79 Comments

Enjoyed this a lot. I think some of the commenters are being uncharitable, especially given that everyone complains that people on the extremes of the Left never want to have the conversation. I will happily take the notions that Davidson expresses, some of which I think are the results of an unexamined, leftist upbringing (which were exactly the same as mine), in exchange for the hope of synthesis. I think by the end, a little bit was had, and I look forward to having him and TCW on again to take this further. I left with continued respect for Kmele and TCW's perspectives, and more admiration for Davidson that I expected to have going in. This sort of thing is genuinely what needs to happen more often.

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Man, lots of Adam haters on here! I thought it was big of him to dare to debate kmele and tcw about race! Kudos to him for that. I thought everyone made good points -- including Adam. Like when he talked about being comfortable in certain settings and knowing he got a job based on perceptions and assumptions.

This might not be an analogous episode for this “series” but I’d really love a deep analysis of Ken Burns’s upcoming Holocaust doc from the Fifth plus a guest. Eli Lake feels like the obvious choice but John Podhoretz might also be hilarious.

It feels like Ken Burns is doing this doc for political reasons. He was on CNN New Day and compared DeSantis sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard to Nazism 🤯🤯🤯 I don’t know how much of that I can take, especially given how antisemitic the (progressive) Left has become. Anyways, that’s my humble request!

And stop the Adam hate, people! He stepped up.

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I liked every bit of this conversation. The willingness of all parties to respond to the most generous interpretations of what one another said made it easier for listeners - or at least this listener - to let his guard down and consider perspectives he instinctively opposes.

On a related note, several times Kmele did something to set his guest at ease, namely laughing heartily at a joke that deserved, instead, a spontaneous chuckle. For example, at around the 12:45 mark. Instead of hearing it as awkward or even disingenuous, it struck me as a genuinely friendly and authentic thing to do. Thanks for hosting a great conversation, Kmele. I hope you'll have Adam back and include other guests with a range of viewpoints as their willingness to engage allows.

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I just started listening. I agree with Kmele that it's astounding to have discussions with those you disagree with. But it's worth noting that the first thing out of Davidson's mouth was pretty ignorant and revealing. He commented that his tweet was a reaction to "some rich white British guy." This is one of the fundamental problems with Wokeism and the lazy labeling process. What about the 75 million Trump voters, the majority of whom are white working-class people who have been dying in the tens of thousands of the opioid epidemic, who have been losing their jobs to AI and jobs being shipped overseas for decades, who are killed in sadly high numbers by police compared to the amount of crime they actually commit, who are low-income and struggling? The idea on the fringe Woke left seems to be that Whiteness is a condition; it means you are wealthy, powerful, and have all life's advantages. If you're a middleclass black person, are you still more of a "victim" than a poor white struggling to survive a nasty meth addiction? It makes me think of the founding of America. Everyone always talks about how slaves couldn't vote and had no rights. You know who else couldn't vote, didn't own propery, and essentially had little to no rights? Poor whites. Also, read Gordon Wood: European Indentured servents were very close to being synonymous with slaves: They couldn't vote; they had no rights; they could be beaten and raped at will; they were even sold at auctions. For the record: I am a Biden-voting centrist. I am NOT a Trumper. I just have a healthy relationship with reality.

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I thought this podcast was nuanced and is worth a second listen. Adam's example of being able to joke around with his boss reminded me a little bit of something I heard Glenn Loury call "social capital". I'm not sure if they are the same, or related, or not. I need to listen again. Thanks for having the conversation!

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This was great guys. I used to love listening to Adam Davidson on Planet Money and his recent tweets have been disconcerting, but I'm glad he can still be as nuanced as I know he can outside of Twitter. Bravo for the enlightening conversation.

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This whole white privilege discussion is ridiculous. I agree that the statement is racist. The only privilege i have is to be born to parents that in their lives tried to always make the correct decision. Their parents did the same. Maybe it was to uproot their lives and come to this country that offered them opportunity that they did not have. With the examples of my parents and and my wife’s parents we have worked to give our kids ‘Privilege’. If you look across all people, if they have ‘privilege,’ it is mostly because of their parents or others that have provided them guidance

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So *THIS* is what Kmele does at FreeThink. Nice.

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I enjoyed this a lot, something I find kind of strange though is Thomas and Kmele more or less match up in this convo with who they are and where they are at on this issue in all forums. Davidson on the other hand presents views that are at least much more measured and nuanced if not actually different than I've seen from his Twitter and writing on the issue. I'm not saying you guys should have played gotcha with other things he's written or anything, thought it was a great convo and one of the reasons I like your podcast is you don't bring people on to just try and crush them. I just thought that was a weird asymmetry between you.

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We need to normalize that it is OK for people to be wrong. Trust me, all of you are wrong all the time on the things where we disagree. I've learned to live with it.

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This is a thought provoking discussion, and all the participants are having a good faith discussion. All three of you guys should get the hell off twitter.

Now hear me out, as I understand telling anyone to get off twitter is like talking to a drug addict or someone in an abusive relationship.

One might say "This great conversation happened BECAUSE of twitter!" and that is accurate. But by my perspective, saying that is like "I met my best friend in chemotherapy!" and then thinking people they should get cancer cause of all the friends they may make.

At this point I have heard all kinds of excuses for people being on twitter. I used to think twitter was just one of many problems with online discourse. It wasn't twitter per se that was the cancer in the system, as there are other, plenty toxic platforms out there that share the load of this mess of our public discourse. But now, after a few years of watching many of the people I respect most get more and more deformed by the platform I am certain twitter is uniquely responsible.

At this point if you are on twitter, you are willfully and knowingly participating in a system that does significantly more harm than good. It is not even close. It is so lopsided an argument as to be meme. I could list prolly a dozen examples, numbers, incidents and news cycles directly attributed to twitter. But to be honest I don't have too because we all know them. It is as known as the dangers of skydiving or gambling.

So yeah, there are my two bits. Whatever YOU get out of twitter, is IMHO not worth what it is doing to the world, and more importantly to the thought leaders in our world.

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it kind of sounded like Davidson believes a non white applicant is not capable of being able to get experience in technical fields in 2022 (like his example of audio software). This struck me as slightly racist? I got a superiority vibe from him throughout the whole conversation.

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Sep 19, 2022·edited Sep 19, 2022

I’m a teacher. This episode comes on the eve of the first meeting of Discourse Club who’s members are high school students hungry for a way to have conversations big and small where they can express their opinions without being called names and talking past each other. Thank for this model of respectful discourse across differences! May the conversation continue and generate more light than heat.

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I’m super excited that white privilege havers Michael and Matt have agreed to step back and not participate in the oppression of BIPOC voices!

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So how many more edifying solo podcasts does Kmele have to host to make up for all of his so called “convention or conference” absences?

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Davidson is a fucking dolt. My god.

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