April 28, 2024 • 26 mins
Bestselling author and professor, Stephanie Kelton, joins Jordan Klepper and Ronny Chieng to break down the flexibilities of government finances despite being in a deficit and how the Modern Money Theory can help change how we interpret government spending. Also, Jordan and Ronny sit down with Kyle Chayka, New Yorker staff writer and author of "Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture," to explain how the social media algorithms affect our taste and culture in real life.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I Guess denis of professor of economics and public Policy
and the author of the best selling book The Deficit Myth.
She's featured in a new documentary, Finding the Money. Please Welcome,
Stephanie Calton.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Definitely welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Is a fascinating documentary. I will say, you are you
are setting out correct me if I'm wrong, to fundamentally
change how people see money. Yeah, that's a big ask
and we got about seven minutes. I think a place
to start is with MMT, Right, MMT, if you can
help us defile what MT is, and I think what
(00:56):
the narrative with the narrative you're hoping to get across
with MT, what is the new economic narrative? It's no
longer pull yourself up by your bootstraps. What is MMT
telling us?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
So?
Speaker 5 (01:06):
In economics is widely known as the dismal science, right,
because well, that's what MMT is trying to do better branding,
because you know, in the dismal science, it's all about
scarcity and we can never have the things that we
want because there's always this really intrusive problem, which is,
how are you going to pay for it?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Where is the money going to come from?
Speaker 5 (01:29):
And the problem is that we treat money like just
any other scarce good or service.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
In the economy.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
And what MMT is doing is saying, hold on a second,
we're not on a gold standard anymore. We have this
thing called a fiat currency. And it does make people
nervous because a fiat currency sort of opens up space
and it's kind of like, wait, is money real after all?
And so MMT is an economic framework that tries to
(01:55):
have an honest conversation that talks to people like grown ups,
not in soul people, by telling them that you have
to treat the government's budget like a household budget and
speaking down to people. We want to be honest about
the monetary system we have today, the capacities of the
government to spend when you have a fiat currency and
you're not tying your currency to gold and promising to
(02:16):
convert into something that you could run.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Out of, like physical gold.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
So we're opening up a conversation where there are still
limits and you still have to make choices, but we
can have an adult conversation about how the government can
actually operate its budget when it doesn't face the same
kinds of constraints that a household or a business face.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
I guess by that. I think that the big headline
with this as well is the way we look at
what the deficit means.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, like I hear.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Deficit, You're hear it in the news. You hear every
politician talking about a deficit equals bad yep. And the
major narrative of MMPT modern monetary theory is deficit good.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
Correct, Every deficit is good for someone in parly financial terms.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
And I'll tell you why, because you're right.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
We use this word and it sounds inherently like something's
gone wrong.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
If somebody is in deficit, there's a problem.
Speaker 6 (03:09):
Right.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
You don't want to turn on the sporting game and
find the announcer saying that your team is going to
have to come back and overcome a seven run deficit
if they're going to win the game. It's always a
bad thing, right. But actually, if you think about what
the government deficit is, it's just the difference between two numbers,
that's all it is.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
So what, Yeah, I want to relase, Well, I guess
we'll find that fine.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Ing fine, It's fine in the sense that it's just
a benign mathematical, like it's the difference between two numbers.
It's not even higher order math, right, It's just how
many dollars the government spends into the economy each year
versus how many they take back out, mostly through taxation.
So simple math. If they spend one hundred dollars into
(03:54):
the economy and they only take ninety dollars back out,
we label it a government deficit, and somebody records it
as a minus ten on the government's ledger. What we
forget to do is to recognize if they put one
hundred in and only take ninety out, somebody gets ten.
So the government's deficit is matched or mirrored by a
financial surplus in some other part of the economy.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Is wait, hang on, so did you guys meet backstage
or something? Because what the hell? What is MMT? What?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
What?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
What's MT? What is? What does MT stand for?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
You? Hand it?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
So it's modern monetary theory, and so again the currency
we're not under the old standard.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
We're in the modern fiat age to what we have.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, what's well is a good car as you get.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
What you're walking around with. If you've got some of
this stuff in your wallet is a tax credit? So
those dollar bills that we're walking around with, we think
of that as money, right, And we can use it
to transact, We can use to buy and sell thing,
We can use it to make purchases of.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Goods and cases.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And money is good.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
It's good to have it generally, and it's really good
to have when you got to pay your taxes because
this is what the government expects us to hand over at.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
The end of the day.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Okay, okay, money is good. I'm with you so far.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
But let's do this.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
What about that government deficit that you just mentioned, right,
And I said, every government deficit is good for someone?
Why because it's just a financial deposit into some other
part of the economy.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
The question is good for whom and good for what?
Speaker 5 (05:23):
The government can increase its deficit to do things like
feed hungry kids, tackle the climate crisis, fixed crumbling infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
All of those things are ways.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
To use a government deficit that might have desirable results
for people and for the economy.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
So money is good, deficit is good. I'm with you
so far.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So what's the bad? What's the problem? You have?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
A big part of the problem is the way that
we've been.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Taught to think about these things to try to stamp
out deficits, to reduce them, to view them as inherently dangerous.
They're not inherently dangerous, and as I just said, they
can be used to help us accomplish important goals in
the economy.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
So, for example, if I go to Caesar's Palace and
I borrow like twohenty dollars in my credit card, I
put it on red and I lose everything that's good.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
That's bad.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Wait why is that bad?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Though? Then?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
But doesn't the casino.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
It's good for the casino.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
And also, don't go to Caesar's Palace. That's a little
ghost person.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It's bad.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Maybe go to MGM or this is something. But financially
that's bad for him.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
But that's bad for you.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
But the point is to try to figure out and
to wrap our heads around what it is we're actually
capable of doing, because we're always told that we can't
tackle big problems that we face. We can't deal with
housing problems, or education, or climate, infrastructure, social security and
medicare always come up, and everybody always says the same thing,
we can't afford it. We have this deficit or we
(06:51):
have this national debt where are you going to find
the money to do these things? And so MMT comes
in and says, look, it's not about finding the money.
The money is created when the government spends, Congress authorizes
the spending, and if the votes are there, the money
is there.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
The thing you have to watch out for is inflation.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
So it isn't as if it's a free lunch. There
are no constraints, there are no limits. There are limits,
and the limit is inflation. You can't run out of money,
but you can run out of things to buy.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
I mean, so this is correct me if I'm wrong,
But if I'm going nutshell here, your essential argument is
we're not bartering back and forth like this is an
avatar for gold in our pocket. The government makes money.
They can decide how much money goes out there. Right,
you pay taxes. They don't need our taxes to fix
big problems. They can make big money. It's on them
to figure out how to spend it and put it
(07:39):
into the economy in a way that can get big
things done. And then the private businesses they're the ones
who have the money. The government just has created that situation,
and inflation becomes the boundary that they have to act
underneath correct.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Well done, well done, you do.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
She's a published author and created a movie and still
assholes won't do the research. But here, here's the pushback.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Here's the pushback memorizing the Wikipedia pitch.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
But here's the argument.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Here's what's so compelling. And Ronnie is a great he's
a useful idiot in this, and people are scared. I
don't know a lot about money, and I think the
narratives are our money. Teach me to be afraid of it.
It's something that we shouldn't talk about because I don't
understand the underpinnings of it. And I think what it's
compelling about. Your argument is we can and have, like
World War two, have figured out ways in which to
(08:38):
create money and fix big problems. It's we almost need
a giant, We need a big thing to focus on
to get those problems done correct, to get the narrative
around it, like I think it.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
Helps in COVID was that big thing for a period
of time where governments around the world suddenly stopped asking
the question how are we going to pay for it?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
And what are we going to do about this deficit?
Speaker 5 (08:58):
And they just pulled out I'll use the phrase the
money bazooka, Right, countries realize that they're going to have
to spend a lot of money to shore up people's
lives and livelihoods through the pandemic. And so we spent
some five trillion dollars just in the first twelve months
or so of the pandemic. And I wish that climate
was going to be that catalyzing event that kind of
(09:20):
forces everybody to have that wake up moment and realize
that we've been focusing on the wrong sorts of problems,
that we really can tackle the problem of climate change.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
We can afford it. We got to watch out for inflation.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Sure, Okay, Sure, So you'll say that MMT can be
used to solve issues that we claim that we have
no money for by basically the government making money, because
that's where money comes from. Right. And you're saying, but
doesn't that increase inflation inherently if you just keep making money?
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Well no, I mean the government has run deficits most
of my life, with the exception of four years during
the Clinton administration, the government's budget has been in deficit.
Look at a country like Japan, They've had large deficits
every single year for the last thirty years or so
and no inflation to show for it, and we hardly
had any inflation. Inflation didn't really become a problem until
COVID came along and started breaking supply chains, and then
(10:10):
wars in Ukraine and food and energy prices and so forth.
But you can have large and persistent deficits without having
an inflation problem. It's when those deficits collide against the
backdrop of constraints in the real economy, where the economy
can't resource, can't keep up and satisfy that demand. That's
(10:31):
what happened in the COVID pandemic and in World War Two.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
So if it happened in World War two, and it
happened in a COVID pandemic where inflation got out of control,
where we had you had basically a limited spending on
one single issue World two, Well, COVID then helping you. Well,
you know what's evidence that MMT will work? Then if
we had two real examples, I'm just jo yeah, no, no,
because someone just briefed me on that and I'll just
repeat it.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
So the evidence that it works is that MMT is
a description of how government finance always operates, whether you
have a budget deficit, a budget surplus, or a balanced budget.
MMT is at work providing the explanation. So it isn't
about ramping up deficits and running large chronic deficits. You
can have a good, healthy economy in some cases, whether
(11:16):
relatively small deficit or maybe even with a balanced budget.
It depends on a lot of other things. So the
evidence that it works is that it's a description, and
we think a more honest and accurate description of the
monetary system we have and how governments actually pay their bills.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Now, as a I guess in theory how this takes
greater effect and affects our lives and gets big things
done Green New Deal that was a big part of
the way in which we be funded. We need to
start looking at money like through an MMT lens. Correct.
That's also presupposes that you do have this paradigm shift
that we start to see as a country as a collective,
(11:53):
we start to see the usage of money differently. But
getting people to have a cohesive change of mind and
the way they see the world seems like impossibility. From
the experiences I've had out on the road and at Thanksgiving,
well look like how much of like, do we live
in a culture where we can experience a paradigm shift
(12:14):
or is that in and of itself an impossiblity.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I hope. So, I mean TikTok is there. I'm kidding.
I'm kidding. We're going to get better.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Nope.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
But it's stuff like this, right, It's conversations like these
that allow people to hear a different perspective.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
And also I think, you.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
Know, look with the what the last couple of years,
what we've done, in some cases on a bipartisan basis
and in some cases just with Democrats. But you had
the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the largest climate bill
we've ever had in the history of our country. We
have the Chips and Sciences Act, which big investments in
actual productive capacity here in the US, and the bipartisan
(12:51):
Infrastructure Bill, which is repairing roads and bridges and you know,
taking care of our infrastructure. So those are three big packages,
which I would are you are just an extension in
many ways of what the administration started doing with the
COVID spending. And it's just another example of the government
being able to mobilize the financial wherewithal to commit to
(13:12):
spending money that it doesn't have because the money comes
from the willingness of Congress to say yes. When Congress
says yes and writes those bills, the legislation is the
set of instructions that goes to the government's bank, the
Federal Reserve, and it says we've committed to making these payments.
Your job is our fiscal agent, is to carry out
(13:32):
all of the payments we've authorized on behalf of the
US Treasury. And that is just how government finance works.
It's no more complicated than that. But we complicate it
with stories about taxes and borrowing and debt and all
the rest of it. But at the end of the day,
the spending is really easy to carry out.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Well, you see, you're a very smart person. You're saying
things very calmly. Yeah, and everything seems like it's fine.
So how do we get to what would you what
can people walk away with like if.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
They want to like not be sad when they look
at the who is always his questions? How do I
not be sad?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
What's the what's the what's like the practical application? Because
you'll you'll, well, I guess we just the three of
us sat down here and we decided that the deficit
is fine, and we can well okay, then so okay,
so well.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
But what's the next step.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Why would you actually, let's say we believe in MT
or yeah, MMT. What what? What's the next thing? That
I mean is belief enough? Do I just have to
pray to MMT and then it what? What has to
happen next?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Who else?
Speaker 5 (14:39):
What has to happen next is that the people that
we elect to represent us have to go in there
and and take decisions using the incredible power that they
have called the power of the purse. That they've got
to take decisions about whether to fund programs, whether to
cut programs, not on the belief that they ought to
be operating their budget like a household. But when these
(15:01):
decisions come up about Social Security and Medicare, or continuing
with the Inflation Reduction Act and staying you know, in
the game on climate change and going even beyond what
that legislation did. What I think gives me hope anyway,
is that we've demonstrated what we're capable of and that
we can build on it and not revert back to
(15:23):
old ways of thinking about austerity and the need to
reduce deficits, because that's when you hammer your economy. That's
when people have a lost decade. That's when all of
a sudden, you know, the prosperity that is within reach
starts to slip through our fingers.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
So when the irs comes from my taxes, I just
got to tell them, like yoll, deficit is good.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Don't worry about it. Don't worry boy that you need
to You know what you need to do.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
You need to take some THC or some d MT
and let.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
The MMT just wash over you.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Let the paradigm shift come to you.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Ronnie Jack, Yeah, I think I'm in it right now.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Well, Finding the Money will be released in select theaters
nationwide and on demand May third from More information go
to Finding moneyfilm dot com. Seventy Keelton, We're gonna take
a quick break.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I guess the rights of staff right out of the
New York fore who.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Lato's book is called Filter World, How Algorithms Flattened Culture.
Please welcome Kyle, Shake up, Kyle, Kyle, Kyle.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
I like this book. I'll tell you why.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
I've been in grumpy asshole about culture for years now,
and this book validates so many of the things I've
been telling other people.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Tell me, how am I right?
Speaker 6 (16:47):
How?
Speaker 4 (16:48):
How do algorithms flatten culture?
Speaker 6 (16:50):
How has everything gotten worse in the past second or something?
I like seeing the sticky notes by the way, like
this is a demonstration.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
I'm really on all of this. Please it's like a
for me.
Speaker 6 (17:01):
But yeah, I think we're surrounded by these machines right now,
which are algorithmic recommendations, and everything from your email to
your Facebook feed, to your text messages to a TikTok video,
it's all sorted for you. So I think that kind
of affects culture in two ways. Whereas consumers we become
more passive, we're like more accustomed to just getting stuff
(17:22):
handed to us that already agrees with our viewpoint and
like our tastes. And then on the other side, the
creators of culture kind of have to mold their work
to fit these algorithmic platforms. So they have to figure
out what works on Instagram, what works on TikTok, and
then like adapt their work to that rather than just
doing what they might want to do on their own.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
I actually you mentioned here, which I think is a
good example of it, and part of what you ruminate
on is this generic coffee shop. Tell me about that.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
Yeah, it was this kind of coffee shop design that
I started encountering just traveling around as a journalist, probably
around twenty fifteen twenty sixteen. And I think everyone can
recognize it, especially in New York if you've been to
almost any cafe around here. There's white subway tile on
the wall, there's reclaimed wood furniture, there's hanging Edison bulbs
with those like exposed wires. There's succulents and little ceramic.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Jars, a neon sign that says I love.
Speaker 6 (18:16):
Absolutely avocado toasts and script or whatever. And I think
the reason why you find this everywhere, like whether you're
in Beijing or Berlin or Los Angeles or a bali
or wherever you go, is because our tastes have kind
of been homogenized by platforms like Instagram. So there's like
a particular aesthetic that works for Instagram, and everyone puts
(18:38):
it out there, and then everyone else on the platform
slowly copies that. And I think that's true for a
coffee shop owner, which I interviewed a bunch of for
the book, but it's also true of musicians or a
chef making a kind of food that looks good on
Instagram or a producer making a beat for TikTok. So
I think we're all kind of getting funneled into these
weird tracks.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
And when I visit coffee shop like that overseas all
around America, I.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Feel at home those places familiar to it.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
No, it's true, but I mean the point is, like
I hate social media as much as anybody.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Everyone can testify to this.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I hate social media, testify, So this is this is
But when we'll talk about algorithms pushing taste, I mean,
just to be Devil's advocate a little bit, Like we've
had aesthetics become popular before computers existed. So how much
of this is algorithms and how much of it's just
(19:34):
humans kind of having this like the meta game of
human art. Yes, it's kind of finding a balance to
what everyone kind of likes.
Speaker 6 (19:44):
We're always chasing each other, right, Like culture is a
process of copying stuff and finding a style that works
in the mainstream. But I think now we're just really
in these funnels that are directing us in like a
bigger and faster way toward each other. Like we're all
being shoved into these set tracks much more.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Than we were.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I guess I'm saying how much of this is algorithm's
fault and how much of this is we are just
humans are.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
This is humans are bad.
Speaker 6 (20:10):
I think it's like.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Humans are bad and dumb, and we have that taste
and eventually the machines they they call us.
Speaker 6 (20:18):
I think it's the humans had bad habits like we are.
We want to be passive, we want to be lazy.
We don't want to get too far out of our
comfort zones, and these algorithmic platforms make it so easy
to not do that, Like we don't have to go
we don't have to see things we don't like, we
don't have to listen to music that's unusual for us.
So I think it like enables those innate tendencies, and
that makes us more boring, like makes us more boring consumers.
(20:42):
It makes culture kind of more generic overall. And I
worry that we like can't get out of that laziness,
Like we can't get out of that habit that we're
in because of the platforms.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I think a lot about like, our taste is part
of how we define who we are, how we interact
with the world, right, And I think for me, the
stuff that I have grown to fall in love with.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
You find it before the Internet. I'm that old, But
like I fell in love like the cool.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
High school friend who recommends you liquid swords and you
have a long commute to school, and so you play
it and you sit with it and it becomes interesting
and part of your identity. You find it like sort
of have to meet a moment with a part of
taste to find it in for it to actually stick
to you. And what I worry about with algorithms, like
we are we executing serendipity?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (21:29):
I think so in a way, because everything is presorted
to appeal to us, like you are not seeing something
that's totally outside of your fami of reference. So in
that case, when your friend in high school recommends an
album to you, there's this like passion to that, there's
like a creativity to that. They really enjoy it, so
they want to give it to you, and you're more
likely to sit with it and give it some patience
(21:51):
and try to understand what they meant by giving it
to you, whereas when an algorithmic feed gives you something,
there's no feeling there, like there's no creativity there's no
enjoyment of that piece of culture. It's just that enough
data suggested to a sorting machine that you would like
this bit of stuff. I'm like, that is kind of
depressing to me as someone who enjoys, like your data
(22:11):
likes this.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Have more.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Yeah, yeah, stop stop at the beestro life, look at
the beestrow lines.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
So you guys, you guys are both Brooklyn hipsters. Okay,
you want some human to come and tell you what's good,
But like, what about what about the situations when we
go on Instagram or inert social media whatever, and then
they recommend the something to buy, like a piece of
clothing or or.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Let's not go into what I buy.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
But like, uh yeah I was. I was running my
head through all the stuff, like I said on TV,
but uh, recommend something and you go actually like this,
I actually do, like I hate that minute.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
But the algorithm got me. Yeah, my wife, my algorithm,
the algorithm got me.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
I bought this thing, you know, whether it's chewing gum
that comes from a tree in grease or whatever.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
It was like but and I actually enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
So like, you know, we were arguing against algorithms too,
But how much of this is you know, beneficial.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yea.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Not everybody has a cool high school friend. Most people
have a shitty one that maybe should be replaced by Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
No.
Speaker 6 (23:14):
I feel like sometimes the algorithms judge us too well,
like they know exactly what we're going to look at,
they know what niche products we're going to want to buy,
like the resin gum or like weird natural.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Well, are you going up too? Oh? Absolutely? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
You know.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
We all have those things that are like, oh you,
the algorithm says that I must like this, therefore I
like it, and so I think it just like guides
us towards those things, and we feel an anxiety from
being perceived too well. In a way, it's like, oh no,
the machine knows me, And I think that inspires bad
feelings as well. Like in the book I write about
algorithmic anxiety, which was this academic term for basically the
(23:52):
lack of power and agency you have in relation to
the algorithm. You don't know how it works, you don't
know why you're getting recommended resin gum from Greece. You
just know that it's like you have been evaluated and
this is directed at you.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
But now I know, But now I know that we
actually might be friends because you both get the same.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
For the Greek gun thing. Yeah, you don't know what, Yeah,
one of the cool kids. That's what I want to know.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
So they say, if politics is downstream from culture and
we all are moving into this flattened culture, what does
this mean from thirty thousand foot view to what it
does toward politics?
Speaker 6 (24:30):
Yeah, I think it affects everything, Like it affects culture,
It affects geography, cities, also politics. And in culture, algorithms
kind of funnel everyone toward a generic average where there's
just this like style that works for everyone. But I
think it's slightly different in politics, like it's sorting people
into these very extreme groups that are very far from
each other. So like in the US, maybe there's two
(24:52):
big buckets, like you're either a Democrat or a Republican,
and there is one way to be those things. There's
no internal diversity. It's hard to have different opinions at
the same time. It's just like you've been sorted into
this bucket or this bucket, and then you've experienced a
lot of pressure to stay in there.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So how come algorithms are flattening the culture when it's
bad for us, meaning everyone seeing the same thing. But
when it comes to politics, and maybe it would be
better if we couldn't ruin this direction. It's making using
the worst possible things.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
I mean, it's totally true. It's like opposing forces in
a way. I mean, I think culture is like a
thing that many people experience collectively, Like it's a thing
that we can all enjoy it together in a way
sometimes whereas yeah, and in like a Tailor Swift context,
everyone can like telor Swift.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
If there's a tall we do, and we do we
do to be clear.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
So if we could find the tailor Swift for politics,
that would be amazing. But I think something I think, I.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Think it's there.
Speaker 6 (26:02):
We go, Okay, we've figured it out. The algorithmic solutions
of politics is Tyler Swift. But yeah, I mean, maybe
it's just that there can be no one solution to
such opposing viewpoints.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Even computers can figure it out.
Speaker 6 (26:14):
Until we have the president that is the algorithm. Unfortunately,
how old is that algorithm?
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yes, well, none of them are that old.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
This has only been a decade.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
You'll you know what, It sounds like a decent option
that a lot of people could get behind a filter.
World is available now.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Kyle Jacob explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast
universe by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
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Speaker 1 (26:50):
This has been a Comedy Central podcast
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I Guess denis of professor of economics and public Policy
and the author of the best selling book The Deficit Myth.
She's featured in a new documentary, Finding the Money. Please Welcome,
Stephanie Calton.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Definitely welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Is a fascinating documentary. I will say, you are you
are setting out correct me if I'm wrong, to fundamentally
change how people see money. Yeah, that's a big ask
and we got about seven minutes. I think a place
to start is with MMT, Right, MMT, if you can
help us defile what MT is, and I think what
(00:56):
the narrative with the narrative you're hoping to get across
with MT, what is the new economic narrative? It's no
longer pull yourself up by your bootstraps. What is MMT
telling us?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
So?
Speaker 5 (01:06):
In economics is widely known as the dismal science, right,
because well, that's what MMT is trying to do better branding,
because you know, in the dismal science, it's all about
scarcity and we can never have the things that we
want because there's always this really intrusive problem, which is,
how are you going to pay for it?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Where is the money going to come from?
Speaker 5 (01:29):
And the problem is that we treat money like just
any other scarce good or service.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
In the economy.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
And what MMT is doing is saying, hold on a second,
we're not on a gold standard anymore. We have this
thing called a fiat currency. And it does make people
nervous because a fiat currency sort of opens up space
and it's kind of like, wait, is money real after all?
And so MMT is an economic framework that tries to
(01:55):
have an honest conversation that talks to people like grown ups,
not in soul people, by telling them that you have
to treat the government's budget like a household budget and
speaking down to people. We want to be honest about
the monetary system we have today, the capacities of the
government to spend when you have a fiat currency and
you're not tying your currency to gold and promising to
(02:16):
convert into something that you could run.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Out of, like physical gold.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
So we're opening up a conversation where there are still
limits and you still have to make choices, but we
can have an adult conversation about how the government can
actually operate its budget when it doesn't face the same
kinds of constraints that a household or a business face.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
I guess by that. I think that the big headline
with this as well is the way we look at
what the deficit means.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, like I hear.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Deficit, You're hear it in the news. You hear every
politician talking about a deficit equals bad yep. And the
major narrative of MMPT modern monetary theory is deficit good.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
Correct, Every deficit is good for someone in parly financial terms.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
And I'll tell you why, because you're right.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
We use this word and it sounds inherently like something's
gone wrong.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
If somebody is in deficit, there's a problem.
Speaker 6 (03:09):
Right.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
You don't want to turn on the sporting game and
find the announcer saying that your team is going to
have to come back and overcome a seven run deficit
if they're going to win the game. It's always a
bad thing, right. But actually, if you think about what
the government deficit is, it's just the difference between two numbers,
that's all it is.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
So what, Yeah, I want to relase, Well, I guess
we'll find that fine.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
Ing fine, It's fine in the sense that it's just
a benign mathematical, like it's the difference between two numbers.
It's not even higher order math, right, It's just how
many dollars the government spends into the economy each year
versus how many they take back out, mostly through taxation.
So simple math. If they spend one hundred dollars into
(03:54):
the economy and they only take ninety dollars back out,
we label it a government deficit, and somebody records it
as a minus ten on the government's ledger. What we
forget to do is to recognize if they put one
hundred in and only take ninety out, somebody gets ten.
So the government's deficit is matched or mirrored by a
financial surplus in some other part of the economy.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Is wait, hang on, so did you guys meet backstage
or something? Because what the hell? What is MMT? What?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
What?
Speaker 1 (04:24):
What's MT? What is? What does MT stand for?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
You? Hand it?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
So it's modern monetary theory, and so again the currency
we're not under the old standard.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
We're in the modern fiat age to what we have.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, what's well is a good car as you get.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
What you're walking around with. If you've got some of
this stuff in your wallet is a tax credit? So
those dollar bills that we're walking around with, we think
of that as money, right, And we can use it
to transact, We can use to buy and sell thing,
We can use it to make purchases of.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Goods and cases.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And money is good.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
It's good to have it generally, and it's really good
to have when you got to pay your taxes because
this is what the government expects us to hand over at.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
The end of the day.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Okay, okay, money is good. I'm with you so far.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
But let's do this.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
What about that government deficit that you just mentioned, right,
And I said, every government deficit is good for someone?
Why because it's just a financial deposit into some other
part of the economy.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
The question is good for whom and good for what?
Speaker 5 (05:23):
The government can increase its deficit to do things like
feed hungry kids, tackle the climate crisis, fixed crumbling infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
All of those things are ways.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
To use a government deficit that might have desirable results
for people and for the economy.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
So money is good, deficit is good. I'm with you
so far.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So what's the bad? What's the problem? You have?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
A big part of the problem is the way that
we've been.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Taught to think about these things to try to stamp
out deficits, to reduce them, to view them as inherently dangerous.
They're not inherently dangerous, and as I just said, they
can be used to help us accomplish important goals in
the economy.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
So, for example, if I go to Caesar's Palace and
I borrow like twohenty dollars in my credit card, I
put it on red and I lose everything that's good.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
That's bad.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Wait why is that bad?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Though? Then?
Speaker 1 (06:14):
But doesn't the casino.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
It's good for the casino.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
And also, don't go to Caesar's Palace. That's a little
ghost person.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
It's bad.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Maybe go to MGM or this is something. But financially
that's bad for him.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
But that's bad for you.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
But the point is to try to figure out and
to wrap our heads around what it is we're actually
capable of doing, because we're always told that we can't
tackle big problems that we face. We can't deal with
housing problems, or education, or climate, infrastructure, social security and
medicare always come up, and everybody always says the same thing,
we can't afford it. We have this deficit or we
(06:51):
have this national debt where are you going to find
the money to do these things? And so MMT comes
in and says, look, it's not about finding the money.
The money is created when the government spends, Congress authorizes
the spending, and if the votes are there, the money
is there.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
The thing you have to watch out for is inflation.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
So it isn't as if it's a free lunch. There
are no constraints, there are no limits. There are limits,
and the limit is inflation. You can't run out of money,
but you can run out of things to buy.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
I mean, so this is correct me if I'm wrong,
But if I'm going nutshell here, your essential argument is
we're not bartering back and forth like this is an
avatar for gold in our pocket. The government makes money.
They can decide how much money goes out there. Right,
you pay taxes. They don't need our taxes to fix
big problems. They can make big money. It's on them
to figure out how to spend it and put it
(07:39):
into the economy in a way that can get big
things done. And then the private businesses they're the ones
who have the money. The government just has created that situation,
and inflation becomes the boundary that they have to act
underneath correct.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Well done, well done, you do.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
She's a published author and created a movie and still
assholes won't do the research. But here, here's the pushback.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Here's the pushback memorizing the Wikipedia pitch.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
But here's the argument.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Here's what's so compelling. And Ronnie is a great he's
a useful idiot in this, and people are scared. I
don't know a lot about money, and I think the
narratives are our money. Teach me to be afraid of it.
It's something that we shouldn't talk about because I don't
understand the underpinnings of it. And I think what it's
compelling about. Your argument is we can and have, like
World War two, have figured out ways in which to
(08:38):
create money and fix big problems. It's we almost need
a giant, We need a big thing to focus on
to get those problems done correct, to get the narrative
around it, like I think it.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
Helps in COVID was that big thing for a period
of time where governments around the world suddenly stopped asking
the question how are we going to pay for it?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
And what are we going to do about this deficit?
Speaker 5 (08:58):
And they just pulled out I'll use the phrase the
money bazooka, Right, countries realize that they're going to have
to spend a lot of money to shore up people's
lives and livelihoods through the pandemic. And so we spent
some five trillion dollars just in the first twelve months
or so of the pandemic. And I wish that climate
was going to be that catalyzing event that kind of
(09:20):
forces everybody to have that wake up moment and realize
that we've been focusing on the wrong sorts of problems,
that we really can tackle the problem of climate change.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
We can afford it. We got to watch out for inflation.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Sure, Okay, Sure, So you'll say that MMT can be
used to solve issues that we claim that we have
no money for by basically the government making money, because
that's where money comes from. Right. And you're saying, but
doesn't that increase inflation inherently if you just keep making money?
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Well no, I mean the government has run deficits most
of my life, with the exception of four years during
the Clinton administration, the government's budget has been in deficit.
Look at a country like Japan, They've had large deficits
every single year for the last thirty years or so
and no inflation to show for it, and we hardly
had any inflation. Inflation didn't really become a problem until
COVID came along and started breaking supply chains, and then
(10:10):
wars in Ukraine and food and energy prices and so forth.
But you can have large and persistent deficits without having
an inflation problem. It's when those deficits collide against the
backdrop of constraints in the real economy, where the economy
can't resource, can't keep up and satisfy that demand. That's
(10:31):
what happened in the COVID pandemic and in World War Two.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
So if it happened in World War two, and it
happened in a COVID pandemic where inflation got out of control,
where we had you had basically a limited spending on
one single issue World two, Well, COVID then helping you. Well,
you know what's evidence that MMT will work? Then if
we had two real examples, I'm just jo yeah, no, no,
because someone just briefed me on that and I'll just
repeat it.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
So the evidence that it works is that MMT is
a description of how government finance always operates, whether you
have a budget deficit, a budget surplus, or a balanced budget.
MMT is at work providing the explanation. So it isn't
about ramping up deficits and running large chronic deficits. You
can have a good, healthy economy in some cases, whether
(11:16):
relatively small deficit or maybe even with a balanced budget.
It depends on a lot of other things. So the
evidence that it works is that it's a description, and
we think a more honest and accurate description of the
monetary system we have and how governments actually pay their bills.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Now, as a I guess in theory how this takes
greater effect and affects our lives and gets big things
done Green New Deal that was a big part of
the way in which we be funded. We need to
start looking at money like through an MMT lens. Correct.
That's also presupposes that you do have this paradigm shift
that we start to see as a country as a collective,
(11:53):
we start to see the usage of money differently. But
getting people to have a cohesive change of mind and
the way they see the world seems like impossibility. From
the experiences I've had out on the road and at Thanksgiving,
well look like how much of like, do we live
in a culture where we can experience a paradigm shift
(12:14):
or is that in and of itself an impossiblity.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I hope. So, I mean TikTok is there. I'm kidding.
I'm kidding. We're going to get better.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Nope.
Speaker 5 (12:24):
But it's stuff like this, right, It's conversations like these
that allow people to hear a different perspective.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
And also I think, you.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
Know, look with the what the last couple of years,
what we've done, in some cases on a bipartisan basis
and in some cases just with Democrats. But you had
the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the largest climate bill
we've ever had in the history of our country. We
have the Chips and Sciences Act, which big investments in
actual productive capacity here in the US, and the bipartisan
(12:51):
Infrastructure Bill, which is repairing roads and bridges and you know,
taking care of our infrastructure. So those are three big packages,
which I would are you are just an extension in
many ways of what the administration started doing with the
COVID spending. And it's just another example of the government
being able to mobilize the financial wherewithal to commit to
(13:12):
spending money that it doesn't have because the money comes
from the willingness of Congress to say yes. When Congress
says yes and writes those bills, the legislation is the
set of instructions that goes to the government's bank, the
Federal Reserve, and it says we've committed to making these payments.
Your job is our fiscal agent, is to carry out
(13:32):
all of the payments we've authorized on behalf of the
US Treasury. And that is just how government finance works.
It's no more complicated than that. But we complicate it
with stories about taxes and borrowing and debt and all
the rest of it. But at the end of the day,
the spending is really easy to carry out.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Well, you see, you're a very smart person. You're saying
things very calmly. Yeah, and everything seems like it's fine.
So how do we get to what would you what
can people walk away with like if.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
They want to like not be sad when they look
at the who is always his questions? How do I
not be sad?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
What's the what's the what's like the practical application? Because
you'll you'll, well, I guess we just the three of
us sat down here and we decided that the deficit
is fine, and we can well okay, then so okay,
so well.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
But what's the next step.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Why would you actually, let's say we believe in MT
or yeah, MMT. What what? What's the next thing? That
I mean is belief enough? Do I just have to
pray to MMT and then it what? What has to
happen next?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Who else?
Speaker 5 (14:39):
What has to happen next is that the people that
we elect to represent us have to go in there
and and take decisions using the incredible power that they
have called the power of the purse. That they've got
to take decisions about whether to fund programs, whether to
cut programs, not on the belief that they ought to
be operating their budget like a household. But when these
(15:01):
decisions come up about Social Security and Medicare, or continuing
with the Inflation Reduction Act and staying you know, in
the game on climate change and going even beyond what
that legislation did. What I think gives me hope anyway,
is that we've demonstrated what we're capable of and that
we can build on it and not revert back to
(15:23):
old ways of thinking about austerity and the need to
reduce deficits, because that's when you hammer your economy. That's
when people have a lost decade. That's when all of
a sudden, you know, the prosperity that is within reach
starts to slip through our fingers.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
So when the irs comes from my taxes, I just
got to tell them, like yoll, deficit is good.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Don't worry about it. Don't worry boy that you need
to You know what you need to do.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
You need to take some THC or some d MT
and let.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
The MMT just wash over you.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Let the paradigm shift come to you.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Ronnie Jack, Yeah, I think I'm in it right now.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Well, Finding the Money will be released in select theaters
nationwide and on demand May third from More information go
to Finding moneyfilm dot com. Seventy Keelton, We're gonna take
a quick break.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I guess the rights of staff right out of the
New York fore who.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Lato's book is called Filter World, How Algorithms Flattened Culture.
Please welcome Kyle, Shake up, Kyle, Kyle, Kyle.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
I like this book. I'll tell you why.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
I've been in grumpy asshole about culture for years now,
and this book validates so many of the things I've
been telling other people.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Tell me, how am I right?
Speaker 6 (16:47):
How?
Speaker 4 (16:48):
How do algorithms flatten culture?
Speaker 6 (16:50):
How has everything gotten worse in the past second or something?
I like seeing the sticky notes by the way, like
this is a demonstration.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
I'm really on all of this. Please it's like a
for me.
Speaker 6 (17:01):
But yeah, I think we're surrounded by these machines right now,
which are algorithmic recommendations, and everything from your email to
your Facebook feed, to your text messages to a TikTok video,
it's all sorted for you. So I think that kind
of affects culture in two ways. Whereas consumers we become
more passive, we're like more accustomed to just getting stuff
(17:22):
handed to us that already agrees with our viewpoint and
like our tastes. And then on the other side, the
creators of culture kind of have to mold their work
to fit these algorithmic platforms. So they have to figure
out what works on Instagram, what works on TikTok, and
then like adapt their work to that rather than just
doing what they might want to do on their own.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
I actually you mentioned here, which I think is a
good example of it, and part of what you ruminate
on is this generic coffee shop. Tell me about that.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
Yeah, it was this kind of coffee shop design that
I started encountering just traveling around as a journalist, probably
around twenty fifteen twenty sixteen. And I think everyone can
recognize it, especially in New York if you've been to
almost any cafe around here. There's white subway tile on
the wall, there's reclaimed wood furniture, there's hanging Edison bulbs
with those like exposed wires. There's succulents and little ceramic.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Jars, a neon sign that says I love.
Speaker 6 (18:16):
Absolutely avocado toasts and script or whatever. And I think
the reason why you find this everywhere, like whether you're
in Beijing or Berlin or Los Angeles or a bali
or wherever you go, is because our tastes have kind
of been homogenized by platforms like Instagram. So there's like
a particular aesthetic that works for Instagram, and everyone puts
(18:38):
it out there, and then everyone else on the platform
slowly copies that. And I think that's true for a
coffee shop owner, which I interviewed a bunch of for
the book, but it's also true of musicians or a
chef making a kind of food that looks good on
Instagram or a producer making a beat for TikTok. So
I think we're all kind of getting funneled into these
weird tracks.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
And when I visit coffee shop like that overseas all
around America, I.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Feel at home those places familiar to it.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
No, it's true, but I mean the point is, like
I hate social media as much as anybody.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Everyone can testify to this.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
I hate social media, testify, So this is this is
But when we'll talk about algorithms pushing taste, I mean,
just to be Devil's advocate a little bit, Like we've
had aesthetics become popular before computers existed. So how much
of this is algorithms and how much of it's just
(19:34):
humans kind of having this like the meta game of
human art. Yes, it's kind of finding a balance to
what everyone kind of likes.
Speaker 6 (19:44):
We're always chasing each other, right, Like culture is a
process of copying stuff and finding a style that works
in the mainstream. But I think now we're just really
in these funnels that are directing us in like a
bigger and faster way toward each other. Like we're all
being shoved into these set tracks much more.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Than we were.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I guess I'm saying how much of this is algorithm's
fault and how much of this is we are just
humans are.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
This is humans are bad.
Speaker 6 (20:10):
I think it's like.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Humans are bad and dumb, and we have that taste
and eventually the machines they they call us.
Speaker 6 (20:18):
I think it's the humans had bad habits like we are.
We want to be passive, we want to be lazy.
We don't want to get too far out of our
comfort zones, and these algorithmic platforms make it so easy
to not do that, Like we don't have to go
we don't have to see things we don't like, we
don't have to listen to music that's unusual for us.
So I think it like enables those innate tendencies, and
that makes us more boring, like makes us more boring consumers.
(20:42):
It makes culture kind of more generic overall. And I
worry that we like can't get out of that laziness,
Like we can't get out of that habit that we're
in because of the platforms.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I think a lot about like, our taste is part
of how we define who we are, how we interact
with the world, right, And I think for me, the
stuff that I have grown to fall in love with.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
You find it before the Internet. I'm that old, But
like I fell in love like the cool.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
High school friend who recommends you liquid swords and you
have a long commute to school, and so you play
it and you sit with it and it becomes interesting
and part of your identity. You find it like sort
of have to meet a moment with a part of
taste to find it in for it to actually stick
to you. And what I worry about with algorithms, like
we are we executing serendipity?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (21:29):
I think so in a way, because everything is presorted
to appeal to us, like you are not seeing something
that's totally outside of your fami of reference. So in
that case, when your friend in high school recommends an
album to you, there's this like passion to that, there's
like a creativity to that. They really enjoy it, so
they want to give it to you, and you're more
likely to sit with it and give it some patience
(21:51):
and try to understand what they meant by giving it
to you, whereas when an algorithmic feed gives you something,
there's no feeling there, like there's no creativity there's no
enjoyment of that piece of culture. It's just that enough
data suggested to a sorting machine that you would like
this bit of stuff. I'm like, that is kind of
depressing to me as someone who enjoys, like your data
(22:11):
likes this.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Have more.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Yeah, yeah, stop stop at the beestro life, look at
the beestrow lines.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
So you guys, you guys are both Brooklyn hipsters. Okay,
you want some human to come and tell you what's good,
But like, what about what about the situations when we
go on Instagram or inert social media whatever, and then
they recommend the something to buy, like a piece of
clothing or or.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Let's not go into what I buy.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
But like, uh yeah I was. I was running my
head through all the stuff, like I said on TV,
but uh, recommend something and you go actually like this,
I actually do, like I hate that minute.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
But the algorithm got me. Yeah, my wife, my algorithm,
the algorithm got me.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
I bought this thing, you know, whether it's chewing gum
that comes from a tree in grease or whatever.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
It was like but and I actually enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
So like, you know, we were arguing against algorithms too,
But how much of this is you know, beneficial.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yea.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Not everybody has a cool high school friend. Most people
have a shitty one that maybe should be replaced by Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
No.
Speaker 6 (23:14):
I feel like sometimes the algorithms judge us too well,
like they know exactly what we're going to look at,
they know what niche products we're going to want to buy,
like the resin gum or like weird natural.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Well, are you going up too? Oh? Absolutely? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
You know.
Speaker 6 (23:28):
We all have those things that are like, oh you,
the algorithm says that I must like this, therefore I
like it, and so I think it just like guides
us towards those things, and we feel an anxiety from
being perceived too well. In a way, it's like, oh no,
the machine knows me, And I think that inspires bad
feelings as well. Like in the book I write about
algorithmic anxiety, which was this academic term for basically the
(23:52):
lack of power and agency you have in relation to
the algorithm. You don't know how it works, you don't
know why you're getting recommended resin gum from Greece. You
just know that it's like you have been evaluated and
this is directed at you.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
But now I know, But now I know that we
actually might be friends because you both get the same.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
For the Greek gun thing. Yeah, you don't know what, Yeah,
one of the cool kids. That's what I want to know.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
So they say, if politics is downstream from culture and
we all are moving into this flattened culture, what does
this mean from thirty thousand foot view to what it
does toward politics?
Speaker 6 (24:30):
Yeah, I think it affects everything, Like it affects culture,
It affects geography, cities, also politics. And in culture, algorithms
kind of funnel everyone toward a generic average where there's
just this like style that works for everyone. But I
think it's slightly different in politics, like it's sorting people
into these very extreme groups that are very far from
each other. So like in the US, maybe there's two
(24:52):
big buckets, like you're either a Democrat or a Republican,
and there is one way to be those things. There's
no internal diversity. It's hard to have different opinions at
the same time. It's just like you've been sorted into
this bucket or this bucket, and then you've experienced a
lot of pressure to stay in there.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
So how come algorithms are flattening the culture when it's
bad for us, meaning everyone seeing the same thing. But
when it comes to politics, and maybe it would be
better if we couldn't ruin this direction. It's making using
the worst possible things.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
I mean, it's totally true. It's like opposing forces in
a way. I mean, I think culture is like a
thing that many people experience collectively, Like it's a thing
that we can all enjoy it together in a way
sometimes whereas yeah, and in like a Tailor Swift context,
everyone can like telor Swift.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
If there's a tall we do, and we do we
do to be clear.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
So if we could find the tailor Swift for politics,
that would be amazing. But I think something I think, I.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Think it's there.
Speaker 6 (26:02):
We go, Okay, we've figured it out. The algorithmic solutions
of politics is Tyler Swift. But yeah, I mean, maybe
it's just that there can be no one solution to
such opposing viewpoints.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Even computers can figure it out.
Speaker 6 (26:14):
Until we have the president that is the algorithm. Unfortunately,
how old is that algorithm?
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yes, well, none of them are that old.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
This has only been a decade.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
You'll you know what, It sounds like a decent option
that a lot of people could get behind a filter.
World is available now.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Kyle Jacob explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast
universe by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Ten Central on Comedy Central, and streamful episodes anytime on
Paramount Plus.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
This has been a Comedy Central podcast
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