions, and then just sort of act like a PR machine, and in a way, they've, they sort of vacated the space and have forced the citizen journalists to really step up in a way." }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "35:46", "start": 2146.34, "text": "And they have. What's interesting to me is I don't believe there's a strong profit motive to explain what we've seen going on in the last several years with, with COVID. I might be wrong, but what I see more is class alignment, meaning who-- Yeah. There's, there's this perception, who are the good guys, who are the bad guys? Who are we rejecting out of hand without even considering what they say? Okay, anybody we, we deem anti-vax, and so we have this whole mythology about anti-vaxing, belief And how the people who preach them can't be trusted, and so that's just slapped onto anybody who's raising questions about what's, what's being done and what's being prescribed as the right way to, to deal with, the COVID epidemic. That's what I see more, because in reality the- The advertisers just don't have that much influence directly over, over reporting. it might surprise you to hear that. I think that's still the case because it just seem-- it's too transparent and unseemly, and most reporters would feel appalled to think, \"Oh, you know, Pfizer's influencing what I say.\" A lot of really good reporters and, and bad reporters. Think they're being authentic and honest, it's just that their interests and their class beliefs align with people who are trying to manipulate them, to be totally frank." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "37:03", "start": 2222.6, "text": "Yeah, I'll tell you one interesting theory I've been looking at recently. There was a guy named Jeff Leskovec, and he was trying to explain some of this through a prism of social hierarchy, right? So there are sometimes, there are people who actually want to assess the facts or assess from a first principles view, and then there are people who just merely want to- To assess their position in, in the social hierarchy and try to rise within that social hierarchy. And I think it sort of aligns a bit with what you were saying about the class alignment, because the Zoom class, the, the, the professional, let's say, white collar world, it was unfashionable to hold views anti-the lockdown, anti, you know, vaccine mandates, anti-masks, et cetera. And I think to some extent, they created a culture where you weren't allowed to criticize, and if you didn't say the right things, you were kicked out, and you're not invited to the parties, and you're not, you know, and it could also matter in the sense of access, right? So if you're a journalist, it may be that if you don't align with the narrative, you won't get access to the right people to ask the questions, and then you'll be shut out. I'm curious if you have any insight into that area as well." }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "38:14", "start": 2294.43, "text": "Look what happened to one reporter If you don't, if your listeners don't know the name, he's an amazing journalist, has won the National Magazine Award, he worked for Rolling Stone for many years, I have followed and enjoyed his work on other subjects, so the, the bailouts and the whole notion of describing Goldman Sachs as a vampire squid, that's what he used to be famous for. He's not famous for that now. He's been completely shunned from the world of mainstream media by and large because he, he was the lead reporter, the first reporter. on the, the Twitter file story. And even before then, he was on the outs, but this is, I think, sealed his pariah status. He called into question the things he wasn't supposed to. he wrote stories about how Twitter, with the in-intervention of FBI, Department of Homeland Security, even the CIA, but under other names Had worked to prohibit or at least restrict the kinds of, questions that you've mentioned here about COVID and what the right way forward is and, and created the, in the digital space The equivalent of, things that you can say at the dinner table and you can't, and that was applied to all of society. And he, by calling this into question and exposing the truth of what was done For multiple years at Twitter, has now been, if you, if you look at the testimony that he gave earlier this week before the House in the, in the US, people were asking him, calling him a so-called journalist, and asking him if he was- Trying to profiteer off of this Twitter file story, which has cost him hugely in his reputation because of what I mentioned, that he's been shunned by, by media. It's, it's amazing to see. So, yes, this is what happens when you step outside of the, the approved narrative within your class and start flirting with other, maybe totally truthful, unapproved views, you get shunned." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:17", "start": 2417.35, "text": "So in terms of where things go from here, do you believe the trend will just be towards individual journalists like this? And, I guess the internet can give and take in some ways, right? And so perhaps it robbed certain- Media companies of their business model, in a sense, like loosely speaking, obviously, but in the sense that it enabled individual contributors now to have reach, right? Like a Glenn Greenwald, like a Matt Taibbi, like yourself, for other people to have, let's say, a substack or a podcast or something like this, and maybe that's one pathway forward is that, people just start looking for individual contributors or journalists to get a view on something." }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "41:01", "start": 2460.96, "text": "I think the pendulum is swinging. Swinging and every reaction, every action is a reaction, and in this case, it's not brand new. The, the rise of the blogosphere in the early two thousands and two thousands, what, what an old sounding word, right? Blogosphere, but it was big not that long ago, and it disappeared for a good ten years, during the Obama years. I'm just gonna choose a random name, but you know, it, it more or less disappeared because of, once again, changing business models. It was a passion pursuit by a few people, but most people don't read blogs Doing Substacks and they're on growing social media platforms, they have YouTube channels, and all of these, I think, are contributing to a, a renaissance of individual writers who can-- writers and communicators and media and journalists who can have their own audiences and And deliver good quality analysis or even reporting. That said, the platforms are still a big question mark over everything. To what extent YouTube is, a place where you can truly grow an audience around any topic you want? That's, that seems increasingly in question from what I hear. but all that said, yeah, there's, there's, an amazing array of individual creators and reporters and journalists out there that are doing very well and are even forming their own public- Publications like The Free Press, which Barrie Weiss launched out of her Twitter files reporting, this is a publication that's on Substack, where they've grown a new publication basically overnight, seemingly overnight, with contributors, all of whom have their own audiences and collectively have an even greater audience. So I, I do think there's a lot of hope there and, and it's exciting to see. There's always growth of new brands, you see what's happening with Vice, you know, Vice came out of nowhere and blew up with its new- At that, at the time, new way of approaching the news and, and the world. Now it's collapsing, but there will be something again soon." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:58", "start": 2578.17, "text": "Yeah. And I think it may also be that even journalists inside a company, like, let's say you work for some big name brand, you still wanna build up your own name on your own personal Twitter account or your own personal thing also, because having notoriety in your own name as opposed to just writing in the masthead name. Help, obviously it benefits your personal" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "43:23", "start": 2603.01, "text": "career, right? I'm glad you mentioned that. One interesting thing about Twitter and, and other social media, but Twitter I think even more than, than most, it's where you can see the middleman cut out. So what I would do as a reporter is I would call up an economist and I'd ask for the economist's opinion on what, what China's GDP figures meant, and I would do that three, with three different people, I might have to call eight people to get those three quotes. I'd work them into a story, I'd draw on some From investment banks, other research notes, and then my own experience and, and, expertise. Well, now you can read most of those economists directly on Twitter in real time, with more than I would be able to put into a story, and if you're following the right people, you'll get all of them all at once. And this is happening with every issue. I mean, you can tell me where, where the best place to find crypto news is, of course, being this podcast, but- That's, that's the way that I think really hardcore news consumers are, are finding their news, their information is from people who are still at, still in the arena doing the, the work. So they have authority, they have insight, and they have a platform. That's in-incredibly valuable. You no longer need it to be filtered." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:34", "start": 2674.5, "text": "I see. Yeah. Also, I saw you say something really interesting as well. Your biggest friend in a cover up is time. The longer the search for truth drags on, the less it matters to change real world events. The stakes have already been Just as there is a time value to money, there's a time value to truth. So I'm curious if you could elaborate or are there any examples you can, give us there?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "44:55", "start": 2694.79, "text": "That was what I wrote right after the revelation that the Department of Energy had assessed that the origin of COVID was the lab in Wuhan. That's incredibly huge important news if that in fact is, is true, and I think it's, it seems increasingly the consensus that, yeah, that makes sense. But it's now three years on, right? What, what does it matter? So the time value of truth in that case is-- the historical record may be corrected or there may be an asterisk next to the approved narrative for a certain amount of time. But consequences, whatever they might be, consequences for how vaccines are developed and how viruses are studied and what consequences, if any, are warranted for China and the way it handled the pandemic and, and its relationship to the rest of the world. All that's now a, a dead letter, doesn't matter. It's, it's, it does matter in a, in an ultimate and cosmic sense, but people have moved on, and I think that's, that, that's the larger point I was making, is it really does matter how long you've- Drag out the search for truth, because look at JFK. We may have found out, if you believe, I think it was Tucker Carlson and, and maybe some other sources, that the CIA has been confirmed as the ultimate assassin of a president of the United States." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:13", "start": 2772.73, "text": "Yeah, mind blowing, right? And" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "46:14", "start": 2774.43, "text": "world-changing news, but it dropped like a, you know, a little nugget of trivia." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:20", "start": 2779.69, "text": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "46:20", "start": 2779.97, "text": "And disappeared." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:21", "start": 2780.77, "text": "Yeah, and it's, it's like, I guess when people are doing wrong things or bad things, they know if they can- Delay the time they get found out, obviously, because as you're saying, the time value of truth. And so even with, like vaccine side effects, like, wasn't that another thing where they were trying to push that off, like, seventy years or whatever, until-- and then people might never have really, found out until it was too late, obviously. And so I, I think that's, that's an interesting way to frame it, right? This time value of truth, that it matters that you could get the truth out. And I think maybe in, you know, There's this, this idea and notion of decentralized social media, Nostr being an example, and so it's like this uncensorable network, and it doesn't need a blockchain, doesn't need a token, it's just a platform that you have notes that you're broadcasting, just like, kind of like tweets, and they're just being relayed around, and people can pay to have, pay for service, right? You pay for your relay, you pay for these aspects of it, but it's not censorable. And so I think it offers something that's meaningfully different than, let's The gabs or the truth socials or the masterdons of the world, because it's more genuinely decentralized. that said, there are criticisms of it also. I know there are some people in like DID, decentralized identity space and things like this, but I wonder if we're going to start seeing more alternative platforms as well. and I guess one other point that's interesting around the time value of truth is Elon Musk buying Twitter, right? Like, would we have Twitter files? Would we- have even been able to speak freely about some of these things if he didn't take it on himself to just buy Twitter." }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "48:02", "start": 2882.16, "text": "Probably not, probably not. And even so, you can see the, the genie being stuffed rapidly back into a bottle. At least the, the effort is begun. Here, here's the problem. Look, when it went to Capitol Hill for the hearings, they might actually do some good. I really couldn't comment on that, and nobody knows just yet where it's, where it's ultimately gonna lead. The hearings unfortunately will also have the side effect of making this just seem like a issue, and you-- I'm sure you've observed this too. Once it becomes-- and this, this already happened to some extent, but now it's explicitly associated with different parties. You know, the, the Republicans were questioning Matt Taibbi and Michael Schulzberger sympathetically, these are the reporters, the Twitterfags, and they were trying to understand what they had found and, and the implications of it. On the other hand, the Democratic congressmen were impugning their credentials, asking, \"Mm-hmm.\" Where they got their money and, and trying to talk over them more or less anytime they tried to bring up, something substantive about it. Now, the way I describe it, you can hear, I, I think there actually is something really valuable in Twitter files, but- For people who really believe whatever comes out of the, the left side of the aisle's mouth, just because they, they trust those leaders more, they're gonna dismiss it. They have a reason now, because guess what, the other team cares about it. So if the other team cares about it, I don't care. And that's, that's the way so many issues just get handled now, is, is they, they only matter to half the population at most, and a lot of people who don't even wanna get involved in politics, once they sense that there's something polarizing about an issue" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "49:35", "start": 2975.11, "text": "I think you had a good, thread about this as well, the, the nothing burger, right? How, how media can try to downplay a story. Could you elaborate a bit on that?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "49:44", "start": 2983.56, "text": "Yeah. how do you make a story go away when it's already out there? You can call it a nothing burger, which is a ridiculous and, and meaningless word, but the point is, there's nothing there. There's a lot of hot air about nothing. That's One favorite phrase, and especially if you, if you put it out on Twitter, you don't even have to engage with the ideas, you can just call it \"nothing burger\" and kind of let that, let that stand. You can deny it, if you actually wanna attack it. You can dismiss it as irrelevant, say, \"Well, maybe it's true, but who cares, right?\" So maybe the FBI actually did work hand in glove with Twitter to censor certain viewpoints, to suppress whatever was on the Hunter Biden laptop, that whole report from the New York Post, banning the account, didn't matter is to make, to, to shrug at a story, to dismiss it, and to attack the person who brought it out for having illicit motives or some questionable methods, that all ultimately amount to the media saying, \"We've looked at it and, and dear reader, you don't have to care about it.\" And they, they applied all of these things to the Twitter file story, more or less successfully. You still don't see many people outside of a pretty engaged Twitter audience, Twitter-consuming audience, which is a lot of people, but not everybody by a long shot. They don't see it as significant, and so it's not. And that, that I think is a successful strategy of managing an inconvenient and, I think, important story, but it's not important if you can keep it out of people's minds long enough." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "51:15", "start": 3075.26, "text": "Right, and this again comes back to the time value of truth, right? Because if, let's say, the other people who do believe it's important, they are able to make it a conversation, to force it into the minds, let's say, of average everyday people, then that time value of truth starts to work in the favor of the people who do want to-- who do believe, who, who, who think that, yeah, Twitter Files was a good thing, like it, it exposed a lot of big problems. so it's an interesting, I guess explanation, and I think it makes a lot of sense the way each side is trying to do things. Obviously, I'm kind of more aligned on the, you know, I've been anti-lockdown since day one, right? so I'm kind of obviously more aligned with the, you know, pro-Twitter files, let's say, in certain aspects. But, yeah, I think it just comes back to giving people a way to figure out the truth, and I think maybe what we will see is more and more of a separation, right? Like, Personal divorce and things like this, that, are there ways that people can break away? And I think as a Bitcoiner, I'm also interested in that, in a political sense, that I think it is, it would be a good thing for people who, who don't wanna be part of some of these other, you know, negative aspects of, you know, big state control, that we can try to create our own alternatives or at least have exit, so at least that's kind of how I'm seeing it. But I guess in terms of where things go with media I guess that's the, you know, interesting as we've been saying." }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "52:49", "start": 3168.64, "text": "Can I, yeah, sure, go on. Point out a, another example of time value of truth except in the other direction, just to show how it works. So you delay long enough and something doesn't, even if JFK was killed by the CIA, as he seems to have been, it's too late. So these are gonna be, recent examples, but they already seem a little bit dated because they were so in the moment. Me Too, the Me Too movement when it, when it struck, twenty eighteen, I think. and I'm not trying to give a history of this, or even come-- obviously, the issues brought up matter, but what's important in, in what I wanna share here is just the time value of truth there was, there's no hesitation between information being revealed and action being taken. So the, the, the urgency of that story was, was so strong, and everybody felt it, and being in any organization or- Just in the country, you, you felt that this was the paramount story going on, and any new piece of information within that narrative that came to light needed to be acted on right away. So the, there you can see that. The time value of truth was well, instantly, when you discover something has happened, action is taken, and now, some number of years later, I do think there are people who look back at certain specific instances and try to figure out, well, how, how appropriate was the, the punishment or the recourse? I don't wanna get into that, but you, you can see just how, swiftly people act when the truth is revealed in the moment that they care most about it. And, I'll, I'll leave that example for, for where it is. The other thing I wanted to come back to, which is, in, in your wheelhouse, but also indirectly in mine, is SBF, Sam Bankman-Fried, right? He, he's a media story in as much as he developed his own brand so compellingly that I think valuations couldn't really The sense that he was an important person, a genius, who had been validated by all of these high profile people who he courted and worked over very effectively, and so he got his Forbes cover and he was on stage with Bill Clinton and he was featured in all the ways that somebody who has substance, authority, and trust would be treated. He, he achieved that appearance very, very quickly and his business, not necessarily just for that reason, but was, was helped by it. And so people put on blinders too, with, with SBF. I don't know if you see the media playing a role in that story, but from where I, from where I sit, it seems in making it a mainstream option, from the Super Bowl ad to everything else that was done to make FTX seem accessible to people who aren't, conversant with, you know, all, all the different options in crypto. That, that was an important dimension of what happened there and the, the way he actually pulled off his fraud. You know, you can have a blank check for as long as people believe you're, you're trustworthy, and then once that started to fade and he couldn't keep it up anymore, the whole house of cards fell down." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:38", "start": 3337.99, "text": "Yeah. So I think in this case, it probably-- I mean, we were talking about it earlier, but about, I think it comes" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:48", "start": 3347.96, "text": "Right, he had basically created a Ponzi and created all these shitcoin tokens and then off a small percentage of the valuation, was valuing them very high and was getting collateral against this and, you know, w- basically partaking, he was running a shitcoin casino, he was like, you know, basically there's a whole aspect of that, but I think he then ended up paying for, he was, I guess it's pay for play, right, that he was able to pay for the right kinds of coverage, pay for, pay to sponsor the right kinds of things, and try to build almost this personality cult around himself, right? Like, think about it like this, he put himself, his own face, was on the ads for FTX, the exchange, right? You don't see that, like, you don't see, you know, Brian Armstrong on the front, in, in the Coinbase ads or, you know it, it, it was really strange to me that you'd see a massive billboard just with his face, or there'd be some with maybe Tom Brady or Gisele, some, you know, some of the other influencer, you know, famous people, but for him to just put his face on the front of it as though that was the trustworthy thing, right? It became part of the model in a way. So I guess in that example, I'm seeing that more like a pay-to-play. What, what do you think?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "57:02", "start": 3421.53, "text": "It wasn't only pay-to-play, but they all" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "57:09", "start": 3429.01, "text": "Was brilliant, was really, really brilliant, 'cause you leverage one against the other. You, you pay for the billboard, but the billboard doesn't look slick. And as a former journalist, you're skeptical of anything that's, that seems slick and trying to impress you. He doesn't seem like he's trying to impress you. He's down to earth. He wears shorts. He doesn't look like he's showered. So that gives you, that already takes you two steps in the door of, of trusting this guy. So the, the advertising strategy, I think, is inseparable from the would come across in, in interviews, and he would come and be fidgety and, and probably just be himself, but the effect of it was to create a sense that you had, you had a real person who couldn't possibly pull the wool over your eyes. And so the interviews that he got also were very, very favorable in organic media. I don't think he was paying anything for that. But Once you have the New York Times clip that makes you look really good, it becomes a lot easier to get Tom Brady to work with you, and once you get Tom Brady, then you get, you know, Larry David, and then you can trade up the chain. And he did it very fast and very effectively. And the, his down to earth-- down to earth isn't even the right word, his, His nerdy, on the spectrum kind of image where he was trying to be beyond question because he was so, he was so clearly not putting on a show, that That worked incredibly well on pretty much everybody, at least in the, mainstream world." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "58:32", "start": 3511.88, "text": "Yeah, I think maybe people play up certain aspects of how they are, like, for example, the whole stereotype of the Silicon Valley entrepreneur who walks around wearing hoodies and shorts and things like this, because they, they try to counter signal almost, right? They, instead of trying to wear a suit and a tie, they're trying to signal the other way and say, \"Oh, look, I'm so cool, I don't have to wear a suit to impress you.\" So I- I'm just gonna, you know, wear my hoodie and be like a tech guy, you know, like the typical sort of thing. So I could imagine it being a bit like that, and he's, maybe he's, maybe they're trying to play that angle up. I mean, there were a lot of weird things about SBF and just the degeneracy and the, you know, weird behavior going on there. But, yeah, I think, I mean, yeah, to, to your point, yes, you're right, it wasn't merely pay to play. He managed to I know he also made a lot of political donations as well, so he was able to get, I guess, he was trying to push for favorable regulations and things like this on that angle also. And by being" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "59:39", "start": 3578.59, "text": "accessible, if you wanna win a reporter's heart, it's helpful if you're available and you seem to be giving important information. You can call up the CEO and he'll be on your podcast," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "59:48", "start": 3587.83, "text": "right?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "59:48", "start": 3588.15, "text": "Amazing, awesome. You know, you want-- you're gonna ask him hard questions, but you want him to come on the next time, so you're not gonna try and assume About this guy, he thinks your podcast is cool, so he's clearly intelligent, and you can just see how the, the access that he offered, the very unusual amount of constant and seemingly transparent access, also helped to, to make people predisposed, make reporters, journalists predisposed to, to like him." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:12", "start": 3612.95, "text": "Yeah, I think I, I agree with that. I think because part of his game is the, is the PR game, so he needs to play this PR game and by that, as you said, being available for media, being available to answer questions, almost too available. As a CEO, if you're really managing this multi-billion dollar company, you know?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "01:00:30", "start": 3630.58, "text": "Yeah, doing podcast interviews constantly while playing video games simultaneously should raise a few questions. Yeah. Cringe," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:37", "start": 3637.77, "text": "right? Yeah. one other area I'm keen to ask you about though is, you've been going through and finding these interesting old clips, and some of them are interviews, some of them are th-things like, yeah, just interesting interviews or interesting clips. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how you-- how do you find these interesting clips?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "01:00:56", "start": 3656.26, "text": "So I think about it as a way to connect people on Twitter, which is where I'm sharing them, to great thinkers who aren't that far removed from us. Obviously, it has to be since the, the dawn of video, but a lot of these videos are very seldom watched, and they're not seen in, in the context of Twitter, and especially if you put captions on them so people can consume them as basically a, a book or an article, but they see the face of the person that, that they might not, you know, you, you might know the name of Dwight Eisenhower from history See him delivering his farewell address, and even to listen to it, if you choose to turn on the audio, it, it gives a different effect. There's a little bit of, I think, nostalgia that comes from it, but I also find it compelling, especially in an era of, of podcasting like we're doing now. You want to connect the person to the ideas. So I'm trying to find some of the most interesting thinkers who have ideas that shed light on our world today, and to find the moments when, at least to me, there's resonance for Things that are happening in technology, whether it's AI or going to Mars or, or the possibility of going to Mars rather, or identity in a, in a digital era like we're living in now. It's amazing the profanity of observations that were given in random interviews in 1970, 1955 by Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury. Marshall McLuhan, who's a media theorist from Canada, who's an incredible thinker. All of these people blew my mind when I listened to them, and as I started to share them on Twitter, I found that many, many people, including Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey liked some of these videos, you know, engaged with them, commented on them, and it, it told me that I was giving some value to people by, by going through and finding them. So how do I do it? I, I actually listen a lot to what my audience tells me in response to things. So if, if people mention, \"Oh, Marshall McLuhan is fantastic,\" I also really like, well, you could mention Michael Crichton, somebody that I shared recently, the, the novelist who wrote Jurassic Park and many, many other books and has, I think, a" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "01:03:02", "start": 3782.69, "text": "said in, in different videos and try to find that moment that, that will connect with people. That's the basic process." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:03:07", "start": 3787.8, "text": "Yeah, well, that's interesting as well, yeah. And I think you're right, like sometimes as you start talking about certain things- People who are commenting or reacting back to you will gi-give you ideas on what you could look at next, and I think that's even for me as a podcaster, that's something I've seen. There may be listeners who reach out and say, \"Oh, hey, you should interview this guy,\" or \"You should, you know, et cetera.\" so I think I've seen a similar thing in my world even. So, yeah, I guess those are some interesting things. yeah, I found the chat interesting. Do you have any, I guess, closing thoughts Truth or, or any, closing thoughts about where you see media is going?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "01:03:48", "start": 3828.68, "text": "I would say if you're listening to this, you're already on a good, you're on a good path, and you're consuming the kind of in-depth content that our era is really, really good at. So it's not, it's certainly not all a negative story. And I left journalism, but I'm writing more online than I ever was before. This is one example of many in the world where people are trying to bring value. So, I think the broader point would just be to come back to one that you made, individual creators and journalists and writers, however they identify themselves, people who are providing insight into what's happening in the world and what matters, there are more of them than ever before, and it's, I would say Twitter is my favorite place to find it, but fortunately there, there are other platforms out there. Don't just trust legacy brands. There are organizations that are constantly rotating through staff and are, in many cases, hollowed out. But if you hear somebody or see somebody say something that actually resonates with you, give that person some feedback, give them a follow, and that, that will send you down the path of finding and curating your own, you know, portfolio of sources that can give you information that really does feel trustworthy about the world." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:04:58", "start": 3898.92, "text": "Fantastic. Well, Benjamin, where can people find you online?" }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "01:05:01", "start": 3901.9, "text": "Check me out on Twitter and on Substack. my handle's Ben Carlson Bf Carlson, and it's called The Carlson Letter on Substack." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:05:08", "start": 3908.67, "text": "Fantastic, Benjamin, thanks for joining me." }, { "speaker": "ben_carlson", "time": "01:05:10", "start": 3910.35, "text": "Thanks, Stefan. It's a pleasure." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:05:12", "start": 3912.41, "text": "Now the show notes are available over at stefanlivera dot com. Make sure to share the show if you like it, and I'll see you in the citadels." } ] }