Episode 1621 - Chris Hayes

Summary

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1621: Chris Hayes

Release Date: February 27, 2025
Host: Marc Maron
Guest: Chris Hayes, Host of All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC
Book Discussed: The Sirens Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource by Chris Hayes

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1. Introduction

In Episode 1621 of WTF with Marc Maron, Marc welcomes Chris Hayes to discuss his latest book, The Sirens Call. The conversation delves into the pervasive influence of technology on human attention, the commodification of attention, and the broader societal implications of our evolving relationship with digital devices.

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2. Exploring The Sirens Call

Chris Hayes introduces his book, which examines the intricate dynamics between attention, technology, and society. Hayes emphasizes the "codependent or obsessive relationship we have with our devices", highlighting how technology not only distracts but fundamentally alters our cognitive processes.

Chris Hayes [12:26]: "Attention is the necessary precondition of all actual relationships... but what happens online is that the attention is the thing that's being scaled and monetized."

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3. The Attention Economy and Its Impact

The discussion navigates the concept of attention as a "fictitious commodity", drawing parallels to traditional commodities like oil and labor. Hayes explains how our attention is extracted and traded in a manner akin to physical goods, fueling the growth of multibillion-dollar corporations.

Chris Hayes [42:10]: "Attention is also a fictitious commodity in that attention exists independent of the market, but it's internal to us, and it gets extracted from us and priced and traded the way a commodity does."

This commodification leads to an "addiction-like" relationship with devices, where individuals continuously seek engagement, often at the expense of deeper, more meaningful interactions.

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4. Social Media's Role in Modern Politics

Hayes and Maron discuss the impact of social media on political discourse, citing figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk as embodiments of how attention-driven platforms can shape and distort public perception. They argue that the algorithms prioritize sensationalism and negativity, fostering environments where trolling and superficial interactions thrive.

Chris Hayes [24:34]: "The strangest thing about attention is that it can be negative. Negative attention is a kind of shortcut hack to getting attention."

This has real-world consequences, including the erosion of democratic deliberation and the rise of polarized, reactionary thinking.

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5. The Evolution and Future of Attention-Based Platforms

The conversation shifts to the historical evolution of attention markets, from the Penny Press to modern social media giants like Meta and ByteDance. Hayes underscores the deterioration of collective cultural engagement, where shared experiences and communal discourse have fragmented into individualized attention streams.

Chris Hayes [57:11]: "Mass culture or paying attention together is basically falling apart."

Hayes suggests that the solution lies in regulating attention and fostering open, non-commercial platforms that prioritize meaningful interactions over sheer engagement metrics.

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6. Potential Solutions and Future Directions

Hayes proposes several avenues to counteract the negative impacts of the attention economy:

• Regulation of Platforms: Implementing policies to control how attention is monetized and ensuring platforms do not exploit users' cognitive vulnerabilities.

• Promotion of Open Platforms: Encouraging the development of non-commercial, open-source platforms that facilitate genuine human communication without the pressure of monetization.

• Personal Agency: Advocating for individuals to take control of their attention by opting out of addictive platforms, using tools like dumb phones, and engaging in community-building activities.

Chris Hayes [68:50]: "We need to regulate attention... there is a sense in which this moment feels like a terminal moment for this version because people genuinely don't like it."

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7. Concluding Thoughts

The episode wraps up with reflections on the necessity of reclaiming our attention to restore authentic human connections and democratic discourse. Both Maron and Hayes express concern over the long-term cognitive and societal effects of the attention economy but remain hopeful that through conscious effort and systemic change, a more balanced relationship with technology can be achieved.

Chris Hayes [71:25]: "Realizing that you need to do something active to counteract the distractions is the first step towards reclaiming your attention."

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Notable Quotes

• Chris Hayes [12:26]: "Attention is the necessary precondition of all actual relationships... but what happens online is that the attention is the thing that's being scaled and monetized."

• Chris Hayes [42:10]: "Attention is also a fictitious commodity in that attention exists independent of the market, but it's internal to us, and it gets extracted from us and priced and traded the way a commodity does."

• Chris Hayes [24:34]: "The strangest thing about attention is that it can be negative. Negative attention is a kind of shortcut hack to getting attention."

• Chris Hayes [57:11]: "Mass culture or paying attention together is basically falling apart."

• Chris Hayes [68:50]: "We need to regulate attention... there is a sense in which this moment feels like a terminal moment for this version because people genuinely don't like it."

• Chris Hayes [71:25]: "Realizing that you need to do something active to counteract the distractions is the first step towards reclaiming your attention."

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Final Thoughts

Episode 1621 offers a profound exploration of how our attention is being manipulated and commodified in the digital age. Chris Hayes's insights provide a critical lens through which listeners can examine their own interactions with technology and consider pathways to a more intentional and fulfilling engagement with the world around them.

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Additional Resources:

• Chris Hayes's Book: The Sirens Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource – Available at major bookstores and online retailers.

• WTF+ Subscription: Access full show archives and weekly bonus material by subscribing at wtfplus.acast.com.

Transcript

[Marc Maron]

Hey, folks, I need your questions. I'm getting ready for another Ask Mark Anything bonus episode on the full Marin, so fire away. Just click on the link in the episode description and send me a question. Then subscribe to the full Marin so you can get every Ask Mark anything bonus episode. All right, let's do the show. A lot of people talk about elevated style these days, but whenever you hear that, it usually means elevating your check total as well. Luxury clothes and home goods come with a high price tag, but I got hip to Quint's and we have them as a sponsor because Quint's is a great way everyone can upgrade their style without breaking the bank. Quint sells high quality essentials in clothing, home decor, kid stuff, even travel accessories. It's all priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. There's no middleman. And the factories Quince works with only use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices. I just got a rattan hamper with like this removable laundry bag inside of it and it looks good and the cats aren't messing with it. And that's what I chose out of their entire catalog. Indulge in affordable luxury. Go to Quince.com WTF for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com WTF to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com WTF all right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers? What the fuck, buddies? What the nicks? What's happening? I'm Marc Maron. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. It's been around a while. If you're new to it, that's interesting. I hope you hang out, you know, get into it. But if you're a regular, nice to have you back. Welcome. Sit down, take a load off or keep doing your exercise or keep washing your dishes or keep feeding your baby. I don't know what you're doing. Driving. Are you driving? Whew. I spent a lot of time in the car last week. Took me a couple days to come down. Today on the show, I talk to Chris Hayes. He's the host of all in with Chris Hayes on MSNBC. He was actually on the show 10 years ago in what was obviously a much different world. Obama had just been in my garage and Donald Trump had just declared his candidacy for president. Wow. That feels like a million years ago. Or maybe just almost 10. So Chris has a new book out called the Sirens Call and it's about a lot of the stuff I talk about all the time. Attention, information media, our relationships with our phones. And it's very thorough and very well researched and very well thought out and informative and it's specific about that. The evolving relationship with technology of any kind and how it fucks with our brains. Fucks with our brains. Fucks with our brains. Who are we to think who are we to think that we can out think that thing in our hand? Seriously, what hubris. To think we have any control other than to turn it off of that thing in our hand. That big brained motherfucker in our hand that we look at every day and volunteer for a good brain fucking. What are you doing? Today I'm gonna let my phone just discombobulate my entire brain. Sense of self, hope, spiritual foundation, whatever. Just let it disassemble my brain within seconds, milliseconds. Turn that thing on, pop it open, boom. You've surrendered into the never ending churn of garbage. Yeah, but it knows which garbage to dump into your head. That's a whole other thing, right? Look, I'll be in Oklahoma City at the Tower theater on Thursday, March 6. Dallas, I'm at the Majestic Theater Friday, March 7. Houston at the White Oak Music Hall Saturday, March 8. And San Antonio at the Empire Theater on Sunday, March 9. Before I head to south by Southwest. A lot of other dates coming up. Durham, North Carolina. I'm at the Carolina Theater of Durham on Friday, March 21st. I'll be in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Knight Theater on Saturday, March 22nd. And Charleston, South Carolina. I'm at the Charleston Music hall on Sunday, March 23rd. Then I'm coming to Illinois, Michigan, Toronto, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York City for the special taping, my special taping. Go to wtfpod.com tour for all my dates and links to tickets. Also, hey, new cat mugs from Brian R. Jones go on sale today at noon Eastern. These are the handmade mugs you get if you're a guest on wtf. This new batch is available today starting at noon Eastern. And they usually sell out pretty fast. Go to wtfmugs Co at noon Eastern today. But a lot of times I wonder and it's sort of relevant to the conversation I had with Chris Hayes. You know how much of that stuff. Because there is the idea that the information you get when you look at your phone, depending on your algorithm or what you gravitate to, that there is a truth to reinforcing whatever it is. And this is how they market to you. As well? What is your disposition? What is your psychological disposition? What do you gravitate towards repeatedly? And is it something that just accentuates or amplifies your specific state of dread? Or does it reaffirm your terror? Does it make you depressed? And then I think on a deeper level, you gotta ask, is that my comfort zone? Is that my home base is being panicky for dread, depressed, and do I need to amplify that? Because on some level, if you are powerless over something, then what's the point of filling your head with it? You know, you want to keep up, but, you know, is there a way to get a breather and is that breather really a breather? Or is it just sort of like taking a little break from beating the shit out of your brain again? Yeah. And how do you do that? You can jump around on your phone. I don't know. Like, I, I wrestle with this stuff all the time because I'm. I'm as compulsive as the next guy about my engagement with my phone and information. But I, I think I'm kind of limited. I. I think I tend to. I tend to. I don't know if my algorithm is correct. I don't know if I'm on it enough or if I'm doing it right. It shifts sometimes. Gotta be careful what you watch too long because then you get a lot of that. I understand that. And then there are things that's, like, I don't understand this at all. And then I realized that, like, I think everybody's getting it. I do my share of, you know, cat, you know, kitty rescues and stuff. But then I, like, I, I spent like a minute. I spent like over a minute, you know, just watching a drain unclog itself. And it was very satisfying. And I didn't think it was wasted time. And then all of a sudden I'm getting these, like. I gotta be honest with you, I'm pretty confident at this point in my life that I could pretty. I could, I could identify an abscess in a horse's hoof. I, I don't, I didn't ask for that stuff. There was no, nothing I did that would, I think, instigate these videos of horses hooves. But I think if I saw a guy on the side of the road and he's standing there with a horse with his foot up, I could be like, want me to take a look at that? Yep. Yeah, it's abscessed. You got one of them, you got one of them curly knives. Because I could probably trim this up, but I don't know how to put a shoe on because they always cut off at that point. But that's just the kind of thing, like, why is it entertaining? I don't know, cleaning things, cleaning metal objects, rust and whatnot. I can't answer you, but I can't answer the question why. This stuff is engaging. But I do talk to Chris about it, and it is just sort of like a dopamine thing. Whether that dopamine is going to give you a blast of dread or a blast of sort of like satisfied customer. Man, all that stuff just came out of that pipe, man. We do the pipe riff. Chris and I do the pipe riff. I'm sure many of you have heard of obsessive compulsive disorder or ocd. You might think it has something to do with being extra clean and organized, but it's a very serious condition for so many who have it. OCD can paralyze people with fear and anxiety. They can constantly have thoughts they don't want to have, and all their energy is spent on making those thoughts go away. Those are just some of the things about OCD you might not realize. And a lot of people don't know they have it, feel shame about their symptoms, and suffer in silence. And not every therapist understands OCD or is qualified to treat it effectively, which can make it difficult to find the right help. But OCD is highly treatable with a specialized type of therapy called erp, or Exposure and Response Prevention. With no cd, you can do live virtual ERP therapy with licensed therapists who specialize in ocd. These are high, highly trained therapists who accept insurance and make treating your OCD more affordable. In fact, no CD therapy is covered by insurance for over 155 million Americans. If you relate to any of this, or if you want to help a loved one who's struggling, you can learn more by booking a free 15 minute call with no CD. Just go to nocd.com to schedule your free call and get connected with someone who can help. That's nocd.com yeah, I think I gotta do that. I think I still haven't gone to get evaluated for adhd, which some people seem to think that I have. But I don't know. You know, I'm mixing it up. You know, I get things done. I get, you know, I can. I can do a lot of things at once. Is that it? Am I doing it anyway? Okay, Chris Hayes is here. He's got this new book which talks about some of the stuff I just Talked about. Which talks about our sort of codependent or obsessive relationship with the brain fuck device that we all rely on to keep us engaged with what? I don't know, shiny infinite garbage. But the new book is called the Sirens. How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource. You can get it wherever you get books. All in with Chris Hayes airs Tuesdays through Fridays at 8pm Eastern on MSNBC. And a note. We recorded this a few weeks ago before the changes to MSNBC's programming lineup. So none of those came up. Okay, okay. This is me talking to Chris Hayes, mostly about his book. Jennifer Coolidge and Ed Harris lead an all star cast in Riff Raff, a new revenge comedy that you can see only in theaters. It's a darkly hilarious story of a retired hitman whose quiet life is turned upside down when his ex wife and son show up on the run from his former criminal associates. Deadline calls Riff Raff an unexpected gem that's wildly entertaining and laugh out loud funny. And film threat says Bill Murray is magnetic as a somewhat philosophical and aging gangster. Riff Raff opens Feb. 28 and is rated R. So look, Chris, we're in trouble, buddy. And I read your book like I read all these books, the ones that I do read.

[Chris Hayes]

That's what every author wants to hear. Yeah, I read your book like I read all these books.

[Marc Maron]

No, no, I mean books that to me, I want answers and I want solutions or I want to know what's really happening. And usually if you're thorough, like you are in your book, I'll know what's really happening. But the solutions. Here's how far I got. I'm at page.

[Chris Hayes]

Well, you didn't get to the solutions.

[Marc Maron]

I know. That's because I figured you could probably tell them to me and maybe in that way convince me that they're possible.

[Chris Hayes]

Okay, yeah, I can do that.

[Marc Maron]

But I talk to Brendan all the time about this compulsive relationship with the phone and with technology. And I do bits about it. I've got a bit now that the premise is really that our phones are our primary emotional partners. Cause we get everything we need from them. And you're sitting across from your human partner and they're on their phone getting what they need.

[Chris Hayes]

And it's all right there. They don't need anything from you, you don't need anything from them.

[Marc Maron]

That's right. And I say that if.

[Chris Hayes]

Parallel play. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

If you start scrolling right when you wake up. By the time I get out of bed, I've cried twice. And I'm exhausted. But it's true, dude.

[Chris Hayes]

I know it's potent. It's extremely potent.

[Marc Maron]

I know, but, like, the way you lay it out here in terms of the biology, psychology, and then even you cover all the levels, spirituality, the impact of attention in and of itself and what it means to the human animal at a biological level. And then you sort of arc into, you know, how it's being mined, exploited, and I guess, used against us to a certain degree because of neoliberal global capitalism and the disintegration or destruction of actual community. You know, what you have in terms of community happens online, and it's really. Nobody is founded in any sort of tradition or legacy or intellect. It's just a bunch of people who are just acting with triggers and markers of what they represent in small bits of moments. And because of that is, in a sense, a false community. All it does is serve. The content thing. Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

I mean, the thing that. One of the things I sort of write about at length in the book and think a lot about is the strangeness of social attention.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Chris Hayes]

Which is both sort of necessary and not sufficient.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

So it's like attention is the necessary precondition of all actual relationships. Like, you gotta pay attention to the person that you're having a relationship with. A friend, a coworker, a lover, you know, family member. But what you want is more than attention. You want something deeper. You want love, care, recognition.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Chris Hayes]

And what happens online is that the attention is the thing that's being scaled and monetized.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

So there's this, like, thinness, this sort of. It's like adjacent to the thing we want, but not the thing we want.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

And it's being done at scale. And so you could kind of constantly get a whiff of something that feels like it's almost the thing you want, but it's never actually the thing you want.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I mean, Brendan and I talk about it a lot in relation to the addiction model, which is that there is a dopamine thing that happens. There is a speedball thing that happens. There is an up and down thing that happens. And I've lately sort of started to talk a little bit on stage about the nature. I'm doing this physical bit of comedy where I do an impression of a guy nodding out on fentanyl, which is very, you know, full, Full, full fold.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And then heroin, which is like half fold. And then. And then. Then I do phone, which is just hunched over. Like, it's a good bit.

[Chris Hayes]

It's a good Bit.

[Marc Maron]

And the fact that, you know, despite the thing that I can't reconcile in terms of after reading the book, is that, you know, I know when people are on their phone. I know when I'm on my phone, and I know how that disconnects me from everything, literally. Like, the only thing you don't get, I mean, if you want to get out of the world, you have that in your hand. But you don't necessarily get the same kind of, you know, full body buzz that you're going to get from other drugs. But the fact is you are detached from the world. But still, in the way you talk about it, it's broad. Because when I started thinking about my own attention, it's like, I don't do meme shit. I'm barely on Twitter. I don't. You know, I look at the news and then I'm primarily obsessed with who's trying to contact me somehow.

[Chris Hayes]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And that's it. Like, I don't. I feel like I'd like to believe that even though I'm in my phone a lot, it's not for the reasons that you're describing.

[Chris Hayes]

Right. I mean, I think. I think people are. There's different relationships people have to it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

I think that the. The addiction metaphor is interesting because I actually think, like, to me, I think it's the reason it's different from booze, drugs, or cigarettes.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Is.

[Chris Hayes]

And it's much more like food, is that it's unavoidable in the way food is. I mean, the thing about having an addictive or, you know, torture relationship with the food is that unlike other things, you can't abstain.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, sex and food.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah. You can't. You can't abstain.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

And attention, you can't abstain from either. You're gonna put your attention somewhere at all times. You're gonna be in your head at all times. You can't outrun it. You're going to have to live with how you manage your attention, where it goes, how you regul in the same way that you're gonna have to put food in your body. And so I do think the addiction metaphor is useful, but it's not useful in the sense that abstaining is not an option. I mean, you can abstain from the phone, right? But then you're gonna have, like, you got the brain.

[Marc Maron]

You're gonna get real needy around the other the people in your life. You're gonna start annoying your loved ones. They're like, why you like this? I'm like, I'm just taking a break from my phone. And you've gotta somehow match that the amount I get out of the phone.

[Chris Hayes]

Can you do that, please? Entertain me?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, let's talk about the evolution of this attention as commodity, because, I mean, that seems to be the arc of the book. And I think from there we get the dangers of it. And also the other thing that I talk about a lot is just what is it doing to our brains? I mean, you know, ultimately you. You cross a point of no return with this thing where it's altered our perception entirely. It's altered our need for. For whatever those basic needs are. Not unlike drugs. And that joke I just made up just then. Yeah. That if you're used to getting all this stuff from this machine that is designed to blow our brains out every fucking day with more than we could ever want. When you go into the human world or you just sit like. I'm very aware of that. If I just put out some walnuts for the squirrels and I sit there and I wait for the squirrels, it would happen very quickly. With a reel, you'd cut right to the squirrels coming for me. I could be out there an hour. And what am I doing with that time?

[Chris Hayes]

Well, I think that the difficulty of sitting with your own thoughts is kind of a huge part of this.

[Marc Maron]

And you track that historically.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, I mean, that's actually. I think an important part of this was like the demand side, which is we want to be diverted. And that desire for diversion predates the phone.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

I mean, you know, I quote Blazer Pascal, talking about the 17th century.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

You know, in some ways, it's what the Buddha is talking about in 600 BCE. Like the. The sort of commodification really starts with recognizably modern media.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Benjamin Day has this New York sun, which is the Penny Press, where he's the first one who kind of has the idea that if you sell a newspaper at a loss, you can make money selling advertising.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

So he has this sort of insight about packaging attention as the thing you're selling. And then that spins out into. That basically becomes the model all the way through radio, television, and now meta. Right. They're all doing that same thing.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

But meta. Meta or bytedance or Snapchat or wherever is just doing it at a scale and a ubiquity and a level of sophistication that's just in a completely different realm.

[Marc Maron]

But the basis of that is. And throughout the book, it seems. And maybe I'm Being naive is that you want attention to sell things. So the economy of attention is really just holding the audience to sell the things.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, that's. That's. Well. Or you want it for political ends or other ends, but in a commercial sense, it's to sell the thing.

[Marc Maron]

Right. To sell the things. And then like. But. But what. What I don't get is, like, I don't feel like you, you know, that I avoid all those ads and even.

[Chris Hayes]

The ones don't buy this stuff.

[Marc Maron]

Not really.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So. But they still have my attention.

[Chris Hayes]

I know. Well, the weird thing about it is one of the strange things that I track in the book is that from the very beginning of the idea of selling attention to advertisers.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

There has been this fascinating debate of, like, does it work?

[Marc Maron]

Right. Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And how does it work?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And are you actually getting sales from the attention you're garnering? And you would think that. You would think that that would be a solved problem now. Right, right. That, like, okay, back in the radio days, how could you really trace it? But now you. And it's still hilariously opaque how unclear it is about how effective the throughput from attention to sales is.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Well, I mean, I was at the movies last night, and they have an ad at the beginning, one of those sort of like, you can have your ad here, like, on this screen before the movie. And it's clearly someone's big acting job to do that. But I'm like, this is fucking ridiculous. I mean, who is this even for? I think that everything in the book and all the history and philosophy of it all really has more to say about how is it changing our brains and what are we adapting to? And can we come back from that in terms of whether it's propaganda or it's advertising? I mean, the truth is that it is somehow enabled fairly shallow people to engage in a cultural discourse that's way above their heads. But it doesn't matter, because there's a point in the book where you basically say that the language of debate and the language of democracy and what needs to really be talked about in a fairly deep sense is impossible and it's boring.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah. It's like meditating in a strip club.

[Marc Maron]

Right. But where does that leave us?

[Chris Hayes]

Well, I mean, I think you're seeing where it leaves us right now, which is that the government, basically the government, the most powerful government on earth, has been literally taken over by trolls.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Right.

[Chris Hayes]

Like, Will Stancil is a sort of writer that. I was just reading this as I was Coming over here. And I think that's one way of. And I write about this in the book that, like, the weird thing about attention is that it can be negative, that get courting. Negative attention is a kind of like shortcut hack to getting attention. If you don't care about, you know, it being negative.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

What that means is that you don't get debate, you don't get discourse, you just get this sort of reaction. Reaction and trolling.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And now you really genuinely have a literal sense in which Musk, whose brain has been rotted out.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

By online. I mean, when you talk about, like what it's doing in our brains, like you can watch Elon Musk lose his mind.

[Marc Maron]

You know, the need for attention is so fundamentally ego driven. Right. So when a guy has that much power and craves that much attention and has that much of a platform, we're all operating in reaction to him. Literally now on a global level.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah. I mean, he is the, he's the, it's the, it's the Frankenstein's monster. It's the Oppenheimer moment of the attention age.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Right now.

[Chris Hayes]

Right now, like, like it's, it's all like everything you're talking about, like the drug, like addiction, the way it's rewiring a brain, has all now converged in the, in the two most powerful people in the country who are in tandem.

[Marc Maron]

Well, like, Trump's an old school huckster, attention getter. He knows how to hold and maintain.

[Chris Hayes]

Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

And capture attention and needs it desperately. Right.

[Chris Hayes]

That's the other thing about him that makes him effective is that you can't, you can't fake the level of pathology that drives how much he needs it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

You know what I mean?

[Marc Maron]

Like it's both of them.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, no, exactly. But, but Musk is now the sort of 2.0 iteration. You're totally right. Like old school medicine man.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Huckster, tabloid P.T. barnum is Trump.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

TV.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Fundamentally a TV guy.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

The, the 2.8 edition is Musk, whose like, brain has been rotted out by Twitter, who bought Twitter for $44 billion. So he could be the main character O. Who's now locked in this, like, totally pathological relationship to online response.

[Marc Maron]

And the issue, the problem with the troll is essentially that they thrive more on negative attention than they do on positive attention. And that throws a switch into the brains of the angry and simple to thrive on that as well and double down on even the most heinous of ideas. And like, on a day to Day basis. I really don't know. You and I, I think, have this. Or maybe it's a fading belief that people are inherently human and decent. But I think that in relationship to information technology, that the human brain is pretty fragile and probably not as deep as we thought. And as a machine can be turned a certain way and it becomes irretrievable.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, I mean, I think that that is true, but I also, what I get. Part of what I think is we went through a bout of this exact discourse in the wake of World War II around what, fascism and Nazism.

[Marc Maron]

Well, right.

[Chris Hayes]

And how was it. How was it possible? I mean, that same switch got thrown.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Okay. But it hasn't been reaffirmed on a daily basis, a thousand times a day.

[Chris Hayes]

But I think there's a really interesting question there because a lot of. There was a certain discourse that comes out of World War II that does, I think, look at what we think of as mass media and mass propaganda as a huge part of producing fascism.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

And I think that was probably right. I think we're getting our own ages version of it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

That's particular to the kind of wiring that basically social media is doing.

[Marc Maron]

But also in light of that and in light of the moment we're having now that everybody is so distracted and the information is so fragmented and people can take the information they want. That, you know, and that lack of tolerance and a sort of enforced lack of empathy, you know, creates a, you know, an audience of monsters. And these are primarily, you know, lonely, angry people with grievances that are men, particularly. Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Young men.

[Marc Maron]

Grievances that are beyond their immediate understanding and they're satisfied through this, this, this doubling down on. On hateful bullshit is that, you know, in terms of a civilization, you know, where you have a large part of the population able to dismiss the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people potentially, and also the firing of tens of thousands of people as just being par for the course or even if they're not even paying attention to that, how do you get that collective empathy back? I know you don't necessarily have answers and we're getting away from the question. But. But maybe.

[Chris Hayes]

No, I mean, I. Look, I don't. I think we need to. I don't have some straightforward way to cut through. I do think that, like, I think basically the current attention marketplace is fundamentally reactionary. It stacks the deck towards reactionary ways of thinking and being and reacting because.

[Marc Maron]

That keeps people engaged.

[Chris Hayes]

Because it's. Yes, because the threat, you know, the, the threat and the hack of negative attention.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

But I also think it's also not the full story and that there are ways for forms of positive attention and solidarity and empathy to flow across those platforms as well. And we've seen them and we. We've seen people. We've seen, you know, mobilization of mass movements.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Around the world. We saw the George Floyd protests. Like, you know, the door does swing both ways, even if it's sort of hinged in one direction.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

But. But you. But you can, like. I guess I want to push back on the idea that we're in a terminal state.

[Marc Maron]

Okay. Well, I mean, you sort of have to. If you want to hold on to.

[Chris Hayes]

You seem to think we are.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I mean, I don't. I don't really know because, Leo, my, My. My experience with humans, you know, has always been like, well, if you. If you get one on one with somebody, you can probably, you know, find some connection there and at least assess, you know, the vulnerabilities of somebody you're talking to in instinctively, if you have that capacity. But once the dehumanization takes place and.

[Chris Hayes]

You get them in a crowd.

[Marc Maron]

Yes. Well, that too. But even now, I'm seeing on an individual level, if the dehumanization element is deep enough and they've really separated their ability to register that because they're operating at this heightened state of what I. Sort of. The only analogy I have is, like, when you do morning radio and you're in the. In that zone, that amplified zone of continuing to talk and follow through with what. Whatever you think is the traditional morning radio.

[Chris Hayes]

Now, that's actually a pretty good. Yeah, I say that that's like the shock jock model. Yeah, it's the shock jock model.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I mean. But people are talking like that.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes. No, I mean, the shock jock model is now like the model of discourse.

[Marc Maron]

Yes.

[Chris Hayes]

Like shock jocks, which used to be this, like, very niche thing.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

That had one little small particular set of attentional incentives.

[Marc Maron]

Yes.

[Chris Hayes]

Is now the dominant form of discourse.

[Marc Maron]

But I don't. I go, like, that's one step away from, you know, laughing over a mass grave. Right. And it's like, you know, the thing that always sticks in my mind and I haven't really figured out how to integrate it into a comedy piece is all those pictures that were taken at public lynchings in the south in the 30s, 40s and 50s. It looks like a fucking date night. It's a party and there's just people. And it's like, how close are we to that in terms of the othering of a very broad group of people, which is the woke, the liberal, the democrat, the satanic, whatever it is. That. How close are we to that party?

[Chris Hayes]

I mean, I think one way I think about it is Musk has this thing where he's like, you are the media. Right. He keeps saying this. And the way I think about it is, yeah, we had that version of the media. It was called the village rumor. Salem witch trials, lynch mobs. That's what you are the media means what has happened is the most vicious parts of the village rumor have now been reinvented at scale.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

So I think it does connect back to exactly that phenomenon. Now, the reason that I say reinvented is because the ability of masses of people to aggregate towards cruelty, violence, mayhem, murder is not dependent on the technology. Like.

[Marc Maron]

No, it's happened many times.

[Chris Hayes]

Many times.

[Marc Maron]

You know, religion, nationalism.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah. You don't need Facebook for pogroms. You do Twitter for the Salem wish trials like that, you know, but. But I think you're right that like this sort of the heightened state of attentional wiring and reactivity.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Is pushing people towards something really, really dark. And again, we saw like, there was a concrete example of this in Myanmar where, you know, in Burma where. Where the government used Facebook as a vector for ethnic pogroms.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

I mean, literally got on the platform, these people are raping your women. These people are dogs. These people need to be exterminated. And it led to mass killing tens.

[Marc Maron]

And thousands of people. It was culturally insulated and in a national sense, small enough to make action happen.

[Chris Hayes]

It did. And in fact, one thing that everyone sort of lost sight of is when Zuck came out to go on Rogan and then announced that, like, we're not woke anymore and we're getting rid of our, you know, we're getting rid of our DEI and we're getting rid of that, but we're also getting rid of content moderation. We're getting rid of these. Fact checking that the reason that stuff all started was cause, like, they were culpable in a literal pogrom. Like. Like they were used for the darkest shit that humans do.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Facebook was. Yes.

[Chris Hayes]

And then they had. There was all that.

[Marc Maron]

It was a big story.

[Chris Hayes]

Human rights groups were documenting this. They then had to come out of that and be like, well, Jesus Christ, we've built machinery that can. In. In. In certain hands can be the machinery of ethnic cleansing. We need to put. Do some things with it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And then 10, 12 years later, it's like, it Screw it.

[Marc Maron]

But, but that, but that. That speaks to the thesis, is that, you know, the attention, the commodity of attention, you know, even in something that's evolving as a fascist state is. Is the premium.

[Chris Hayes]

It is because. Because we live in an age where information is infinite, plentiful, replicable.

[Marc Maron]

You keep saying infinite. I like that because it seems infinite until you get the same reel twice.

[Chris Hayes]

It is weird when that happens, isn't it?

[Marc Maron]

So I already saw this one. I thought this wasn't supposed to happen. I think the reason that is is because if you spend your time on it, even if you spend a lot of time on it, if it's limited and you're not doing a lot of the picking, is that you're really getting, like. Cause I was just thinking about this after reading some of the book today, is that for some reason I started getting these reels of guys cleaning the hooves of horses, trimming horses. Why is that everywhere? It's because you're not spending the type of time on it that gives it a definable algorithm for you. I think if you're relatively passive about your engagement. There are these ones that run through and also they speak to this base, this thing you talked about in terms of the basest type of information. And I think that is what that.

[Chris Hayes]

Is because it's firing some deep circuitry.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah. But like, you know, if you're in a political loop or you're in, you know, the food loop that you got in, that you talk about on the book. I mean, I don't even get those anymore. I don't even know why. For a year, for. For a while I was just getting, like, food cooking reels where I'm like, what country is this? You know what, all the street food reels, whatever. The street food reels. Yeah, Yeah. I love those. They. I. They're. They're. They're great. Even if you're like, I don't know if I would eat that. It looks a little dirty in there. But, but, but I think that when you started talking about the basis form of this engagement, you know, I watched a large pipe unclog itself for a minute and a half. The entire video was just the opening of a pipe and then it.

[Chris Hayes]

And then shoots out. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Those are so satisfying. They're satisfying on the, on the most base level. Like, literally the. Like the biological level.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, right. But not base in the terms of, like, this is wrong or stupid, but it is kind of right.

[Chris Hayes]

But the point that you're making here Is that right? Because what is happening is competitive attention markets, algorithmically engineered, are going to drive towards the base in the sense of the closest to our biological.

[Marc Maron]

Right. If you're, if you're not playing the game where we can figure out who you are.

[Chris Hayes]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Watch this. This pipe shit for. And you're like, this is good. This is good for me. This is good. This is pure. This might be poetry. This might be art. It's really tapped into something.

[Chris Hayes]

It's funny, too, because, like, at some level I say this, that, you know, you're someone who's experienced. You know, you've been in entertainment and comedy and all these things. So, you know, there's all these gatekeepers where people have to give green light to things and you pitch stuff. And the funny thing about the algorithm is no one has to pitch anything. It just throws. So you could never. You couldn't have gone to Hollywood and be like, I've got a show. We just saw show pipe shitting for.

[Marc Maron]

A minute at a time.

[Chris Hayes]

At a time. That would have worked. I think you could have probably put it on TV and it would have like, America's Funniest Home Videos. It probably would have slayed. No one had the idea and no one would have greenlit it. It just turns out that there was.

[Marc Maron]

An approach to advertising that. That could fit perfectly, and you could do that for a minute. If you put that as a commercial on tv, just that pipe for a minute, and then at the end said, you know.

[Chris Hayes]

Insurance.

[Marc Maron]

No, something more specific. Just like a laxative. Right. I mean, that would be the most effective thing in the world because that has to be the primal thing it's tapping into is.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

The satisfaction of evacuation.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

On a biological sense. But, but, but that base.

[Chris Hayes]

But the point being that that baseness, which in this sense doesn't carry with it the, the moral sense of baseness. Right. Which is like pogrom, ethnic cleansing.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

Is. Is adjacent in the wiring.

[Marc Maron]

Isn't that interesting?

[Chris Hayes]

Right. Like that's, that's. That.

[Marc Maron]

That's the thing like shitting and killing.

[Chris Hayes]

Well, I think these deep. Yeah. Deep essential aspects. And I think the killing part of it or the, or the, the demagoguery part has to. Is. Is that the attentional circuitry we have.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Fundamentally, is about threat.

[Marc Maron]

Okay, right. Do you talk about that like the.

[Chris Hayes]

Predator in the bushes? The, the, like, you know, if you're walking across the street.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And you're lost in your phone.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And the car honks the horn before it hits you.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

When it honks the horn, you pay what I call in the book, what is called in literature, involuntary attention. You don't get to volitionally weigh in about whether you're going to pay attention to that horn, luckily, because that's the thing that saves your life in that moment.

[Marc Maron]

Right. But if you live in a big city, it could go either way.

[Chris Hayes]

Also true.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. There's that intentional.

[Chris Hayes]

You might look up and then back to your reel. The pipe.

[Marc Maron]

That's right.

[Chris Hayes]

I got to finish this pipe or evacuation before I get hit by this.

[Marc Maron]

Exactly. Or it's evolved enough to know that the distance seems, you know, relatively far away and, you know, maybe I can watch something unfold, but I don't think I'm going to. But, but, but I think that what's evolved and I guess the transition from an ad selling attention holding model. And Brendan and I have talked about this and I've had guests that spoke to this, the Bobby Altoff episode, that these people that know how to mine the attention and work within the structure of attention getting technology have also found that that offers them. This is the whole economy in terms of attention, it seems to me, is that you get people that use the technology, hold the attention and then figure out their business within that.

[Chris Hayes]

That's exactly right. And that. And whose goal they are. Not. Like there's a weird inversion of attention as means or attention as end.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

So it's like if you were an artist or a writer, you had something to say.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

The thing you had to say was the end. And then you want to get attention as the means towards getting that out.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Or doing your artwork or making a living. Increasingly, the end in of itself is attention. How to get it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And then when you get it, then you'll figure out like, how do you monetize it?

[Marc Maron]

Right. Who's going to give you money?

[Chris Hayes]

Mr. Beast is a great example. This where he's like, he's genuinely a savant.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And he's been very straightforward on this. He started producing the content he did as a byproduct of studying the algorithm.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

And what, how it worked and what was the best thumbnail and what kinds of content did well on YouTube. And he's. I mean, he's brilliant at it.

[Marc Maron]

But that's an. In this day and age, that's entrepreneurial incentive.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, it's an entrepreneurial incentive. And I don't like. I don't begrudge it at all. But it is a. It's an inversion of like, I like to make this thing.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And then I put it out there, and then it.

[Marc Maron]

I hope people like.

[Chris Hayes]

I hope people like it, as opposed to. What do people. What do people like? What works in the.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And now you've got. The craziest thing about this, is that sort of terminal point of this. Because the attention is. Because attention is a resource. If you get it, then you can figure out how to monetize it. Right. The meme coin is the. Is the ultimate embodiment of this, where people are purely monetizing attention via creating a crypto coin.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

That doesn't hold any inherent value. That doesn't do anything that only gets purchased because enough people know who you are.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

Such that you could sell it at a scale that you can make money off it.

[Marc Maron]

And also you talk about it being a fictional commodity.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

Explain that to me.

[Chris Hayes]

It's a great term from Carl Polyani, who's a political economic theorist of the 19th, 20th century. And his idea is like, we have commodities. Like oil is a commodity or rubber.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

His idea of a fictitious commodity is something that the market treats as a commodity but wasn't produced for the market.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

So land is an example. Like, land just exists. And then, like, you turn it into this commodity, labor, which is the thing inside us that is our sum total of effort and toil.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And I say in the book that attention is also a fictitious commodity in that attention exists independent of the market, but it's internal to us, but it gets extracted from us and priced and traded the way a commodity does. So it's like a fictitious commodity.

[Marc Maron]

So on a small level, that would be listeners or viewers.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, listeners. Viewers or advertisers.

[Marc Maron]

And that's how you sell. Like, we've got this many. Here's our rate sheet.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Relative to how many people pay attention.

[Chris Hayes]

Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah. And what's weird about that, in the same way that I think the experience of the commodification of labor that Marx identifies is alienating.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Oh, that's a big part.

[Chris Hayes]

It's alienating because there's this weird thing that happens, the Industrial Revolution with labor, where the total aggregate value of labor is extraordinary. Right. And not just extraordinary. It's necessary for the whole industrial revolution to happen. Like, there's no workers. You can't do it. Right. So all the labor put together is super valuable. And in fact, the value upon which everything depends, your individual slice of the value when you go to the sweatshop for 60 hours a day is nothing. It's a pittance. And yet to you, that's all you got. It's the most important thing. Right. And the same thing is happening with attention. Attention pooled together in the aggregate makes multibillion dollar corporations. It moves markets, it moves governments. Right.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Your individual slice when there's an auction going off in the background, algorithmically of like that next reel is like literally fractions of a penny.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And yet to you, your attention is all you have.

[Marc Maron]

That's right.

[Chris Hayes]

If someone, if someone takes it, if it's not being, if it's not put in the place you want it to be, something's been kind of taken from you.

[Marc Maron]

Right. But this new generation of entrepreneurs and content creators have figured out that with that they can make a fortune if they figure out the trick.

[Chris Hayes]

If you aggregate enough of it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Because what you're saying is that as a laborer, your part of the whole is minuscule and not appreciated and gets you relatively nothing. But it seems like the alienation that people are operating in as content creators or as people that play this role.

[Chris Hayes]

Game, there's a little bit of the possibility of winning the lottery. There wasn't for the worker, but a little bit.

[Marc Maron]

But the delusional part of it is that it's a lot that in the sense that you talk about delivering a tweet that runs the world, that goes around the world, even if it's for a day or two, that incentive on a personal ego level will get you in. And then if you figure out how to chase that, you could get a job in the State Department. Like if you get good job, maybe.

[Chris Hayes]

Dod, you know, possibly.

[Marc Maron]

Of course. Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

But I. So here, let me ask you this question because I think what's interesting is that you have. You're someone whose career has moved through a bunch of different modalities and moments in time in attention markets like stand up comedy, morning radio.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Sort of frontier of podcasting. And. And one of the contentions I have is that there are better and worse models that do better and worse things to us and to the incentives of people making stuff.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

That matter a lot like that the structure of markets in some ways matter. So like the current structure I think is really bad.

[Marc Maron]

And what are you talking about specifically?

[Chris Hayes]

Well, I think the sort of algorithmic fee. Okay, yeah, right. Whereas the sort of. I do think the like subscription model sure is actually it's a way of monetizing attention for sure. But I also think it's like, has a bunch of better incentives.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's right. If you deal with a curated Platform. Like. Like the difference between doing for me now and I. Let me speak to something first is that unfortunately, and fortunately, you know, I've never thought in terms of market. I don't think in terms of money in the sense that, like, I'm happy that I have enough money to eat wherever I want.

[Chris Hayes]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

I don't buy a lot of things. So the part of the equation that is like, how do I make a lot of money? Is just fundamentally not who I am.

[Chris Hayes]

Right? No, but you're an example of what I'm saying, which is that, like, you've been doing stuff because you want to do it.

[Marc Maron]

I want to do it.

[Chris Hayes]

Find an audience for it.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, I mean, I want the attention. But the sad thing about me is, despite whatever Brendan knows, as my producer and business partner, in terms of how we're doing, I never really ask him for specifics because I don't want to hear it. Because sadly, I can be sated with two good emails. That's good. Well, yeah, kind of. But you do get hungry for that attention. But it's still a very personal and very primitive attention seeking thing for me is that I need to know that it's having an impact somehow. And I think by virtue of who I am on that level, the way I speak to you or anybody else resonates as something authentic. And that resonates with the type of people you're talking about who want to make choices around what they are taking in in relation to what they think is important creatively, emotionally, and all that other stuff. And the idea of what you're saying that for me, like to do a Netflix special versus an HBO special, I know that HBO is a curated shop that they're gonna have one great show on and their homepage is gonna really showcase all the other stuff they're doing. Cause it's finite.

[Chris Hayes]

Yep.

[Marc Maron]

And then you have a shot at getting the type of people that would be moved or interested in what you're doing. Whereas I can't even get past the fucking menu on Netflix. Like, I spend more time flipping through options than I do watching anything. It's true. But is that part of their model? Look, we've got them to look at what we have.

[Chris Hayes]

I do think they have a quantity model for sure.

[Marc Maron]

But in terms of what I feel now is a futility in the face of this tsunami of garbage and how it's turned a lot of human brains inside out in terms of their capacity to appreciate anything or process anything on a deeper level, like this idea that people Kept saying, it's like this attention span deficit that you've got to figure out. You can only do this amount of time because that's the amount of time that people will pay attention. I still push against that. Maybe I'm naive or dumb, but I'm like, no, no, people can pay attention for two hours.

[Chris Hayes]

They can, though. I mean, that's one of the weird dichotomies of the age. Right. Is that. And this is what some part of what I'm trying to get at with sort of different model questions.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Is that Mara was saying this last night. It was, it was a pretty funny point where he said, you know, everything's either 10 seconds or like three hours.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

You know, it's like, it's like it's a 10 second video or a three hour podcast.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And what, what I think that speaks to is that because we have these different attentional circuitry.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

We've got the kind of predator in the woods, car honking its horn.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Casino compelled attention. And then we do have all of the tastes and appetites of human beings, which is like people watch the Ring cycle over eight hours to watch opera and they read War and Peace and they listen to three hour podcasts. And like, so those two things are next to each other. It's, it's, it's the same way like our biological appetites work where it's like if you want to sell food at scale, you can sell Coca Cola, French fries and burgers anywhere. But if you ask, what do people like to eat, it's everything. Right. So those two things are next to each other always. And different kind of market models or institutions can, can coexist. Yeah. Or incentivize one or the other.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Okay, so I get that. So in speaking of it all in market terms, what we, the, the difference in time is, is interesting. And you're, you're kind of attributing that to the different attentional, you know, drives we have.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But ultimately the core of why people do it is still feeding something reactive usually that will support their, their point of view or make them feel smarter. And, and I, but I, I think the point I'm trying to make is that the, the sort of philosophical and, and moral discourse necessary to human is lost in most of this.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah. I mean, I think that's because one side of that is winning out over the other.

[Marc Maron]

The, the quick. The.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, yeah. The base. The, the, the, the sort of, the, the kind of. The fast food version in the analog.

[Marc Maron]

Sure, right. Sure.

[Chris Hayes]

But But I also think like. So here's an example of that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

The place I find hope.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Podcasts exist in their current form based off an open platform called really simple syndication rss, which is the technical means by which you can achieve the sentence wherever you get your podcasts.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

That openness of that platform has mattered profoundly and tremendously to the growth of what it is.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

That's a place where there's a technical infrastructure that's actually underpinning an entire genre that does, I think often.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Allow people to think deeply, listen to deep conversations. Spend.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

15 hours on the, the, you know, revolutions podcast about the history of the French Revolution.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, I guess what I'm. That's. That's sort of a radio model. I think in my mind I was just thinking about the visual thing because I, I still do. We're audio only. We're old school.

[Chris Hayes]

You are.

[Marc Maron]

And no, the video, the video thing is.

[Chris Hayes]

I mean, the idea that we are moving towards this is. This is something that's happening right now. The kind of death of text.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Like we're moving towards a kind of post literate age where everything is visual. I saw this data the other day because talking about how it rewires our brain, there's this thing in. There's this thing known as the Flynn Effect, which is that as societies get wealthier, the average IQ increases cumulatively. Which to me speaks to the fact that like you isn't measuring anything innate, it's measuring a set of circumstances.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Anyway, this has been a, basically a lockstep rule. There's some evidence coming in that like Americans are declining cognitively in their IQ that we're like reversing the Flynn effect.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And I think it's like, I think we're literally getting stupider. Like, I think that the attentional circuitry is being rewired around like short form video.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Not longer logical process.

[Marc Maron]

A crack element. Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

It's actually doing something to us like actually in our aggregate cognitive abilities making us dumber. Like literally. Not in, not in a, like idiocracy, jokey way, but in a like actual.

[Marc Maron]

Okay, so that's interesting.

[Chris Hayes]

Testable way.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's. Well, that's disconcerting. But, but I guess what was sticking in my mind about the idea of RSS and you know, actual sort of thorough long form conversations about whatever or journalistic investigations is that does the satisfaction of engaging with that necessarily mean that you are an active part of a community that is, that is proactive? I think there's some other side effect to this where you're like, well, it's. It's the same thing about progressive causes and the kind of falling out of the Democratic ideas that. What is the level of engagement other than listening to?

[Chris Hayes]

I don't think necessarily. Yeah. I wouldn't go so far as to say these sorts of models produce community building, although in some places they can.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, I think that, like, indivisible. There are certain things that promote civic or civil action, but I think a lot of people find satisfaction. It's just like the hashtag thing. It's like, you know, I was part of that hashtag, like, okay, so. But, like. And I'm guilty of it myself, but I understand that a lot of this discourse is still available, but it's not. It's not guiding culture in any way. And it's sort of like my grandmother, years ago, when we were in Vegas, my family used to meet my grandparents from Jersey. They go to Vegas for something once a year. So we go from Albuquerque to Vegas. And I was. I must have been in high school. And I remember asking my grandmother, you know, does she like Vegas? And she said, well, it was nicer when the boys ran things. And I think it just meant there was a. There was a type of hospitality.

[Chris Hayes]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

When there were fewer hotels and the mob was involved, where you would show up and they'd be like, hey, welcome back.

[Chris Hayes]

Right, right, right.

[Marc Maron]

So. But there is a sense of, like, the.

[Chris Hayes]

The.

[Marc Maron]

The cultural focus of three networks with one pbs, where at least, even if it wasn't, you know, completely on the level information, everybody was still getting roughly the same information.

[Chris Hayes]

And there was. There was, like, part of what I say. What I say in the book is that, like, one way of defining culture is what people pay attention to together.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Like that. That's one way you could define what culture is.

[Marc Maron]

That's right. And that is undermined by your observation in the book that nobody's watching the same thing ever.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Because of algorithm.

[Chris Hayes]

Even in the same home. You know, I mean, this, this. This sort of. I talk about the book. One of the things that was fun was to research the origins of the Walkman.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Oh, that was great. Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Which. Which, when you think about it, it's like, I don't think anyone, when they're thinking of, like, great innovations in technology is like the Walkman. Actually. The Walkman.

[Marc Maron]

What the Walkman did was the great isolator.

[Chris Hayes]

It's. Exactly. And what's fascinating about it is it gets created by Sony and They're worried that people will think it's antisocial.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

At the last minute, they add a second headphone jack to the original Walkman so they could be like, plug in with your friends. You know, like you're not. But people thought it was a scourge at the time. They were like, there's all this stuff, the writing at the time of, like, you're listening to music by yourself, like, just alone. And that is now the default of how people walk through the world, you know, and the Walkman and the phone have created the ability of this hyper individuation.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

You have five people in your household. Each of those five are watching something different that is grabbing their attention. And there's sort of good things about that for the culture, which is that you break out of the. The handcuffs of like, middlebrow. Like if you have to program for all five of those people in the household to watch the same thing.

[Marc Maron]

Yes.

[Chris Hayes]

There's one thing you got to do.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

But if you can give each of those five a different thing, there's different things and there's good and bad about that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

But the fundamental aggregate thing is that we. The massness or mass culture or paying attention together is. Is basically falling apart.

[Marc Maron]

Right. Until somebody with the thrust of a effective autocrat.

[Chris Hayes]

Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

Is able to take all the attention.

[Chris Hayes]

That's the one thing. Right.

[Marc Maron]

But I think in terms of the three networks sort of thing, once the idea was posited that that information. And this came out of the 60s too, which. Anything that came out of the 60s, ideological or in terms of personal values is exactly what's being erased now. And that's been an agenda for decades. But ultimately, once all information becomes dubious and there is no sort of barometer for truth on any level or fact, you know, then you have this mess.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that, that, that the. The fact that one of the things I write about that I think is a sort of important concept to think of is like attentional regimes.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And that all human communication, all cooperative work depends on some attentional regime. Like if you're in a meeting, there's an agenda. Yeah, yeah. Your first day of. Of pre K or a nursery school, there's some attentional regime the teacher introduces. Like, raise your hand.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

All that stuff in a classroom, in a meeting, in a conversation where we're alternating turn taking and looking at each other. Attentional regimes are necessary to regulate attention at any moment towards any collective productive enterprise among humans.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And that's true of a Democratic society. You need some attentional regimes.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

In the US Capitol on the floor, there's like very sophisticated rules about floor time.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

In committees there are.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

The, the, the, the, the large scale attentional regimes that might regulate the flow of attention for democratic deliberation have totally broken down.

[Marc Maron]

Right, okay.

[Chris Hayes]

Completely. And, and so even these vestigial ones like the Sunday shows, which there's all sorts of critiques to offer the Sunday shows, but like public affair programming as a specific attentional regime that the networks did in a trade basically with the fcc to be like, here we're serving the public interest. That had some sort of. There was an intentional regime there.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

For the purpose of public debate. All of that's. It's all gone.

[Marc Maron]

It's all gone. And whatever of it exists is being watched by 80 year olds. Yeah. Because by the way. Well, they're like you said, you know, when you were born and when I was born, you know, that's how they were wired, you know, so now, you know, no one's wired like that. They're wired by this other thing.

[Chris Hayes]

They're wired by this other thing.

[Marc Maron]

And you came into your adolescence in that world. You were there as a teenager when the Internet happened. I was already in my 20s or whatever and I still don't see it the same way as somebody who had to adapt to it as with that childish. An undeveloped adolescent.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And you know, whatever that did to your brain or whatever it does to these newer generations of. That's how, that's their original engagement with social discourse. I mean, how are they capable of even framing anything? Yeah, I don't know, I don't need. And also this, the idea of there being no whatever we used to be thought of as journalism in fact is now so easily within bubbles, sort of all you got to do is go like, I don't know, did you do your own research on that? Because I think. And then, you know, there's a whole world for them to go into of very efficient and self aware propagandists to distract them from anything. The very nature of these platforms is structurally authoritarian. Yeah. And I didn't really understand that until it's actually being hijacked by actual authoritarians that whatever Musk is or whatever kind of clown these guys are with the intellectuals who have been trying to.

[Chris Hayes]

Structurally authoritarian.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, right, yeah. That there's a context that you have to honor and you know, and, and, but then you realize that, you know, it's of control, it's controlled, it's controlled. So. And now that you.

[Chris Hayes]

And it's not open. Right. It's not. It's not like rss. It's not like email even. Right. There are open platforms. The Internet is capable of producing.

[Marc Maron]

That's right.

[Chris Hayes]

Forms. It's capable of producing open protocols. It's capable of producing contact and communication between people in essentially a neutral civic space.

[Marc Maron]

Right. But it's not as exciting.

[Chris Hayes]

Well, it doesn't optimize for attention.

[Marc Maron]

Right. Okay. That's it. Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

I mean, but like, for instance, 1. An example of that, and when I write about the book is like the group chat. Like, no one controls the group chat. You know, you're doing it, you know, you know, you're doing it on an Android phone or whatever, but no one is monetizing the attention in your group chat. Like, the group chat is an example of actual human communication happening over a digital medium.

[Marc Maron]

Yes.

[Chris Hayes]

In which the imperatives of the digital medium to maximize attention are not the thing that's driving it.

[Marc Maron]

Right. It's a human interaction and it's possible to do that.

[Chris Hayes]

Like, that's the thing, is that there are different models of the technology that are not like essentially the totalitarian platforms.

[Marc Maron]

No, I. I get that. And also I also understand, like, it took me a while to come around to understanding the intent of, you know, this pushback against, you know, woke platform, you know, mob rule.

[Chris Hayes]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

That, you know, unfortunately it became sidelined and that the example was, you know, liberal thinking around trans and gender issues was that when Chappelle said that Twitter's not real. You know, it took me a long time to really assess that, that, you know, what we're talking about in terms of attention and its relationship to actual life is limited.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, it's a thought thing.

[Chris Hayes]

Well, it's limited, but it's also increasingly what life. I mean, that's the thing is, like, that is life. It's not real in the sense that whatever's getting visceral. Yes. Right. Like whatever's getting a reaction online isn't representative of like, how everyone thinks.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

But it's also real in that what's happening there has actual real world effects, as we are seeing.

[Marc Maron]

That's right.

[Chris Hayes]

You know, in it right now. Like the sort of insane self radicalization that Musk has undertaken.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And his interaction with the trolls is like producing effects in the world.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. King of the trolls. Yeah. Horrible effects.

[Chris Hayes]

Horrible effects.

[Marc Maron]

And unfortunately, the infrastructure of democracy that you talked about is a little plodding in its ability to respond to It. Because those models of deliberation are ancient in relation to. Yeah, yeah. So. Well, ultimately, I guess some of the issues were answered. But what is the solution that you talk about that I haven't read yet?

[Chris Hayes]

Well, there are technological solutions insofar as we had a commercial Internet. That was the first mass Internet.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

It was AOL, CompuServe and Prodigy.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And AOL is going to be the biggest media company for the next hundred years. Remember Time Warner, the whole thing?

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, I remember being on AOL. I remember the homepage on 9 11. Yeah. When I opened the homepage up and I saw one tower, I'm like, what is. It's not April Fool's Day. Yeah. And it took me an hour to be like, what the fuck? And look out my window in Queens, you know. But I remember when that was it.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah. And so. And people thought that was going to be it. And what happened was that version of a commercial Internet, these, with these platforms was defeated by an open Internet.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

The open World Wide Web.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

All of the things email, you know, an open protocol, Usenet, newsgroups. The fact that you could. Anyone could put up a webpage.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

It didn't have to be on Facebook. It was just your webpage.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

The reason that I think that's so important is that the ability to create an open version of what we have now didn't go anywhere. RSS is a great example. Like we can create. And people should be spending time and money creating Signal as a nonprofit messaging service.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

Creating open non commercial platforms.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

And I think that that is going. And the reason I think that's going to happen not just can happen is that if you look at daily active users across the platform all declining the amount of.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Chris Hayes]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

People are tired.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Because there's only so much you can strip. Mine.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

People's brains.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And the. There is a sense in which this moment to me feels like a terminal moment for this version because people genuinely don't like it. They may be addicted to it. They may be spending lots of time on it. But there's this index called regretted minutes that some companies have started to take.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, God. They just. They classify everything or they regretted minutes.

[Chris Hayes]

And it's like there's a lot of regretted minutes.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

You ask people like, are you. Do you. Are you glad you spent your time on this or you regret it? And the regretted minutes are really high.

[Marc Maron]

The weird thing is I don't regret watching the pipe.

[Chris Hayes]

No, pipe's great. We did 30 minutes on the pipe today.

[Marc Maron]

I think it's an important foundation of what really. We're talking about.

[Chris Hayes]

Mostly talking about the pipe.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

No, so. So I think that there is this. This terminal sense. I think that we're going to have to start regulating the platforms and regulating attention. And you're starting to see that with. In schools, you know, pursuant to the Jonathan Haidt book about getting phones out of schools and classrooms. I talked to a school administrator the other day who said that this is really interesting. At the school that she runs, they started offering a voluntary program to the high school students.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Where you, you can turn. Give your phone in the morning and get it back at. At the end of the day.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, interesting. And that's working.

[Chris Hayes]

And they're more and more kids opting in. It's not mandatory. It's voluntary. And there's more and more kids opting in. So I think we've. We've sort of hit this point of there's no more further that you can push the spring down.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Chris Hayes]

And that this is not like our fate in the long term.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, but then we just have to stop them from, you know, banning the books and putting the Ten Commandments in the classroom.

[Chris Hayes]

Well, that's, I mean, there's a political. I'm talking specifically about this attentional thing.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Then there's the political question. And I do think actually that. That there was a really useful clarifying moment that just happened that I think is actually going to have profound political consequences. Donald Trump on stage at inauguration with all of the people that run these attention companies.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Where it's like the guy who sort of dominated attention to get himself elected. And the people that make their billions off our attention all together in one tableau.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Like, that is a clarifying moment of what needs to be toppled.

[Marc Maron]

Right, right.

[Chris Hayes]

Like what, what. And I think that people are going to start opting out. I think you're going to see a huge growth in, like, phones free phone free spaces. People are going to start buying dumb phones. Phones are going to start being like cigarettes and spaces. You're going to stop. There's going to be phone cubbies in every restaurant and every coffee shop. There's going to be like, people are going to start rejecting the ubiquity.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And rejecting. And then I think the fundamental thing is that they need to be. We need to regulate attention. We need to think about how you regulate.

[Marc Maron]

But in this political climate, you know, just the, you know, I get a little, you know, cringy when you even say regulate I know. And I'm for it.

[Chris Hayes]

You're a lib.

[Marc Maron]

But there is this moment where you're like. I don't know that word is.

[Chris Hayes]

I know.

[Marc Maron]

You have to think of a different word.

[Chris Hayes]

I know. But I think, I think it's gonna happen. And I think. Because I think that the, the backlash that is brewing, I could just. I'm telling you, the backlash of this brewing is enormous.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's what. Cuz people don't acknowledge that. And sometimes on stage you have to do it. You know, this popular vote was 75 million to 77.5 million.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

So that means like. But, but unfortunately, you know, coming from where I come from as one of the 75, is that there, there is something innately threatening to the idea that you're possibly surrounded by the 77.5 and they're gonna be a problem.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah. And I mean, the thing I always tell people about this, about the 77. You know, whatever it is, whatever 75. It's like if you were in a room with 100 people and there's 51 on one side of the room and 49 on the other, and two people cross over.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

It's. You're not like it's over. The room's unrecognizable.

[Marc Maron]

That's right.

[Chris Hayes]

It's the same room.

[Marc Maron]

But.

[Chris Hayes]

But it's the same room. It's the same. Like that's. That's what we're talking about. That's what happened. Like, people reacted like we were. This was Goldwater in 64 or, or McGovern in 72, or Mondale in 84. Like it was. Like it wasn't.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, but, but, but because of these attention that, because of the technology we're talking about and because of the size of the megaphone and the proliferation of messaging dominance. Right.

[Chris Hayes]

Atmospheric dominance. That totally does not match that numerical reality. That's right.

[Marc Maron]

But, but, but because our brains are wired this way now.

[Chris Hayes]

Totally. They're.

[Marc Maron]

They're frightened.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And there's.

[Chris Hayes]

Well, they're also frightened because they're trying to dismantle American democracy.

[Marc Maron]

That's right.

[Chris Hayes]

Brick by brick.

[Marc Maron]

That's right.

[Chris Hayes]

Day by day.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I guess the word frightened is not what I want. Is not the right idea. It's. They feel powerless.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah. Right.

[Marc Maron]

And it's relentless. The, the, the information that's coming in that is, is, is maintaining that sense of powerlessness.

[Chris Hayes]

People gotta get off the mat. That's the most important thing.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

You can't just sit there, sit by and let this Happen.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Like really gotta get off the mat. They're gonna.

[Marc Maron]

Well, then you gotta turn off the pipe.

[Chris Hayes]

Well.

[Marc Maron]

Somebody'S gotta stop looking at pipes.

[Chris Hayes]

Get off the mat and, and, and focus on a tangible thing you could do every day. I mean, literally, it really does help to call your elected representative.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

You should call your senator and tell them under no circumstances should they vote for Cash Patel to run the FBI.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

You should connect with other people through move on or indivisible or local community groups. And if there are protests being planned, you should do those.

[Marc Maron]

And you have to outnumber the people that are calling, saying like, we know where you live. We. There's a guy watching your kid right now.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, no, I know. It's. I mean, it's grim.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

I think there's actually, to that point, there's. There's some real evidence that like, physical fear of security is like a non trivial factor in all this.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, well, that's. That is a building block of effective fascism.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And I.

[Chris Hayes]

He also just let you know he just did a jailbreak where like the most.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. The assassins are out.

[Chris Hayes]

Hardened people have been let out onto.

[Marc Maron]

The streets and they're waiting for orders. Yeah. All right. Well, we were almost on a nice hopeful place. We were so close.

[Chris Hayes]

I was trying to get us there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, well. Yeah, well, that's my nature.

[Chris Hayes]

I know.

[Marc Maron]

Unfortunately, that's what's kept me at mid level for as long as I've been. It's like, yeah, he's good. And then. But then it got weird and dark and he left us hanging. Well, it was a very good book, very thorough and definitely had an impact on me.

[Chris Hayes]

I'm glad. I'm glad you liked it.

[Marc Maron]

I did. I still like, you know, because, not unlike you, that when you are actually out in the real world with a head full of the stuff that has rewired our brain, it can be kind of a threatening place. Yeah. I mean, how often do you think about your security? Do you feel like you're a target?

[Chris Hayes]

I don't really think about it a lot.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that's good.

[Chris Hayes]

I just, I think. I think I put it in the category of like getting hit by a car.

[Marc Maron]

Huh.

[Chris Hayes]

Like I.

[Marc Maron]

You know. Right.

[Chris Hayes]

Maybe, you know, you could definitely get. I know. People who have been in bad car accidents. Sure. I know I've lost people in our.

[Marc Maron]

Car accidents, but you don't indulge. But I don't hit it by a car on purpose.

[Chris Hayes]

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Marc Maron]

It still falls under the. The umbrella of just being hit by a car.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Do you. How much hate do you get?

[Chris Hayes]

I don't get that much hate really.

[Marc Maron]

Does it. But does that. You know, there's.

[Chris Hayes]

I honestly think. I think. I think being. I genuinely believe this. I think being a straight white man makes a big difference.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah. But I mean. But how does that play into the memoir portion of this book you wrote in terms of your own need for attention because of your job, when you don't get. Hate is part of you. Like, how come I don't get as much hate as Rachel?

[Chris Hayes]

No, no, no. I mean, I really try to screen out all that stranger feedback.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, you do?

[Chris Hayes]

I do. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You just don't engage with it.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, I really. I don't read my mentions. I don't, like. I really try to screen out stranger feedback.

[Marc Maron]

Are you. Are you. Do you feel like you're too sensitive to it, if you did let it in that it would start to buckle you somehow?

[Chris Hayes]

Oh, yeah. Because there were periods where I did.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And it got there. There were dark periods where I was sort of obsessing over it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

It was like I needed, like. Like one of those, like, cones for the dog.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

It's like, try to, like, bite the. Bite the wound.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Lick the wound.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And so I just don't let that in.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I try not to, because it does. But the weird thing about it is, like, the comb for the dog element is that the sort of. And I think you talk about it in the book, that you can look at all these great comments, and they.

[Chris Hayes]

Just, like, wash right over.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the one like, you.

[Chris Hayes]

You almost, like, don't believe them.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Well, that's a fun.

[Chris Hayes]

You know, that's like, the positive ones. You're like.

[Marc Maron]

But that's a character issue.

[Chris Hayes]

They're blowing smoke.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then.

[Chris Hayes]

But then when someone. When someone says something mean, you're like, you're. That's the reality.

[Marc Maron]

That's right. If a troll. You're telling your vulnerability. Yeah. Which they're very good at.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You know, if they reaffirm your darker sense of self.

[Chris Hayes]

But there is. There is a deep way in which, like, holding your power means, like, you, like, finding the switch within yourself to turn off such that they have no power over how you feel about yourself.

[Marc Maron]

Right. Or which I can at least. Oh, good.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I really did find that, like, I don't. I. I try to do good work. I spend all of my time with my, like, my wife, kids, and, like, really good friends and family. That's it. You know, that's. And, And, And I, I leave the show every day. Some days I feel like that show was really good. Some days I'm like, or that one segment, I wish we'd done this right. But then I could come in the next day and do it right, you know?

[Marc Maron]

And so it's like, because of the nature of this information economy, like the day before is forgotten immediately, completely never existed. Unless somebody, I literally will turn to.

[Chris Hayes]

Someone and be like, what. What did we do yesterday? Did we lead. What did we lead with yesterday?

[Marc Maron]

Well, what is that? Because I think that that sense of disrupted time and memory is directly proportionate to this attention.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes. And in fact, one of the things that I don't write about this in the book, but I've actually been thinking about it now and thinking about maybe writing something on it, is the relationship between attention and memory.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

We all know intuitively that moments of maximum focus are moments that you remember. You know, if it's an incredible moment of, you know, love and ecstasy, or if it's a moment of, like, fear, you know, you think about a. If you are in a car accident, you remember these moment by moment. And we also know that if you're in a distracted fog, you don't remember things.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And so I think that there's this relationship, and I think this is a thing that really benefits Trump is the public stays in the state of distracted fog and then never remembers anything. He does.

[Marc Maron]

But it's. But, but there's an element of trauma in that.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, there's also. Yes. I mean, I think there's also the, there's the, There's Covid and trauma, which I think also is a huge part of the memory story.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

But like, I was thinking about this today with the, you know, he's. He, He. He announced this big war on Canada and Mexico.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

And he's going to do the tariffs because they're ripping us off. And we've never been. We've been never. We lose. We can never make good deals. The current level of Canadian and Mexican tariffs are set by a trilateral agreement that was negotiated and signed by Donald Trump the first time.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

It was a whole big deal. He ripped up NAFTA and he made the usmca.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

It's his deal. No, not a, not less than 1% of Americans could tell you that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

That. The whole, that, that was a whole.

[Marc Maron]

Big story, but that is completely gone. No one remembers it, but that's his instinctual ability to gain this attention.

[Chris Hayes]

Exactly.

[Marc Maron]

Exactly. He knows it doesn't matter.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

All he needs is I'm gonna rip.

[Chris Hayes]

Up the shitty deal. It's like, it's your shitty deal.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, if he did that every time he made a deal.

[Chris Hayes]

I know.

[Marc Maron]

Well, it was great talking to you, man. Good seeing you. Good book. Thanks.

[Chris Hayes]

You, too.

[Marc Maron]

There you go. It's a good read. It's good stuff. Provocative, informative. And you can order it on your phone. It's available wherever you get books. The sirens call. Hang out for a minute, folks. Hey, people, check out the new Audible original podcast. That's anything but typical. The Unusual Suspects with Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell. This unlikely duo is speaking with some of the world's most influential figures to hear their unexpected success stories here. Guests like Jimmy Kimmel, WNBA legend Sue Bird, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Dr. Dre and others. Listen to the Unusual Suspects with Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell on Audible. Now go to audible.com unusual suspects. Hey, gang. I've never said that before. The Oscars are this Sunday, so I did my annual Oscar picks for full Marin listeners this week.

[Chris Hayes]

All right.

[Marc Maron]

With best supporting actor, it is Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain. Edward Norton for a complete Unknown Guy. Pierce for the Brutalist. Yura Borisov for Anora. And Jeremy Strong in the Apprentice. Yura Bursov, he played the guy, the thug.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, my God. That moment where you can see there's a moment there, you know, where their dynamic is. This guy is one of the guys that's basically holding her hostage, and she's just, like, kind of lashing out and just being crazed and angry. And you just see the moment that guy falls in love with her.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And there's nothing he can do, you know? And when he's holding her and he's being careful not to hurt her because he's so taken with her. And, like, that performance was so subtle and so enjoyable. That whole thing, that whole last act of that movie really got to me. We've got that episode plus another Oscar bonus episode with Brendan and Chris tomorrow. Full Marin listeners get bonus episodes twice a week, every week. Go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF. And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by Acast. Here's some guitar, which I like. It's got a good vibe to it, but I think I was dragging a little bit for some reason. I couldn't hear my click track on my AirPods. I gotta reload the click track app. But I like the guitar sound, and it sounds like a lot of other things that I've recorded here. But that's okay, because it doesn't fucking matter. Boomer lives Monkey and lafonda Cat angels everywhere.