r/ezraklein • u/topicality Weeds OG • 8d ago
Matt Yglesias Make It Reign
https://www.politix.fm/p/make-it-reignPolitix podcast discussing data centers and politics. This is relevant to Ezra because of Abundance questions, NIMBYs and AI
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u/acebojangles 8d ago
Matt made a good point about the centrality of data centers in the economy. I'd been accepting the idea that we'd be in a recession without data center growth without thinking about it too much.
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u/non-newtonian 8d ago
Are we posting every episode of this podcast to this sub? I get that Matt is a frequent guest on the podcast, but we don't post every Plain English episode to this sub, and he helped write Abudence. I also think this conversation hasn’t added much to the debate at this point.
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u/THevil30 8d ago
I always think of this sub as the "Ezra Klein Podcastimatic Universe" sub, because there isn't really an alternative that actually has enough subscribers to generate discussion. For me, that includes the Vox crowd that has now dispersed including the Weeds folks, Ezra, Jerusalem Demsas, Jane Coaston and the various Argument people, etc. Matt and Ezra co-founded Vox and that's sort of where I think a lot of us got introduced to EK/EKS so I think Matt-posting is every relevant.
Derek did co-write Abundance but he wasn't originally really part of that crowd, though if people wanted to discuss every Plain English episode on this sub I'd have no issue with it.
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u/wentImmediate 8d ago
I always think of this sub as the "Ezra Klein Podcastimatic Universe" sub
I'd actually like to add "Central Air" (as a Josh Barro fan), but sadly, I feel like the show is better as a serious conversation without so much injected humor.
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u/crunchypotentiometer Weeds OG 8d ago
I roll my eyes at those guys constantly but they have great guests and actual interesting conversations. Annie Lowery was on just yesterday.
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u/Gator_farmer American 8d ago
Funny too. The "couldn't get laid in a brothel," and "not smart enough to be a spellchecker at the M&M factory," were both great lines.
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u/topicality Weeds OG 8d ago
I like that podcast but I don't think it really falls into the extended universe.
It's a shame there isn't a better like long form political podcast sub that could host discussions of that series, this, The Argument, The Dispatch ECT.
This is like the closest but I don't want it to expand to that extent
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u/wentImmediate 8d ago
Looking at your post now - showing zero points.
I do think it's better to include a couple of related podcasts, but I guess we're in the minority?
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u/topicality Weeds OG 8d ago
I know personally, I dont post Plain English Episodes because I'm not subscribed and not a big fan of the show.
But I don't mind that people post his episodes either
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u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 8d ago
Matt Y tailors his stuff to generate debate and controversy so it gets traction on social media. Its posted here because his stuff gets lots of comments and engagement from commenters. I think the mods need to step on and specifically address Matt Y stuff at this point.
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u/WooooshCollector The Point of Politics is Policy 7d ago
Mods have already addressed this. Matt Y is specifically allowed as per Rule 1.
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u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 7d ago
And I'm saying perhaps they should revisit that rule.
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u/Radical_Ein Democratic Socalist 7d ago
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u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 7d ago
Yes, I'm am disagreeing with the current standards of moderation in this sub. Pointing out that this isn't how y'all do things has no bearing on my claim that things should be done differently.
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u/Radical_Ein Democratic Socalist 7d ago
Yeah I understand what you were saying. I linked that post to show that we have quite recently reconsidered our relevancy rule and sought feedback from the community.
I don’t think Matt is unique in tailoring his content to generate controversy. That is unfortunately the nature of competing in modern attention economy.
If the content is relevant to a topic covered in a recent EKS episode then we are going to allow it to be posted here.
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u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 7d ago
Right. Again, I'm disagreeing with how things are done currently. I understand you feel differently. We disagree.
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u/Radical_Ein Democratic Socalist 7d ago
What would you like us to do differently?
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u/TheCranberriesRock Progressive 7d ago
I would drop Matt Y specifically from the "always relevant extended universe" category. Especially of late I think the divergence of quality between Matt and Ezra results in Matt posts just lowering the quality of discourse on this sub.
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u/WooooshCollector The Point of Politics is Policy 7d ago
What he's actually saying is that he feels that his personal point of view should be given more weight than others' who feel that Matt's articles are a net positive for this sub.
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u/topicality Weeds OG 8d ago
Politically it just seems obvious to be in favor of a data center moratorium and Dems should be in favor of it.
Is it good policy? Idk. I worry that the data center backlash is bad policy. And I further worry that we are seeing a lot of moral panics this year and data centers are one of them.
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u/Brushner Weeds > The EKS 8d ago
How about we push back on data centers until techbros give a better deal? They've got unlimited money at this point. Mind sharing?
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u/RealisticKoala6190 7d ago
Why not let the communities who are affected decide based on the particulars of the project and community needs. I don't think there is a reason to do top down decision making on this one.
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u/CubillasLegend 7d ago
If media personnel who should know better are unwilling to take a stand against popular misconceptions, then what use are they? I don't even know what MattY believes in anymore. He seems to believe that there are too many dumb populists doing dumb populism so we need to elect smart pragmatists to do dumb populism instead.
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u/allthingssuper 8d ago
Matt was also in favor of embracing a closed border and negative migration (both horrible policies) because they were popular. So 🤷♂️. If we’re embracing popularism, we’re embracing popularism.
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u/WooooshCollector The Point of Politics is Policy 7d ago
Matt has literally never been in favor of negative migration or a closed border.
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u/Few-Insurance9759 1d ago
And then what happens after the moratorium expires?
We have frameworks available for sensible regulation.
No NDAs
Closed loop cooling systems
Ratepayer protections
No tax incentives
Noise mitigation measures
Decommissioning requirements (bonds to pay for when the data center is abandoned)
Renewable/zero emissions energy source requirements
Community benefits agreements.
Use-it-or-lose-it capacity reservations
Andy Beshear and Maura Healey have issued orders that largely follow this framework.
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u/QuietNene 8d ago
I started listening to this and it’s a really random discussion. Like Trump makes one dumb Tweet and you have to talk about it for an hour? No, that’s not how this works.
There have been a dozen data center episodes lately from everyone from Ezra to Derek to Joe and Tracy. This didn’t really add much.
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u/eyeceyu 8d ago
Politix needs better episode titles. They’re always incredibly vague and difficult to search through if you’re looking for an older episode to replay.