Overtime – Episode #627: John McWhorter and Josh Tyrangiel

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

Okay, here we are on CNN.

However, that happened.

We're glad to be here.

We have author of the New York Times newsletter, John McWhorter, and we have Emmy Award-winning producer and journalist Josh Kierngel.

Okay,

here are the questions I hold in my hand.

Let me do Cornak tonight instead of

nobody under 75.

Well, they see it on YouTube.

No, you're right, they don't even do that.

All right, with a former CDC director testifying before Congress that gain of function labs probably caused the pandemic,

should we be rethinking our approach to scientific research?

Well, I don't know about scientific research, but gain of function.

I don't know if people know what gain of function is, but that is how possibly this escaped.

And it's very, very scary to me because gain of function means we're taking the virus, manipulating in a lab to make it worse so we could study that if the worst happens, which does happen when it escapes.

I would say this about that.

I'll just jump in, you can argue.

If we think nuclear power,

we can't have it.

Some people think that because it's great, except for that one in a thousand chance that it goes bad, it goes so bad, isn't this the same thing, gain of function?

Isn't it very similar to nuclear?

Yeah, it feels pretty self-evident that we ought to have the highest possible restrictions for this this kind of research because,

you know, I come from people who always worry about the worst possible outcome.

This is the worst possible outcome.

Put that first.

Yeah.

I mean, if it happens that the virus evolves way worse naturally, we'll deal with it then.

But to bring it about seems crazy.

This should have been really rethought, yes.

It's exactly like the nuclear issue.

I don't see how the issues are different.

All right.

What impact, if any, can we expect the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, oh yes, to have on our financial system.

If you didn't see, I saw this has just happened in a Silicon Valley Bank, one of the biggest banks in Silicon Valley, obviously a tech, obviously they're tech, right?

That's what they finance.

I think the biggest bank failure since the 2008 crash.

I guess we should have seen it coming because there's been a lot of layoffs and Bitcoin.

Is this what this bank is, Bitcoin?

So the Silicon Valley Bank is a 40-year-old bank from the Valley.

It was designed and funded originally to make sure that startups, which have a tough time getting money, could get some money.

If this were called the Lehigh Valley Bank, we would not really be paying that much attention to it.

It's the Silicon Valley Bank part that's sexy, but the truth is it's a small bank.

So it's got about $150 billion in capital.

JPMorgan has $3 trillion.

The only reason to be concerned about it is the knock-on effects of confidence.

It's a small bank that got caught short.

It's the oldest story in the world.

Are we bailing out Bitcoin losers?

No,

this is not about Bitcoin.

This is about a shortfall where they misaligned their bond spending with the amount coming in.

They lost depositor confidence, it happened overnight.

It's possible this gets contained.

Is it absolutely central to the startup industry, or is it just a bank that some startups are?

It used to be 40 years ago.

It is no longer

right.

Speaking of tech, Elon Musk just announced that he plans to build his own utopia in Austin, Texas.

Just gets a laugh on the premise

with

affordable housing for his employees.

I mean, he is a visionary.

He does, I mean, we didn't see electric cards or relandable rockets or, you know, living on Mars.

I mean, this guy thinks big.

What are your thoughts?

By the way, if I was going to build Utopia, all

respect to Austin, I wouldn't put it there.

I mean, that's just me.

And I like Austin.

I like Austin a lot.

Sure.

I keep it weird every time I go.

He lacks stick-to-itiveness, and I'm not sure that he's thought hard enough about how a utopia would actually work beyond the kind of Disney world,

beautiful picture that it would be in the beginning.

I don't trust him to do this.

I think I'd rather see a bunch of people put their heads together.

There's no such thing as utopia.

How about that?

Don't ever use the word utopia or think you can create a utopia under it.

What a fool's errand that is.

Everybody would be.

Talk about an over-promising con man.

I'm going to build a con man.

Also, like, utopia is a personal concept, and my personal concept isn't the same as Elon's, I'm pretty sure.

And so, like, my first thought, yeah, my first thought is like, well, I definitely will not be living there.

Well,

I can think of worse places to live and worse people to live under.

With college enrollment down nationwide, yes, I read that today.

College enrollment, kids are finally getting the hint.

Skip college.

It's a bunch of bullshit.

Well, I'm editorializing.

Oh, sorry.

All right, twice in five weeks I messed it.

Two out of five.

I'm going to get better.

Are young people catching on

to the fact that yes, yes, Card.

I agree with you, Card.

Are young people catching on to the fact that college may not be worth the investment?

They better.

There is too much goddamn college.

You're in academia.

Oh, Lord.

There's too much what?

Too much goddamn college.

I teach

university.

No, I forgot.

But no, there shouldn't be this idea that to be a normal American is to spend four years living in a dormitory pretending to like Shakespeare.

That's

after

World War II.

That idea that everybody's supposed to go to college, everybody is supposed to get a good, solid high school education.

That's another rant.

But then you're supposed to go out and ply a trade unless you want to do the rather rarefied thing of go to college.

That's one way that the old days were better than now.

It's mission creep that everybody goes to college.

And it's not true that if you don't go to college, you are going to be selling pencils on the street.

There are many perfectly legitimate careers.

We just need to learn how to talk about it more.

Right.

The other thing that Claude Don and Graham are.

There's another phenomenon that I think is fascinating, which is kids are learning how to do stuff professionally from YouTube.

That's a good point.

And so if you are a coder, more often than not, you're watching a 90-minute video on how to use CSS, and it's moving at your own pace, frequently much faster than the education system can possibly get you there.

One example from this weekend, the Daniels, the guys who directed Everything Everywhere All at Once, they went to film school and they are the ones who say, don't ever go to film school.

Watch YouTube.

Oh, yeah.

Learn it.

So, well, that's for sure.

That's for sure true about the arts.

About the arts, for sure.

You don't need school for the arts.

In fact, they probably make it work.

Right.

I mean, either either you have it or you don't.

I mean, it's just not something you can learn in school.

PhD and a guy with an MA.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah, but still.

Don't be like us.

Okay, so you can learn that on YouTube.

But what about you mentioned Shakespeare?

Now, was that, were you, let me read into that.

Were you saying Shakespeare is past his Brian?

I was being hyperbolic, but.

Do you still like Shakespeare?

Because Shakespeare is a swell guy, but you should learn.

You should learn about him in high school.

All of that should be packed in.

Much more should be packed into the high school education.

Maybe even have a 13th 13th grade.

Then, if you're going to go into finance, go work in a bank.

You can work in a bank when you're 19.

That's the way I would like it to be.

Shakespeare's great, but the four years where your mind is being expanded, expand your mind when you're a teenager, then go get a job.

There's nothing abnormal about it.

Oh,

they're expanding their minds when they're expanding.

Anyways,

that's the problem.

Okay, Walmart just announced that they're closing their last two stores in in Portland.

Oh.

In part due to rampant theft.

Does this reflect a lax attitude toward crime in liberal cities?

Well,

Portland's one of those cities I could see where Walmart would have some problems.

It would be like, it's just not worth it.

But I mean, gosh, that's just something not good about this country, that stores are saying, gosh, we're just going to give up rather than, we can't even make a go of it because the security situation is so poor.

I mean, I don't want to live in that country where we can't keep a Walmart open in a major city.

Am I wrong about that?

I know Portland.

I mean, Portland has a problem.

Like, Portland is devastated.

It is a chaos town.

I'm going there soon.

How bad?

It's bad.

You should be careful.

Really?

Even at the comedy show?

I would say, especially at the comedy show.

I mean,

I'm like,

what if I need shaving cream at the last minute?

Where am I going to go?

Airport, man.

Airport.

Walmart's closed.

And also, if you go into a store in Portland, the shaving cream and the deodorant is behind one of the blocked things, and you have to press a button to get someone to open it for you.

New York is full of that right now.

I'm beginning to order that stuff on Amazon because I get tired of waiting for that person.

As if Amazon didn't need any more help, I feel guilty about it.

Yeah, right.

Actually, large stores moving away, especially from center cities, that's 50 years old because of crime.

It's an old story, and it's hard to fix crime in a real way without draconian measures that often create more harm than help.

But no,

that's an old story.

I'm not surprised.

What surprises me is that there were Walmarts sitting in what would be considered central Portland, because it certainly wouldn't work in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, or from what I hear, even Denver.

Well, I never missed missed a stand-up show.

I always loved Portland, and I'm going there.

I'm not sure when it is, but look it up on my website.

All right, thank you, CNN.

Thank you, guys.

That was a lot of fun.

Thank you.

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