Zeynep Tufekci, sociologist and New York Times opinion columnist, joins Offline to discuss why long covid has unleashed so much online vitriol, united the Senate, and exposed just how little Americans trust institutions. Jon also sits down with his producer, Emma, to talk about her firsthand experience with the disease, and how she navigates an information environment rife with suffering and confusion—but also solidarity and hope.
But first! Jon and Max weigh in on Google’s new “woke” AI, which has been cooking up images of Asian founding fathers, Black Vikings, and, unfortunately, racially diverse Nazis. Then, they break down Taylor Lorenz’s interview with the infamous founder of Libs of TikTok, and how the long-form, short-form, and print coverage of the conversation each land differently online.
CHAPTERS
0:00 – Intro
2:36 – AI has gone woke
10:00 – Libs of TikTok interview
18:26 – Democracy or Else
19:41 – Producer Emma’s Long Covid
33:58 – Other experiences with Long Covid
35:28 – Zeynep Tufekci interview
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#offline #ai #libsoftiktok
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Excellent program! A big thank to Emma for sharing her story. As a disabled person I appreciate every word. I learned a great deal about what’s happening with long COVID.
Zeynep Tufekci is not an unreservedly credible voice on long covid.
Have you been vaccinated!
there is some kind of thump in your low end sound on this episode makes it hard to listen to if your speakers can pick it up. in general i really enjoy offline though
couldn’t listen to the interview with zeynep. reading her articles during the high times of the covid pandemic already made my blood boil. she fueled the horrible take physical distancing was worse than letting covid run through the populace. i expect nothing but horrible takes from her. it’s a disgrace academia employs her.
As someone who's been disabled with ME/CFS for decades, I can tell you that our community was trying to warn people to take preventive Covid measures seriously and to try to mitigate the spread because there would be a lot of people left disabled by the illness. We also have the experience of being infantilised, psychologised, and made into nut cases by ill-informed doctors and the media. People love to blame the sick with complicated symptoms where there are few to no answers versus understanding that people can get ill and never get well. (But there were right-wing ideologues in our community who also pushed the same messages as their tribe that would leave people vulnerable because of their radicalisation in not trusting the government. It's amazing to watch these people who rely on social security cheer lead a party who wants to make life harder for people like them/us.)
One thing that's annoying about this interview is the very description provide about Long Covid by Tufekci is exactly where people with ME/CFS have been, particularly when it comes to needing other people to advocate for us because we're too sick. (And the comparison to AIDS? Famous people have talked about how ME/CFS quality of life is worse that all other illnesses save for AIDS patients in the last two years of their lives.) Look at the funding for ME/CFS compared to male pattern balding and other things that don't affect one's ability to live. It's been a travesty the way we've been ignored and left to lead isolated lives. And look at the people with Long Covid who don't want to be diagnosed with ME/CFS. Some no doubt have other issues and some will have something akin or exactly like ME/CFS. They do this because they've been infected with society's negative attitudes about ME/CFS, something that's difficult to change.
🙏
just pre-ordered the audiobook, your reverse commercial worked!!
I wonder would the anti mask people want a surgeon coughing and sneezing into their bodies, maskless during surgery
14:30 problem with journalism these days is it's either a softball interview or an attack interview. no one is actually asking tough questions in a serious environment. you guys are in such a bubble that you think everybody wants the attack, what the people want is real answers to real questions.
Does your Producer watch the podcast, TWIV out of Columbia University with a very informed and helpful panel of docs, a medical journalist, 3-4 of which are medical school researchers and professors. And, Dr. Daniel Griffith, a kick-ass pediatrician who by virtue of the nature of kids and illness stays on the cutting edge of all this COVID-19 evolution.
The weekly panel discusses research, health care, spikes, long CoVID etc. I'm so sorry for your constant chronic pain … There has to be a study that you might fit into that hopefully can help you without making you in anyway worse!! Please call or write Dr. Griffith, or Dr. Anthony Racinello. They are very responsive. God bless you!
BTW: I love Online. Pod Save America esp. Jon Lefebvre, a babe, and Dan Pfeiffer … Go 💙💙💙💙💙💙 2024!!!
I have listened to them since the beginning of Pandemic, January 2020.
Covid can destroy lung tissue. Literally. Breathing exercises and time or a lung transplant. It’s SO HORRIBLE.
28:26 MOVE BEYOND ———————————> allopathic medician
17:45 Wenn Sie glauben, Haberman hat bei der Befragung von Donald Trump gute Arbeit geleistet hat – und dem stimme ich zu. Dann denke ich, es wäre sicherlich auch interessant für Sie sich, Lex Fridmans Interview mit Tucker Carlson anzuhören. Sie sprechen über Carlsons Interview mit Putin und diskutieren dabei übrigens auch, inwiefern Carlson Interviewstil seine Berechtigung hatte, um etwas Putin’s Sicht der Dinge zu erfahren, so verdreht diese auch sein mag.
Problem with AI is that it's the perfect scapegoat for the corrupt. Oh the prices are too high? Blame the machines.
Btw, in the U.S.:
History was just made:
1st female U.S. Republican state Presidential Primary
winner (Washington D.C.) **EVER,**
annnd, it's
Women's History Month. 💪
Twitter drama… that seems to be all Twitter is good for. It's why I don't have a Twitter account. It's why I've rarely seen the site. I see Twitter posts only after the fact, usually because some news outlet is lazy and just uses them as empty filler for their reporting. Musk's Twitter has just solidified my disdain for Twitter and reinforced my abhorrence for the relentlessness of Twitter drama and my obstinate avoidance of it.
Man I hope Dunkin is paying them for the advertising!
Crying John shirt in the merch store?
This was a great long covid interview with Emma. Thanks for taking some time to humanize this condition. I've been dealing with a pretty disabling case of long covid for almost 4 years and there's been so little medical help.
STOP THUMPING THE DESK, JON. That's all I can hear…
Is there alot of flooding in California? Why are the PSA guys always wearing high-waters? 🤷🏻♂️
Are they under the impression that their ankles are their best feature? 🤷🏻♂️
This is one of the best podcast episodes I've ever listened to. Thank your for going i-depth about the many issues involved in long Covid.
Nah, I'm not disappointed in AI because it isn't "intelligent" in the right way, and not even really because it's being used by companies to scrape data. I've spent a good portion of my life online; I assume that no matter how careful I am some of my data will get sold to someone else and I will continue to get spam calls about my car's warranty expiring. I'm upset by AI because it's being used to scrape data like art and music and novels, and then used to generate subpar knock-offs or to promote incorrect information. If AI were being used to do something HELPFUL – jobs too dangerous for humans, perhaps, or even entering data that would take much longer to do by hand – I would have fewer problems with it. But instead, it's being used to perform cheap tricks like generating copycat images or writing blatantly incorrect essays.
Why the fuck is Taylor wearing a mask outside on a beautiful sunny day?? So the Jello in her head doesn’t slide out of her nostrils into her lap?
Taylor Lorenz is a high school bullie, she doxed several people. she is a pure fraud.