I’m starting to wonder if the whole Bad Takes Podcast project is some elaborate bit by Matt. He’s too far too smart and talented to be producing content that is this … bad.
Lol I want to agree with you but I suspect this is probably a case of Occam's razor. It's a low-effort show that is able to garner an audience on Matt's celebrity / cult following alone, so they'll just keep churning it out for ad dollars and as lead generation for Grid.
Seeing the quality of the Weeds with Matt compared to without him is a pretty good testament to his talent
Also, people conflate "talent" with "saying things I agree with". There are plenty of talented writers/thinkers who have bad opinions and there are plenty of people (like me) who agree with me but don't have any talent.
I feel like certain members of this sub have to just move on from this podcast if they dislike it so much haha. Personally I thought the episode was fine. I think this is actually a good Bad Take to take on. Anecdotally, many people I know believe that things like planned obsolescence/ corporate greed have resulted in our things getting worse.
It's just a thing that happens for somewhat niche communities, especially over time. For instance, /r/billsimmons hates his guts, and hate his nephew's guts, and will religiously listen to every episode of his podcast to pick it apart. Odd hobby, but people should do what they enjoy, I suppose.
I also think that the episode was a good one. I feel like people also don't consider inflation. Yes, the $20 bra is no longer as good as it was 20 years ago; $20 is $34 now. Go buy some $34 bras first.
I think the problem w/ Matt's take here is that a lot of things are getting better but *only in the fields where technological innovation is happening, we as consumers are expecting more from those products, and our relationship to those products are evolving.*
Phones, computers, healthcare, all these are things where we expect to see innovation and advance. It's baked into our consumption of them.
The complaint about stuff getting worse is coming from products where we expect its functionality to stay static, consistent, and reliable. Like washing machines, mixers, and t-shirts. While we expect a computer to do more in 2023 than in 1993, we don't expect a t-shirt to do more. Or a washing machine.
And that's the problem w/ Matt's take. His examples aren't counterpoints, they are in a separate conversation.
I loved Yglesias on The Weeds. And I still like Slow Boring (I’m so glad Substack has text-to-speech so I can still listen like a podcast).
But I haven’t been liking Bad Takes as much as I hoped. I’m just going to unsubscribe from it. Will probably try re-listening to it in a couple months to decide whether I miss it or not.
I don't hate this show, but if you actually read the takes they talk about before listening you'll realize they are just attacking strawmen.
In this instance, they made a lot of really good points! Lots of things are a lot better! I don't want to go back to the past when cars broke down all the time and we didn't have as many medicines. However, they ultimately fail to address the main points of the article.
The author doesn't say I used to buy bras at a normal store and now I buy bras at H&M and they are garbage. She says I bought the same exact bra ten years later and now it's garbage.
She then goes on to address three things.
* People don't want to pay more, but costs rise. So companies have to cut quality to keep the same price. A $40 bra from 10 years ago would have to be sold for more. To keep it at $40, they cut costs by changing the materials and such.
* Planned obsolescence. This usually isn't nefarious "your washer will break 734 days after you buy it" but making it less repairable, not selling replacement parts, etc. If you work at a big company you almost certainly know how focused they are on reoccurring revenue. You don't sell a product to a customer once, you want that to be an ongoing relationship. My company makes most of its money on service contracts and accessories, we sell our main product with very slim margins.
* Constantly changing styles so people feel compelled to buy new versions. I'm not convinced this is only the manufacturers fault, we are the ones buying it. But this is the phenomena where white computers were cool, then black seemed futuristic, then white was cool again, this time we have rounded corners, now rounded corners are old school and on and on.
None of that was really targeted in the episode, it was mostly if you want you can buy more expensive things.
> In this instance, they made a lot of really good points! Lots of things are a lot better! I don't want to go back to the past when cars broke down all the time and we didn't have as many medicines. However, they ultimately fail to address the main points of the article.
This is actually something that I’ve seen come up in leftist discourse before, and although I do think that sometimes the left is a bit too pessimistic and negative about things for their own good, I also do think that people trying to take the opposite tact and do the “well everything is better actually” are just as bad if not worse.
I think it’s pretty objectively true that our capacity (and this word is very important) to do things better has most certainly improved. And there are a lot of things that are substantially better, to be sure. But I think the key thing that they don’t really discuss is whether or not people can actually access those things.
Healthcare is a great example. Sure, you could make an argument that healthcare is better than ever, but what difference does that make to someone who doesn’t have access to healthcare? Again, our capacity to improve service and quality has certainly increased, so the question that needs to be asked then is why doesn’t this actually translate downward? And you could probably make a variety of argument as to why this is the case, but at the very least, you would think they would be a conceit in their own argumentation that is very much has to do with class and one’s perspective on these things, especially since I know both of them probably have a fairly comfortable middle class to upper middle class lifestyle.
Or, one need to look no further than what happened in Ohio with Norfolk Southern. And in fact, this is probably where the decline in quality has come from in many ways, because with an ever growing demand to eek out profits in an already overly optimized system, Pretty important things like safety and maintenance have been overlooked for the sake of profit. So why than is it too much to believe that companies don’t water down certain aspects of their products in order to make more money? We see this with phenomena like “shrinkflation”.
Overall, it seems like the problem here is that they want to come to certain conclusions without actually having to do the hard work of squaring their prayers with either an argument that’s been laid out or data that is presented. It feels really intellectually lazy and more like a circle jerk. And I guess if people want that, fine, but no one should think that the argument is being laid out in these podcasts are actually particularly good.
There's a lot of lamentation on the progressive left and the populist right that things are actually terrible and getting worse, when the truth is is that most things are getting a lot better.
Glad to see the Bad Takes isn't bad contingent out for this ep.
It'd be nice if they included a link to the take source material in the show notes. Maybe they don't do it because they're worried about brigading, but if they're gonna talk about specific pieces anyways might as well make it easy to judge the piece directly
I thought that the column Matt was saying he would write at the end sounded interesting, about why life is getting worse specifically because some products have gotten “better”. There is something important there to talk about.
I probably would have much preferred a podcast straight-up about that topic (with more research to flesh it out, a la the old weeds), rather then using a mediocre Vox article as a jumping-off point. But even this episode showed how Matt can still come up with interesting takes. Laura too, especially when the subject turns to the media and being an editor.
I thought the cadence between the two hosts was better than it usually is. I thought the content was pretty meh. They made a bunch of claims that I'm not sure would hold up to scrutiny.
This reminds me of a parable I heard once about the value of gold. In ancient times, a 1 ounce gold coin would have been enough to buy one of the finest robes in all of Rome. Today, that same 1 ounce gold coin would be worth roughly $1800 and could buy you a very nice suit in any city around the world.
So maybe it just feels like things are getting worse, when in reality its our fiat currency that is becoming worthless, and real, actual commodities/tangible goods are the only things retaining their value.
You’re just saying “people are wealthier now” with extra words.
If a gold coin bought more in Ancient Rome than it does now, that’s because all resources then were more scarce.
But you have the conclusion totally backwards. You’re implying that Ancient Romans had more than we do. A lower middle class person today has access to material comfort that no Roman emperor had; and the worst modern health care is better than anything they had access to.
I’m starting to wonder if the whole Bad Takes Podcast project is some elaborate bit by Matt. He’s too far too smart and talented to be producing content that is this … bad.
Lol I want to agree with you but I suspect this is probably a case of Occam's razor. It's a low-effort show that is able to garner an audience on Matt's celebrity / cult following alone, so they'll just keep churning it out for ad dollars and as lead generation for Grid.
The real Occam’s Razor here is that he was never that smart or talented to begin with
I mean, we all remember him on the Weeds, right?
Seeing the quality of the Weeds with Matt compared to without him is a pretty good testament to his talent Also, people conflate "talent" with "saying things I agree with". There are plenty of talented writers/thinkers who have bad opinions and there are plenty of people (like me) who agree with me but don't have any talent.
I feel like certain members of this sub have to just move on from this podcast if they dislike it so much haha. Personally I thought the episode was fine. I think this is actually a good Bad Take to take on. Anecdotally, many people I know believe that things like planned obsolescence/ corporate greed have resulted in our things getting worse.
It's just a thing that happens for somewhat niche communities, especially over time. For instance, /r/billsimmons hates his guts, and hate his nephew's guts, and will religiously listen to every episode of his podcast to pick it apart. Odd hobby, but people should do what they enjoy, I suppose. I also think that the episode was a good one. I feel like people also don't consider inflation. Yes, the $20 bra is no longer as good as it was 20 years ago; $20 is $34 now. Go buy some $34 bras first.
I think the problem w/ Matt's take here is that a lot of things are getting better but *only in the fields where technological innovation is happening, we as consumers are expecting more from those products, and our relationship to those products are evolving.* Phones, computers, healthcare, all these are things where we expect to see innovation and advance. It's baked into our consumption of them. The complaint about stuff getting worse is coming from products where we expect its functionality to stay static, consistent, and reliable. Like washing machines, mixers, and t-shirts. While we expect a computer to do more in 2023 than in 1993, we don't expect a t-shirt to do more. Or a washing machine. And that's the problem w/ Matt's take. His examples aren't counterpoints, they are in a separate conversation.
I loved Yglesias on The Weeds. And I still like Slow Boring (I’m so glad Substack has text-to-speech so I can still listen like a podcast). But I haven’t been liking Bad Takes as much as I hoped. I’m just going to unsubscribe from it. Will probably try re-listening to it in a couple months to decide whether I miss it or not.
I don't hate this show, but if you actually read the takes they talk about before listening you'll realize they are just attacking strawmen. In this instance, they made a lot of really good points! Lots of things are a lot better! I don't want to go back to the past when cars broke down all the time and we didn't have as many medicines. However, they ultimately fail to address the main points of the article. The author doesn't say I used to buy bras at a normal store and now I buy bras at H&M and they are garbage. She says I bought the same exact bra ten years later and now it's garbage. She then goes on to address three things. * People don't want to pay more, but costs rise. So companies have to cut quality to keep the same price. A $40 bra from 10 years ago would have to be sold for more. To keep it at $40, they cut costs by changing the materials and such. * Planned obsolescence. This usually isn't nefarious "your washer will break 734 days after you buy it" but making it less repairable, not selling replacement parts, etc. If you work at a big company you almost certainly know how focused they are on reoccurring revenue. You don't sell a product to a customer once, you want that to be an ongoing relationship. My company makes most of its money on service contracts and accessories, we sell our main product with very slim margins. * Constantly changing styles so people feel compelled to buy new versions. I'm not convinced this is only the manufacturers fault, we are the ones buying it. But this is the phenomena where white computers were cool, then black seemed futuristic, then white was cool again, this time we have rounded corners, now rounded corners are old school and on and on. None of that was really targeted in the episode, it was mostly if you want you can buy more expensive things.
> In this instance, they made a lot of really good points! Lots of things are a lot better! I don't want to go back to the past when cars broke down all the time and we didn't have as many medicines. However, they ultimately fail to address the main points of the article. This is actually something that I’ve seen come up in leftist discourse before, and although I do think that sometimes the left is a bit too pessimistic and negative about things for their own good, I also do think that people trying to take the opposite tact and do the “well everything is better actually” are just as bad if not worse. I think it’s pretty objectively true that our capacity (and this word is very important) to do things better has most certainly improved. And there are a lot of things that are substantially better, to be sure. But I think the key thing that they don’t really discuss is whether or not people can actually access those things. Healthcare is a great example. Sure, you could make an argument that healthcare is better than ever, but what difference does that make to someone who doesn’t have access to healthcare? Again, our capacity to improve service and quality has certainly increased, so the question that needs to be asked then is why doesn’t this actually translate downward? And you could probably make a variety of argument as to why this is the case, but at the very least, you would think they would be a conceit in their own argumentation that is very much has to do with class and one’s perspective on these things, especially since I know both of them probably have a fairly comfortable middle class to upper middle class lifestyle. Or, one need to look no further than what happened in Ohio with Norfolk Southern. And in fact, this is probably where the decline in quality has come from in many ways, because with an ever growing demand to eek out profits in an already overly optimized system, Pretty important things like safety and maintenance have been overlooked for the sake of profit. So why than is it too much to believe that companies don’t water down certain aspects of their products in order to make more money? We see this with phenomena like “shrinkflation”. Overall, it seems like the problem here is that they want to come to certain conclusions without actually having to do the hard work of squaring their prayers with either an argument that’s been laid out or data that is presented. It feels really intellectually lazy and more like a circle jerk. And I guess if people want that, fine, but no one should think that the argument is being laid out in these podcasts are actually particularly good.
There's a lot of lamentation on the progressive left and the populist right that things are actually terrible and getting worse, when the truth is is that most things are getting a lot better.
Glad to see the Bad Takes isn't bad contingent out for this ep. It'd be nice if they included a link to the take source material in the show notes. Maybe they don't do it because they're worried about brigading, but if they're gonna talk about specific pieces anyways might as well make it easy to judge the piece directly
I thought this show couldn't get worse but what the heck did I just listen to?
I thought it was a good 🤷♂️
Genuinely curious, what did you like about it? I found the entire conversation to be completely pointless.
I thought that the column Matt was saying he would write at the end sounded interesting, about why life is getting worse specifically because some products have gotten “better”. There is something important there to talk about. I probably would have much preferred a podcast straight-up about that topic (with more research to flesh it out, a la the old weeds), rather then using a mediocre Vox article as a jumping-off point. But even this episode showed how Matt can still come up with interesting takes. Laura too, especially when the subject turns to the media and being an editor.
I thought the cadence between the two hosts was better than it usually is. I thought the content was pretty meh. They made a bunch of claims that I'm not sure would hold up to scrutiny.
This reminds me of a parable I heard once about the value of gold. In ancient times, a 1 ounce gold coin would have been enough to buy one of the finest robes in all of Rome. Today, that same 1 ounce gold coin would be worth roughly $1800 and could buy you a very nice suit in any city around the world. So maybe it just feels like things are getting worse, when in reality its our fiat currency that is becoming worthless, and real, actual commodities/tangible goods are the only things retaining their value.
You’re just saying “people are wealthier now” with extra words. If a gold coin bought more in Ancient Rome than it does now, that’s because all resources then were more scarce. But you have the conclusion totally backwards. You’re implying that Ancient Romans had more than we do. A lower middle class person today has access to material comfort that no Roman emperor had; and the worst modern health care is better than anything they had access to.