Zachary Carabella (6:02)

Why, thank you. Mike Pesco.

Mike Pesca (6:03)

Did you come to your disposition because that's just who you are or through an assessment of all the pluses and minuses? And then you said, you know, there are more pluses than minuses.

Zachary Carabella (6:13)

I think it's just who I am. I mean, I think I am just, you know, a cup half full person. And I am aware that that can be both a strength and a liability. So it's not as if I leave my cup half full, unexamined or unquestioned. When I was an investor, I mean, I still am to some degree. I was much more interested in, you know, dynamic, cool companies, changing the world and carving out a future than I was in all the downsides. Many of my books have tried to highlight moments of concord and not discord. I wrote a book about Muslim, Christian and Jewish coexistence from the death of Muhammad to the birth of Dubai. A lot of people ask me, surely that must have been a really short book. So I have tended to look at the upside, but not with a Pollyannish. Everything's great and not from a perspective of optimism. Best definition of optimism ever is David Deutsch, who kind of theoretical physicist, wrote a great book called the Beginnings of Infinity, Quotes from Karl Popper. And his idea is optimism is not the certainty that things are going to get better in the future. Pessimism is the certainty that things are going to get worse. Optimism is just the humble awareness that future is unknown and we have the capacity to make it better, not that it will be better, right?

Mike Pesca (7:33)

And that there's a track record of that actually happening. And I would even go back and say, and the fact that we're sentient beings should give us some cause for optimism, though it's our sentience that convinces us that things are terrible as well, right?

Zachary Carabella (7:47)

So let's stipulate that if we're fucked because of climate change, creeping authoritarianism, divisive civil society, lack of trust, AI coming to take our jobs and then our minds, and some sort of matrix terminator infused future, it will not be for lack of many, many, many people standing on many, many soapboxes, screaming, shouting, warning that the end is nigh, right? So if things go as badly as people think, no one's gonna turn around. If there's anyone left to turn around and go, whoa, I had no idea things were that bad. So I have Nothing to add to the cacophony of crisis. That waterfront is well covered, well represented, and if it happens again, we will have. We will have forecast the end for quite some time.

Mike Pesca (8:38)

Yeah.

Zachary Carabella (8:38)

So in that perspective, I think we're also then failing almost by definition to give some attention to the fact that, well, maybe that's wrong. Maybe, maybe things are better than we think and are going to get better than we fear.

Mike Pesca (8:52)

Yeah. And I was going to exactly address that point when we were talking about Glass half Full. Is it is what's so important that you're right about, or one is right about how full the glass is or the fact that there is this great market opportunity in that the media concentrates 90% of its attention on the half of the glass that's empty. And even if it's. Even if you want to make the case that the glass is really only 40 or 33% full, it's still 90 something percent attention on the glass part and not the water part. So that gives you in the Progress network a bit of an in to tell us some interesting things that are going on in the watery part of the.

Zachary Carabella (9:34)

Absolutely. And look, there are a whole series of pretty much small niche organizations, mostly nonprofit, that are kind of doing the same thing or doing a little bit. There's something called the Good Good Good. And there's an organization funded by Patrick Collison, the Stripe founder Brothers, called the Roots of Progress. And there's the Institute of Progress, they do a conference called the Roots of Progress. And there's David Byrne doing Reasons to Be Cheerful. I mean, there are.

Mike Pesca (10:00)

Yeah.

Zachary Carabella (10:01)

Things out there. John Krasnicki did his own. I don't remember what his site was called. He had one too, of the Office and Emily Blunt fame.

Mike Pesca (10:08)

Right, Right. He started it during COVID and they sold us something else and it was cheery and positive.

Zachary Carabella (10:13)

Right.

Mike Pesca (10:13)

But if you're allowed cheery aliens kill you. Wait, I think I'm conflating it with the movie. Go ahead.

Zachary Carabella (10:19)

Yeah, I mean, I'm not Ray Cheery, and that's not my shtick. And I do a column, by the way, called the Edgy Optimists on Substack. Goes to about 25,000 people a week. And the point of the Edgy is, look, there's a lot that's really messed up in the world, and I think you'd be an idiot to pretend otherwise. And I think anyone who does pretend otherwise is really being insensitive to just how much. Just how much things are going wrong. But it's A matter of forcing yourself to go one. It is presumptuous to think that we know future outcomes. I think this has really reached an absurd pitch in the first months of the second season of the Trump show in that people seem like they are certain that all bad things will now flow. And I suppose in Magaland, they're certain that all good things will now flow. So there's an excess of certainty about future outcomes of unknown presence that I think is a problem. I'm more interested in calling it out on sort of my cohort, right, which is urban educated, likely to be less maga ish net net just demographically, but.

Mike Pesca (11:32)

Also more likely to be on Prozac or retain the services of psychologist who lives on the upper side.

Zachary Carabella (11:39)

Like, oh my God, we are descending into darkness. And societies do descend into darkness. I mean, I remember saying to my kids when March of 2020, you know, at this point five years ago, we're recording this in early May of 2025. At this point five years ago, there was still a palpable feeling of like, oh my God, like the world may never be the same. The world is permanently derailed in some sort of COVID pandemic, shut down, altered state. And In March of 2020, there was a legitimate 10 day period where you could have been forgiven for thinking, man, I used to make fun of all those survivalists and their bunkers with the, the canned food. You know, maybe they were on to something, right? Maybe we're, we're a heartbeat away from Cormac McCarthy's the Road. And that's just one of those times where humanity falls apart. Like it happened during the Black Death. It, I'm sure it felt that way in Europe in 1944. So I thought, well, okay, maybe this is it. Maybe everything I've thought is just wrong. And, and we're in a much different and much worse world. And that just didn't prove to be true. Right? It was scary for a week. I mean, it was scary for months, but I think there was only about a week there where you could feel like, wow, yeah, all bets are off, right?

Mike Pesca (12:54)

It was just the worst time in human history. Except every other time that there was a pandemic. But this was the one time that science invented a cure within a year and a half.

Zachary Carabella (13:03)

So, right.

Mike Pesca (13:04)

Of the worst of times, it was the best of times. And then we did get upset with ourselves over masks and hand washing and Ron DeSantis versus Gavin Newsom. But these are, these are. I don't know if it's glass half full or half empty or just, you know, focusing on the chips and cracks in, in the stemware.

Zachary Carabella (13:27)

And I think people are insufficiently attuned to the reality that five, ten years from now we will look back at our present moment and see things very differently than we feel in our present now. You could say that's axiomatic. But the degree to which we forget that is extraordinary. Right. So people look back. There's a lot of comparison both in the summer of 2020 and I guess last year about student protests on campuses and sort of comparing it to 1968, most intense period of student protests. And the comparisons were always unfavorable. Like, you know, 68 was that we were fighting the good fight and the Vietnam War was evil and government was lying. And look at the heroic student activists who ripped open the scrim. You know, the Emperor has new clothes. The wizard of Oz is just that guy behind the curtain. And we got through it and democracy was invigorated, even though it was a tough period. But man, if you lived in 1968 or 1969 or 70, and the Weathermen are blowing people up and all of Paris is. It may not be like the Commune of 1870, but it's in flames and the Mexicans are gunning down students in Mexico City in 68, you were not sitting there feeling like, you know what, this is all gonna turn out just fine, it'll be great, no problem.

Mike Pesca (14:46)

Right? There were terrorist bombings, maybe not every day, but every week. And you know, the Puerto Rican nationalists took over the Senate and the House of Representatives for a while and killed people. And yeah, there were the Symbanese Liberation Organization with something on everyone's lips. It was a totally different time.

Zachary Carabella (15:06)

A few years later, the American Indian movement took over Alcatraz, which I guess Donald Trump now wants to take over himself. So there's a storied history there.

Mike Pesca (15:14)

Yeah. So before we just descend into self congratulatory, a paroxysm of optimism, I want to ask you a couple things. One is you mentioned all these people who do similar things to what you do, and many of them have a financial background. The guy from Stripe, you're an investor. Is it that you need some money to start these things or is it that investors, people who are oriented around the market, know some truths, like every. The market doubles, what is it, every eight years or something? I mean, this goes in theory. Yes, yes, yes. That if we have. If you're keeping score by a mechanism like the market, you can't deny that Things have improved. But if you're keeping score without some external mechanism that has numbers attached, it's a lot easier for pessimism and human nature to become involved.

Zachary Carabella (16:08)

Right. So first of all, I am not quite in that mold. In that I started my life as an academic. I got a PhD. I was a professor. Then I moved to New York to be a writer. Then I wrote some books. Then I kind of added a finance career. So I didn't begin my grown up life thinking that I was an investor or thinking that I was in finance. That was a later on add on. And I only say that because it does. I think where you sit somewhat determines how you see the world. And I don't necessarily see my world through that particular lens or through any particular lens, to be honest. I do think that, you know, I, I don't think that generalization necessarily holds for finance people because for every finance person who's saying markets double and the future is bright, there's another, particularly the wealthy. You are in the finance world, like, it is almost impossible to find a billionaire on CNBC at any given moment who isn't saying that the future is screwed. Yes, they're all bearish, they're all negative. They're all.

Mike Pesca (17:09)

Well, those are the ones who go on cnbc. The ones who are just like enjoying life on their private islands might.

Zachary Carabella (17:15)

Well, that's true. They're not, you're right. They're not the ones going on cnbc. It's just, it's a weird dynamic that American billionaire investors in particular are always saying that everything is overvalued, everything's going to fall, everything's going to collapse. Everything is, you know, built on a house of cards. You go and talk to a bunch of Indian billionaires and they're like, oh my God, everything is great. The future is bright. We're just, you know, we got 10 years of growth ahead of us. So there's kind of a weird cultural thing, particularly in finance land. Again, different than CEOs of like operating companies. You talk to the CEO of, I don't know, Honeywell, like, just pick a company and they're usually much more like, oh, we're doing great things, we're using technology, we're bringing better products to our customers and services. The finance people are always like, yeah, well, you know, it's all overvalued. It's a bubble waiting to pop. Batten down the hatches, brace yourselves. It's like a weird, it's a weird inbred pessimism.

Mike Pesca (18:08)

Yeah, I want to talk about some specific stories because there are trends in where the good news comes from. So one very underrated source of good news is not to look at our national politics, which is. I am not sanguine about national politics. It is deeply dysfunctional. It is in many ways, yes, we could go back to the caning of Sumner and all these other periods where there was an amount of dysfunction US politics, but it is really, really quite terrible. And there are a lot of objective measures that say nothing gets done. And if you look at polling, people hate it. But if you don't look at national politics, if you go to some things on the state level, there is quite a lot of progress. But the dynamic is, unless if you're outside New Mexico, you might not know that New Mexico has childcare for all and it's going quite well, for instance, right?

Zachary Carabella (19:01)

And we highlighted that in our newsletter last week of just New Mexico uses its surplus revenue from oil and gas, which is a tax. I mean it's not like free, like the money didn't just like magically appear, but they are using their budget surplus to provide for your free education and pre K education in the belief that that's a useful constructive thing to do with your government surplus. Now you could argue, I'm sure there are free marketers who would argue they should just tax the oil and gas less and not have a surplus, right? But in the idea that we should be investing in the commons and that there is a collective there, that we should be attending to, the idea that this particular collective, an entire state of many millions of people is doing so, I find fairly heartening or at least indicative of people recognizing that they live in a collective and that the commons matter and that it requires collective investment in the commons because individuals and individual companies are know not likely to do that at scale, right?

Mike Pesca (19:59)

Aside from state news and some interesting innovations, but also beyond that, beyond laboratories of democracy, people in that one of the 50 states, their lives are appreciably improved by a government policy and one that I think of other people knew about they'd find inspirational. But other than state or local initiatives, where are some other consistent examples of progress that are maybe getting under reported?

Zachary Carabella (20:26)

By the way, even in the federal government, which is admittedly dysfunctional and certainly in the first hundred plus days of the second season of the Trump show has been even more dysfunctional over the past eight years where we've talked about nothing getting done and Democrats and Republicans not working together. You actually look at the fact that there were at Every given year 2017, 18, 19, 2021. Dozens and dozens, if not hundreds in one of those years, bills that were passed with huge bipartisan majorities.

Mike Pesca (20:53)

And I'm glad all those post offices were renamed. I mean, they weren't always the most important.

Zachary Carabella (20:58)

You're totally right that some of those were like renaming the post office naming or national bring your doily to work day. So yes, you're right that there was a set of those that were like, didn't say anything other than great. We got nothing done. But there were some really meaningful ones, including criminal justice reform in the First Step act in December of 2018, which was like Republicans, Democrats, Soros and the Koch brothers getting together and agreeing that federal prison policy and sentencing policy was leading to unnecessary mass incarceration. And they changed it. So I would say even in the federal government, I mean, now might be somewhat of an exception, but let's give it a year, right? There are sometimes good things going on. It's just. That's not news, right? Nobody gets no, there's no clickbait in the New York Times or the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal or you name it, saying, you know, look at what got done today. Isn't that great?

Mike Pesca (21:59)

I know, but you and I probably both interviewed senators about this and even they will say, yes, much of the progress and we've delivered some something on milk prices for my constituents and we've made it better in all these small ways where I could work with a member of another party, maybe someone from the state. They are a small bore. They aren't generally the big swings that redefine society. There's the mechanism of the must pass bills where you can jam a whole bunch of stuff into that. And the older people in Congress, maybe this is a dynamic of, you know, the good, some good old days phenomenon. They do say things used to be better, things used to be more functional. I was listening to an in interview with Bill Bradley where he talked about, you know, honoring a promise that he made to, I think Trent Lott and things like that don't go on as much. So what I'm saying here, what I'm saying here, Zach, is if I want to, if I want to cement my bona fetus, as someone who accurately sees the world as improving, I do want to point out that Congress is not one of those big areas of improvement.

Zachary Carabella (23:02)

I am, I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm simply saying even there, there is more nuance to the story than we, you know, we like black and white, we like binaries it satisfies narratives, it satisfies social media. It satisfies our, you know, our need for simplicity and clarity. And to some degree, it gives us a false sense of certainty about what's going on in the world. You know, and there's also a really profound dynamic in American society where, you know, most of what people think is really bad derives from a collective story that is driven by, by a lot of different news outlets. And I, you know, I mentioned the mainstream media, which I probably were a little more apt to do. But it's certainly true for, you know, Joe Rogan, and it's true for Lex Friedman, and it's true for call you her daddy. I mean, like, all these are different nodes. And like, most people think that immigration and crime have been surging but haven't experienced it in their own communities. Certainly they've experienced it in their own communities if they're in southern Texas or in there or they're in Arizona or certain urban areas. You know, certainly true in Manhattan during COVID and a set of Haitian and other immigrants in the city. But a lot of what we derive, our sense of what's going on is based on stories that we have no personal experience with, right? So people will say that they think crime is much worse in the United States and simultaneously say that they think their neighborhood is much safer than it was 10, 20 years ago. And like, they hold or they think the education.

Mike Pesca (24:29)

What an interview. Right up my alley, as I think I said. And so for ye Pesca plus subscribers, we give you more. So much more. You get your money's worth for nine bucks a month. We give you bonus interviews. We give you the show ad free. If you want this or just the show ad free, go to subscribe.mike pesca.com and support the gist. And here Zachary Carabella is talking about stuff about climate change, the problem with pessimism, and why good news needs a better prt. And now the spiel. You know what feeling I had while watching Trump's military parade? Nothing. It felt mostly nothing. It was a boring parade. It was drizzly and it was drab. I know I was supposed to feel outrage that this was some big autocratic flourish. The tanks, the flyovers, the flexing of military meant to evoke Mussolini or the Red Square, but in reality, it rained. The crowds didn't show. They had way too many barricades to wind your way through. The whole thing was oddly beige. I mean, that literally beige. That was the dominant color tone. Military parades usually have the colors, the bright Banners, the bold flags. This one had some camouflage, but not even the jungle green camouflage. That's gone out of style, I guess, since we stopped fighting in Vietnam. The jungly green camouflage isn't what we need. There's some of the urban camouflage. There was the desert tan mainly it was beige, it was gray, it was ever so light brown. Sand, emotionless, formless. Nothing much. I mean, there was one white clad arctic squad, the Arctic Angels. And there were tanks and there were personnel carriers. And in case the sight of personnel carriers weren't exciting enough to the people who wound up able to read the maps, get there in time and get a seat, there was the voiceover narrator guy who was occasionally scored with some face melting classic rock.

Benjamin Netanyahu (26:48)

Requiring ongoing maintenance in the field and on base because nothing happens until something moves. Wheeled vehicle mechanics supervise and perform maintenance, repair and recovery operations on vehicles that serve the army in a variety of mission critical roles. Included in the array of mobile artillery such as Paladins and the Abrams tank is the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle known as the jltv. It's highly adaptable, providing protected and sustainable mobility for personnel and payloads. The JLTV is known for its off off road capability while providing armor against small arms and improvised explosive devices.

Mike Pesca (27:25)

Sweet child O tanks. You know that narrator reminded me of. Not Kim Jong Un. No. The guy from the Westminster Kennel Club. Giant schnauzer number 16. You know that guy? The corgi. Strong, athletic and intelligent, is affectionate and companionable. One of the world's most popular hunting breeds. You know, in this one, he was the 101st Airborne. Brave, resolute on a rendezvous with destiny. Here's a little about their shoes.

Benjamin Netanyahu (27:55)

It was the olive drab winter service uniform. Now, on their heads you'll see a steel helmet with sand textured paint built to deflect deadly shrapnel from above. Not bulletproof, but battle tough. Nicknamed the Pershing boot. On their feet was the M918. 1918 Fred Strute algorithm.

Mike Pesca (28:13)

The whole thing felt like a knockoff. Anyway, Donald Trump got the ideas not from the Russians or the Chinese, but from the French. He was there on Bastille Day. And you know, NATO countries parade tanks through their capitals all the time. Ottawa, Madrid, Paris. The difference is they don't wrap it in a layer of fascistic symbolism. But the US didn't either. The US military doesn't do that. It's how they step. Just regular old somewhat synchronized stepping. As opposed to the goose. Once you go with the goose, it's not good for the gander. In some ways I almost wish Donald Trump were more militarily inclined. Not militaristic, but just actually understanding the military, the need to fund it. I don't care for parading tanks for show, but how about actually giving tanks to the Ukrainians to defend themselves? He gestures at cease fires that don't make for good parades, but might make for a good parade in Russia. And then on the other side, you've got the no Kings protests. I do have to say those protests were very productive. Half the participants I saw expressed some version of I didn't think there'd be so many people. So that alone tells you the protests had power, that people learn. There are a lot more people like them actually willing to go out and participate. I have always said that the main point of protests is that it tells people, we hear you. We or others hear you. Blowing off steam is the best thing that protests allow for. But that's not a minor thing that doesn't say spin your wheels. Autocracies actually don't let the people blow off steam. Then the steam builds up and a lot of people get couped. Any protest without violence that's not taken over by radicals has some value. And this protest, no Kings in general was there to show displeasure with Donald Trump. And specifically because the framing was no Kings to express concern that Trump would not abide by the Constitution. The people involved in the parade said things about immigration, said things about him not listening to the courts. All true. But the main complaint as embodied in the no King slogan is we worry that Donald Trump's not really acting like a president. Fair enough. What's interesting to me is that this is the exact process argument that the Democrats used to pour results in 2024. I get it though. These people aren't swing voters. These people didn't turn on Trump in the last six months or so. These are the ones who nodded along with Joe Biden's warning outside Constitution Hall. These are the ones who showed up at the Ellipse when Kamala Harris was giving that well staged speech. And it all has value for the citizens to get out there to say this, to show themselves in number on the nightly news. In a way, no Kings is a pretty modest ask. I'm sure a Trump despiser, someone at these protests would say yes, exactly. The fact that we have to worry about it is the point. The man's a burgeoning autocrat. Is he a wannabe king? I can't say that he's not. In a year and a half. We will have the midterms if they're free and fair and the minority party wins. And as they probably will, we can say, well, we can't say that no Kings was wrong. We can at least point to those successful actual votes and say that is a strong data point that we still have a democracy. And then in 2029, Trump leaves office, I think we could say he wasn't a king, because kings don't do that. I've said over and over again that I do think we need better definitions and standards for what constitutes the unconstitutional and the despotic or not. You know, there is a decent enough game, intellectual exercise, if you will, about forever debating the warning signs and the definitions. There is a popular one being passed around that they were selling at the Holocaust Museum. Some signs of totalitarianism include powerful and continuing nationalism, disdain for human rights, identification of enemies as a unifying cause, obsession with national security, religion and government intertwined. Yes, yes, check, check, check and check. Only if you're being fair. That is true. Or those were complaints made at every Republican administration in the last 50 years. And you know, several of them embody some of those complaints a lot more than the Trump administrations. The Bushes leaned a lot more into outward religiosity than Trump did. Reagan was much more committed to the military, like actually committed committed, not just parade committed. And yet over the weekend, an anti monarchist no King demonstration had a lot more energy and more presence than the military show. Maybe that's because the parade itself, the military parade, was designed to be a little safe, so Trump could say, see, this wasn't the kind of thing that a dictator would do. Meanwhile, the no Kings march was making the opposite point. Our leader is a lot like Putin or Xi Jinping. What's funny is I have more sympathy for the sentiments of the no Kings parade. And I understand that a military parade is supposed to worry someone like me, but I actually wouldn't mind a good, well executed military parade in the future. Even one that had some rolling hardware through the streets. Of course, that would go down a lot easier if it didn't happen the same day as a no Kings march. Because that no Kings march that I'm imagining in future the wouldn't need to occur. And that's it for today's show. Corey War produces the gist. Astrid Green does our social media. Kathleen Sykes puts together the gist list. Ashley Khan is the production coordinator, Michelle Pesca, cbso and Leo Baum is interning as we speak. Improved Peru. Do Peru. Thanks for listening.

Zachary Carabella (34:06)

Foreign.

Mike Pesca (34:13)

The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses. Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.