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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1612 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 2, 2025

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Who is the best, most sane, and intelligent, centrist or left-leaning commentator/podcaster you can recommend for me to listen to? I'm a bit worried that as the Motte trends further rightward that I'm in too much of a filter bubble, and most of the stuff I naturally listen to is right-leaning, because the stuff that's explicitly leftist is braindead and infuriating. I don't want someone ranting about how Trump is Hitler, I want people good, calm, and reasoned defenses for their positions that I don't already agree with so I can understand their position and maybe find some insights that I previously dismissed as braindead because I only heard the stupid version of it before. I used to like Sargon of Akkad for this, because he was in a nice centrist zone: left on some issues but right on others, but every year he drifts further right and I don't think he serves this purpose anymore.

I like to listen to people talk about stuff while I'm playing casual games that don't take up too much brain power or require audio themselves, so multi-hour broadcasts with a lot of backlog are ideal. I do read things sometimes, obviously since I'm here, but I'm mostly looking for audio right now.

most sane (...) centrist or left-leaning

Underdefined. These days even the boring centrists seem certifiably insane, and who even counts as "left"? I like Angela Nagle and Aimee Terese, the Red Scare girls are ok as well, but this is because our worldviews aren't in that much of an opposition, so... are they "left"? Am I?

I would have recommended glenn greenwald (System Update), max blumenthal & aaron mate (The Grayzone), and matt taibbi (Racket News) as leftist journalists with good video/audio backlogs. But that may not be what you're looking for here, as these are the types who feel the modern left moved away from them over the last 10 years, and don't necessarily have many takes that the motte disagrees with. So it's largely critical of israel/neocons/neoliberals, and often defenses of trump against the establishment.

Aside from what has already been suggested, I listen to Derek Thompson's podcast, which while not always political, when it is, it's solidly center-left blue.

Yglesias, as long as you follow closely enough to catch all his "haha I was actually lying to you about that the whole time, aren't I clever" admissions. He embodies the zeitgeist better than anyone.
The Economist used to be ok, although it's gone downhill. (And wow they've even paywalled the front page, that's crazy. Never mind)

Can't recommend podcasts because I'd rather read with focus for five minutes than absent-mindedly listen to someone's propaganda for five hours. That seems absurdly dangerous for your mental hygiene imo.

Contrapoints and PhilosophyTube are great places to start.

Is Contrapoints still relevant? They seem to put out maybe 1 video per year for the past 4 years. The right used to feel obligated to respond, but the last time I even heard about Contrapoints is the cope response to the Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.

The Ezra Klein Show and Noah Smith's Econ 102 are two that I listen to occasionally if I want to get the liberal technocratic elite's position on things.

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