Robby Soave, senior editor at Reason magazine, author of 2019’s Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump, and someone who is (just) over 30, (finally) joins Young Americans to discuss whether the political activism of young people today, especially on campus, is uniquely dangerous and poised to spill out into the culture as a whole. (Also, some LOSTÂ references sneak in.)
Young people and commentary about them tend to focus a lot on the present. But what will the future that Millennials and younger generations inherit actually look like? Jack enlists R Street Institute Technology and Innovation Resident Fellow Caleb Watney to return to the podcast for some big-picture thinking about what the future might hold.
This episode of Young Americans is special for many reasons. For one, it is a crossover with the White Noise podcast, whose co-host, Joe Pappalardo, joins Jack. For…two, Jack and Joe attempt to discuss the effect that excessive technology use may be having on the ability of young people to focus on what matters. And for…three (?), they attempt this discussion…while themselves deliberately distracted by as many apps as they could have open while recording.
In the latest episode, the Young Americans get super nerdy, with the help of real-life tech policy researcher Caleb Watney of the R Street Institute. He and Jack discuss the virtues of free markets vs. Millennial skepticism thereof, question the emerging conventional wisdom on tech addiction and Silicon Valley, rebut the Unabomber (!), and go full nerd with semi-related digressions about Blade Runner, The Matrix, and, of course, Dune.
Should childlesss Millennials be banned from theme parks? Should Millennials have children? Are they ruining marriage? Relying too much on their parents for money? This special lightning round episode with Jack and Washington Examiner culture writer Madeline Fry attempts to answer all of those questions…in five-minute increments.
On this episode, Jack and guest Anders Hagstrom discuss the rise of Area 51 memes, what they say about memes as a whole, whether this is Generation Z’s first meme, and if the U.S. government would actually kill millions of Internet weirdos if they showed up at the gates of Area 51 trying to get in.
The Young Americans return for another year of charting Millennial neuroses by starting out with the topic on everyone’s mind: marriage. Specifically, why aren’t Millennials getting married? To help figure out why, (single) host Jack Butler consults another single person, an engaged person, and a married couple.
Last night I learned from my freshman-in-high-school daughter that the phrase “Thanks, Obama!” is used by lots of kids mockingly in response to any situation that they don’t like. For example: “I have to read 50 pages of biology for homework? Thanks, Obama!“ Preview Open
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