Freddie deBoer

6 days ago | freddiedeboer.substack.com | Freddie deBoer

I grew up in a political milieu that was interesting, to say the least, and it imparted many lessons about how American politics really works that I could not have learned in any other way. I have always been aware, though, that there are downsides to the particular kind of preemptive self-exile that was being practiced.

1 week ago | freddiedeboer.substack.com | Freddie deBoer

The 28___Later franchise is being reborn this weekend with the release of 28 Years Later. I’ve seen the original film, 28 Days Later, three or four times, and I think it’s pretty good, although like a lot of movies that set the template for a genre I think its reputation is a little puffed up by its legacy. I find the whole “the real monster… is man” thing a little obvious and overdone, and the film often seems to be reveling in being dour. The shaky DV thing I can take or leave.

1 week ago | freddiedeboer.substack.com | Freddie deBoer

Kevin Roose and Casey Newton of the Hard Fork podcast have a new dialogue up for the New York Times Magazine, apparently as part of an AI issue. (I’ve not seen the rest of that issue, but I can tell you I’m not optimistic.) I think the conversation is a really good example of how AI maximalists go wrong, and in particular how common it is for AI maximalists to think of themselves as something other than maximalists.

2 weeks ago | freddiedeboer.substack.com | Freddie deBoer

So Matt Yglesias says, in his latest mailbag, that he won’t debate me on Substack Live. He thinks it wouldn’t be constructive. OK. But later in the mailbag, you get the perfect example of why he absolutely should be willing to debate somebody who is actually a) a critic of his and b) someone who is capable of arguing with him, not one of his subscription-paying fanboys, a journalist he shared a house with back in 2003, his interns, or a Twitter egg.

2 weeks ago | freddiedeboer.substack.com | Freddie deBoer

I was recently interviewed on the excellent podcast Christianity on the Spectrum, and it became one of my favorites that I’ve done, out of hundreds of podcast appearances. Unfortunately the host’s audio was corrupted, so he’s had to reconstruct his questions after the fact, but I still think the conversation is very much worth listening to.