Firehose #180: A.I. Was a Mistake

Also: I wonder what insane news will break right after I hit “send”?

Against all instinct, and to the likely regret of my grandchildren, I clicked on Google News to figure out what is “Moltbook.” Just acres of headlines like, “AI Agents Now Have Their Own Reddit-Style Social Network, and it’s Getting Weird Fast,” and “A Memecoin Related to Moltbook Surged More Than 7,000%,” that kind of thing. Just no, people. See that picture above, attempting to illustrate Moynihan’s traumatic tale of childhood locker-room trauma involving “enormous dongs” and O.J. Simpson? (As exclusively revealed in Members Only #298.) Well, compare that pathetic A.I. attempt to translate listener Adam1775’s perfectly helpful prompts with the actual analog horrors of a delighted Lil’ Hollywood getting felt up by Don Shula:

Advantage: Reality.

* Speaking of Moynihan, he watched the Melania doc so you don’t have to:

* Moar Melania-doc talk, plus reaction to the Don Lemon arrest, with Mediaite Founding Editor Colby Hall Friday on The Moynihan Report:

* Furthering some of the conversation we had on #542 about Kanye West’s latest apology tour was Kmele in his weekly Tangle News spot Friday. Vigilantism also discussed:

* Is it time to talk about the F-word? OK, let’s. On M.O. #298, we referenced an Atlantic essay by one of our intellectual heroes, Jonathan Rauch (#323), headlined “Yes, it’s Fascism.” Rauch talked about his piece this week with Andrew Sullivan (#139, #200 & #449) and Matt Lewis:

* Moynihan earlier this week had talked about the Rauch argument and related issues with historian Roger Griffin, author of, well, Fascism:

* I know it feels like a thousand years ago, but it really was only last Saturday that Alex Pretti was shot and killed by Border Patrol officers on the streets of Minneapolis. Paying subscribers were able to hear that day from ex-cop & criminal-justice author Peter Moskos about what the available video did and did not tell us, and what else we should be considering when evaluating the performance of immigration enforcement personnel inside American cities. Here’s a free clip:

* This was obviously a big topic of discussion on Monday’s Reason Roundtable; here’s an edited clip of me talking about the clear difference between CBP/ICE agents and your friendly neighborhood cops. (Don’t peer too closely into my nostrils.)

* Reminder to see me & the rest of the Roundtable live this week in Washington, D.C., Wednesday night, Feb. 4. I might stay for a cocktail after. Also, Never Fly Coachers near NYC should keep on saving the date of Feb. 24. And April 1 is a certain anniversary….

* I forget which episode it was this week that we referenced Kristi Noem confidant Corey Lewandowski, and therefore his spectacular slosh-o-rama on Kennedy in 2019, but the indefatigable Busty Wimsatt was able to locate the audiovisual record:

* Speaking of the “loutocracy,” that was the precise topic of a lacerating George Will column this week. Also attaching exacto blade to pen was Glenn Loury (#121, #188, #366), in an Unherd piece titled “Elon Musk’s Apartheid Politics: America is not postcolonial Africa.” Sample:

He seems to be anticipating — and sometimes promoting — a race war. Over the past several weeks, the world’s richest man has repeatedly suggested that the United States is on a trajectory toward violent racial upheaval.

He has “reposted” or approvingly quoted posts claiming that South Africa is our future; that the United States is at risk of turning into a “Global Favela”; that the Left is “import[ing] a new voting block from the Third World”; that “all other [racial] groups show extreme in-group preference and particular hatred for white people”; and that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani seeks to “eradicate white people”.

The agents of collapse are unassimilated immigrants, aggrieved black Americans, and progressive elites who have inflamed resentment through years of identity-based moralising. The implied endpoint is civil conflict, for which he wants whites to prepare themselves.

These claims would be alarming coming from anyone. From a man of Musk’s unparalleled resources and influence, they warrant loud and unambiguous rejection.

* Comment of the Week, which is 100% going to be used in promotional materials, comes from Trent Simpson:

This episode is like learning history at a dive bar and I love it.

* Speaking of our Members Only miniseries-within-the-pod, even casual listeners are probably aware that I’m a sucker these days for American Revolution-related content. Which is why it pains me to relay that the sometimes-interesting film director Darren Arenofsky has resorted to cringey A.I. to make a corporate-sponsored YouTube miniseries about the 250^th. Here’s the latest installment, about one of the greatest examples of analog-era writing and distribution in American history, rendered intolerable by slop:

* Shall we cleanse the palate? Time for Producer Jason’s Video Vault!

As tear gas filled the streets of Minneapolis following the shooting of Alex Pretti by CBP agents I couldn’t help but think that it looked a bit like Chicago 1968, where the police were there, in Mayor Daley’s memorable phrasing, to “preserve disorder.” So this week’s pick is Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool. What the studio thought was going to be an adaptation of Jack Couffer’s “boy and a dog” story The Concrete Wilderness came back as an X-rated film about violence and voyeurism through the eyes of TV news cameraman John Cassellis (Robert Forster). Shot against the (literal) backdrop of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Medium Cool is a film that blurs the lines between documentary and fiction—and also happens to contain some of the best footage of the clashes between protesters and police. So, if you thought Civil War was a little too on-the-nose in exploring the role of journalists as dispassionate observers, orwant to see Chicago at its most photogenic, or are just a big Peter Bonerz fan, you’ll want to give Medium Cool a try. Trailer:

Walkoff is another referent from this week: