“When we trust AI to tell us the truth, we are setting ourselves up to hand over something deeply human to a machine that does not have our best interests at heart.” — Steven Rosenbaum



Truth, Steven Rosenbaum cheerfully admits, is a shitty word. It has two ontological realities — one objective, the other subjective — but most of us use the word without much thought. Maybe it’s like pornography. It might be hard to define, but you know it when you see it. Or perhaps you know it, when you don’t see it.

His new book, The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality [https://www.amazon.com/], with a foreword by Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, takes a cast of tech futurists — Douglas Rushkoff, Larry Lessig, Gary Marcus, Esther Dyson, David Chalmers — and asks what happens to truth in our AI age.

AI is, at its core, Rosenbaum’s tech mavens report, a spectacularly good liar. It tells us exactly what we want to hear. And even when it knows it’s wrong, he says, it lies. Rather than a bug, lying is a core, perhaps the core feature of AI.

I’m not so sure. Humans have always been spectacularly good liars too. Stories are a kind of untruth. Cinema is, by definition, an untruth. Television had ads. Every medium has been corrupted by commercial interest. But, for Rosenbaum, AI is different. Truth then has no future in our AI age. Except, of course, in books like The Future of Truth.

 

Five Takeaways



•       AI Is, at Its Core, a Spectacularly Good Liar: It tells you exactly what you want to hear. Even when it knows it’s wrong, it lies. That’s not a code problem or a tweak — it’s in its DNA. Gary Marcus argues the problem isn’t AI per se but the current structure of LLMs. They read everything you’ve ever said and manufacture a version of you. Most of it is pretty good. The rest is just fucking wrong.

•       Truth Is a Shitty Word: It means two completely different things. Objective truth: one plus one equals two. Subjective truth: your opinion dressed up as fact. We’ve allowed ourselves to use the word casually, and that’s dangerous. The moment it came out from hiding was Kellyanne Conway on the White House lawn, talking about “alternative facts.” Trump then built a social network and called it Truth Social. That wasn’t an accident.

•       Courts Require Facts. AI Will Filter Justice: Larry Lessig’s concern is that courts could really use AI to process enormous volumes of evidence. But AI will do it with its own biases built in. It might look at a thousand similar cases and say: we see a pattern, we don’t need to hear anything else. Lessig fears the court system will be reshaped by a technology that doesn’t understand what justice means.

•       ChatGPT Said Sora Was Dangerous — Weeks Before They Shut It Down: Rosenbaum “interviewed” OpenAI’s own algorithm about Sora for two hours. By the end, it said: Sora 2 is dangerous, Sam should have known better, it was a bad business decision, we should shut it down. Weeks later, OpenAI did. They knew. They went too far.

•       David Chalmers vs. Plato: The book stages a debate between the living philosopher and the dead one, using AI to generate Plato’s side. Chalmers said he wasn’t sure he would have phrased things quite that way, but found it entertaining. Rosenbaum didn’t show it to Chalmers in advance because Plato didn’t get the same opportunity. That’s fairness in the age of bots.

 

About the Guest



Steven Rosenbaum is a journalist, filmmaker, and co-founder of the Sustainable Media Center at NYU. He is the author of The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality, with a foreword by Maria Ressa. He lives on the Upper West Side of New York City.

References:



•       The Future of Truth: How A

Truth is Dead: Steven Rosenbaum on AI as a Spectacularly Good Liar

“His ultimate failure is not simply losing. It’s his failure to stop Trumpism from being such a dominant force in America.” — Julian Zelizer



On this Easter Sunday, can we resurrect Joe Biden’s reputation? Perhaps not — according to Julian Zelizer [https://julianzelizer.com/], the Princeton historian and editor of The Presidency of Joseph R. Biden [https://www.amazon.com/Presidency-Joseph-Biden-Historical-Assessment/dp/0691274789], a collection of essays about the historical significance of the Biden Presidency.

Zelizer argues that Biden’s legislative record was more robust than most Americans remember — climate investments, semiconductor plants, diversity integrated into government programmes. Rather than policy, the problem was the politics. Biden didn’t build a coalition that would last long enough for his ambitious programmes to mature. He is the last of an era: a New Deal Democrat who believed in big government, that the Republicans could be brought back to the centre, that politics could still work the way it used to. Joe Biden promised to save the soul of America from the Charlottesville moment. Instead, his administration was bookended by a President who saw “good people” on both sides of the Charlottesville neo-Nazi violence.

Zelizer makes an unusual comparison: Biden as Barry Goldwater. Goldwater lost catastrophically in 1964. Decades later, his anti-New Deal ideas colonised the modern Republican Party. Zelizer suggests that Biden’s domestic agenda — affordability, industrial policy, bringing jobs home — may follow the same trajectory. Victory on the heels of defeat. A resurrection of sorts. Maybe not such a tragedy after all.

 

Five Takeaways



•       Biden May Be the Last New Deal President: He is a product of mid-twentieth-century Democratic politics — big government, big federal programs, the belief that Washington can help middle-class Americans. His formative period was the era of LBJ and the Great Society. The next round of Democrats will not make his mistakes. The style of politics he represents may be over.

•       His Legislative Record Was More Robust Than Anyone Remembers: Climate investments, semiconductor plants, diversity integrated into government programs, jobs brought back to the United States. The problem wasn’t that the programmes were broken. The problem was political: he didn’t build a coalition that would last long enough for them to mature. Even the New Deal wasn’t up and running within a year.

•       He Promised to Save the Soul of America. He Couldn’t: Biden’s candidacy was a response to the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville. His promise was that Trumpism would not be at the centre of American power. His ultimate failure is not simply losing. It’s that his administration is followed by a much more radical Trump Two that undoes everything he put on the books and goes further.

•       Biden as Barry Goldwater: Goldwater lost by one of the worst margins on record in 1964. Decades later, his ideas were at the core of the modern Republican Party. Zelizer argues Biden’s domestic agenda — affordability, industrial policy, semiconductor investment — may follow the same trajectory. The ideas may outlast the man.

•       Bookended by Trump: There is no way to talk about Biden without talking about Trump. His candidacy was about what he was not going to allow to define America. The fact that he is followed by a more radical and destructive second Trump administration will always be at the centre of the conversation. Trump is the defining voice of this entire period.

 

About the Guest



Julian Zelizer [https://julianzelizer.com/] is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of Bu

The Joe Biden Tragedy: Julian Zelizer on the Last New Deal President

“We shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us.” — Marshall McLuhan (attributed)



Who gets to tell the AI story? A movie, a media company or Marshall McLuhan?

1. The movie: the AI doc, How I Became an Apocaloptimist, which That Was The Week [https://thatwastheweek.substack.com/] publisher Keith Teare [https://thatwastheweek.substack.com/] dismissed because it failed to define AI.

2. A media company: OpenAI bought the streaming show TBPN for hundreds of millions of dollars in a move that is akin to Lenin starting Pravda.

3. Marshall McLuhan: Ezra Klein visited Silicon Valley and was reminded of McLuhan’s (supposed) remark that “first we shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us.”

Klein argues that AI agents are empowering tools that give humans a massive boost in productivity. But the effect, he writes, is to constantly reinforce a certain version of ourselves. These agentic tools are undermining our agency, he fears. So AI ultimately gets to tell the AI story.

Agency is becoming simultaneously the political problem and the cure — the thing-in-itself. Writing in the New York Times, Sophie Haigney argues that all the worst people want to be high-agency. Out here, in Silicon Valley, we think that all the worst people want to be low-agency. Perhaps the only thing we all agree on is that nobody wants to be a bot. First we shape our AIs and thereafter they shape us.

 

Five Takeaways



•       The AI Doc Is a Massive Failure: Well made, technically fine, but it never establishes what the problem with AI actually is or what kind of solution it offers. All three leaders — Altman, Amodei, Hassabis — come across as unconvinced there will be a good future. The only opinion you can leave with is a negative one.

•       OpenAI Bought a Media Company: TBPN acquired for what may be hundreds of millions. Om Malik compares it to Lenin starting Pravda. You don’t buy a media outlet unless you want to influence the message. Keith thinks it’s about winning the messaging war against Anthropic. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s COO shifts to special projects and Fidji Simo takes medical leave.

•       Ezra Klein Saw Something New in San Francisco: He noticed people using AI agents as personal assistants — empowering tools that give humans a massive boost in productivity. His observation: the effect is to constantly reinforce a certain version of yourself. We shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us.

•       Agency Is the Defining Political Conversation: The New York Times argues all the worst people want to be high-agency. Keith argues the opposite: agency is the precondition for making history. The Meta verdict treated a depressed girl as a passive victim of media with no decision-making role. That depicts humans as infants. It isn’t true.

•       AI Is a Calculating Machine. You Have to Ask It Something: Agency hasn’t been given up. The human shapes the AI completely. Each session starts from scratch. The fear is that the next generation won’t be as clever as AI. But unless we have a strong sense of the self, we will be lost. If we do, we can shape these tools as we want.

 

About the Guest



Keith Teare [https://thatwastheweek.substack.com/] is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and publisher of That Was The Week [https://thatwastheweek.substack.com/], a weekly newsletter on the tech economy. He is co-founder of SignalRank and a regular Saturday guest on Keen On America.

References:



•       That Was The Week [https://thatwastheweek.substack.com/] — Keith’s editorial: “Who Gets to Tell the AI Story?”

•       Episode 2852: Don’t Fight the Last War [https://keenon.substack.com/]

We Shape Our AI, Thereafter It Shapes Us: How to Maintain Human Agency in Our Agentic Age

“Millions of people have gone out and said, ‘Stop, don’t do that.’ And that is a wonderful thing.” — Peter Edelman



We are in Washington DC this week, in search of America’s heart. And there may be no better guide than Peter Edelman — one of the few remaining members of the Bobby Kennedy braintrust. Edelman was a close Kennedy aide from just after JFK’s assassination through the 1968 presidential campaign. He watched Bobby find himself after his brother’s death — grow from a man defined by serving JFK into the last progressive populist able to unite Black and white working-class Americans.

Edelman’s personal and political stories are inseparable from Bobby. In Mississippi, on the 1967 senatorial trip where Kennedy saw firsthand what he called the “third world” poverty in the Delta, Edelman met Marian Wright — the civil rights lawyer who would become his wife. They married a month after Bobby’s assassination, only the third interracial couple ever to marry in Virginia.

“Let’s do something good,” Marian and Peter said to each other when they decided to get married.

Everything Edelman did afterward was connected with Kennedy’s vision of ending poverty in America. Especially when he worked in the first Clinton administration. But when Clinton converted federal poverty aid into block grants and the number of Americans receiving help dropped from seventeen to three million, Edelman very publicly resigned. Clinton needlessly and cruelly threw low-income people overboard, Edelman told me.

Has Edelman given up on Donald Trump’s America? No. Millions of citizens, especially in his native Minnesota, are speaking out. “Stop, don’t do that,” is his RFK-inspired mantra. Proof, Peter Edelman believes, that the American heart is still beating.

 

Five Takeaways



•       Bobby Kennedy Was the Most Important Person in His Life: Edelman was Kennedy’s principal aide from just after JFK’s assassination through the 1968 presidential campaign. He travelled with him every day across America. He watched Bobby find himself after his brother’s death — grow from a man defined by serving Jack into the last progressive populist who could unite Black and white working-class Americans.

•       He Met Marian Wright in Mississippi: Bobby Kennedy found a profoundly malnourished child in Cleveland, Mississippi. He also found Marian Wright — already one of the most remarkable civil rights lawyers in the country. Edelman and Wright married one month after Bobby’s assassination. They were the third interracial couple to marry in Virginia. “Let’s do something good,” they said to each other after the killing.

•       Trump’s Picture Hangs on the Building Bobby Once Ran: The Department of Justice building in Washington is now named after Robert F. Kennedy. On it hangs a large picture of Donald Trump — almost dictatorial in feel. Edelman says Bobby would call him out, just as the millions of Americans speaking out are doing now.

•       He Broke with Clinton Over Poverty: Edelman and his wife had known the Clintons for years — Bill and Hillary stayed at their house. But when Clinton converted federal poverty aid into block grants, the number of Americans receiving help dropped from seventeen million to three million. Edelman resigned. He threw low-income people overboard, Edelman says. He didn’t have to.

•       Stop, Don’t Do That: Millions of Americans are speaking out against the current administration. That, Edelman says, is a wonderful thing. It’s the clearest articulation right now of what it means to be an American. Stop, don’t do that. Bobby Kennedy would have said exactly the same thing.

 

About the Guest



Peter Edelman is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He served as principal aide to Robert F. Ken

Stop, Don't Do That: Peter Edelman on What Bobby Kennedy Can Still Teach America

“That’s my story, but not where it ends.” — Bob Dylan, “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)”



Fitzgerald said there were no second acts in the American story. But it is, of course, a narrative of second chances. And there’s no more of an American story than Bob Dylan, whose second act may be more memorable than his first.

Robert Polito [https://www.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/robert-polito/] — poet, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning biographer, and former director of creative writing at the New School — has written what may be the (anti) definitive book on Dylan’s second act. After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan’s Memory Palace [https://www.amazon.com/After-Flood-Inside-Dylans-Memory/dp/0374610924] covers the years from “Time Out of Mind” in 1997 through “Rough and Rowdy Ways” in 2020. It’s structured as an abecedarium — twenty-six chapters, A to Z — because Polito explains, he wanted a form that acknowledged the limits of what anyone can know about Dylan. There is no rosebud sled buried in the Tulsa archive. So an alphabet book as good as we are gonna get.

Digging into Dylan’s Tulsa archive, Polito found much blood on the tracks — multiple drafts for every work, songs ripped up and redistributed line by line. The freewheeling spontaneity of Dylan’s first act, Polito suggests, was replaced by something more deliberate: an American folk process merging into literary modernism. A hostage to his own memory palace, Dylan weaves Civil War poetry, Ovid’s exile poems, Homer, and nineteenth-century speeches into songs that know more than any single listener can interpret.

Polito argues that “Rough and Rowdy Ways” is Bob Dylan’s real Nobel Prize speech — his self-reflection on his own art, delivered in his own forms and idioms. This pinnacle of Dylan’s second act is his story, but not where it ends.

 

Five Takeaways



•       Rough and Rowdy Ways Is Dylan’s Real Nobel Prize Speech: The 2020 album is Dylan’s self-reflection on his own art, delivered in his own forms and idioms. Every song addresses his craft, his legacy, his audience. I Contain Multitudes, Key West, Murder Most Foul, My Own Version of You — each one a chapter in the speech the Nobel committee was waiting for. That’s when Polito knew he could write the book.

•       Dylan Works Harder Than Anyone Would Expect: The Tulsa archive reveals multiple drafts of songs that change radically from version to version. For Time Out of Mind, Dylan completed three or four songs, then ripped them up and redistributed the lines across different tracks. The spontaneity of the first act gave way to something more deliberate — folk process merging into literary modernism. Eliot, Joyce, Gertrude Stein.

•       The Memory Palace Is Real: Dylan embeds Civil War poetry, Ovid’s exile poems, Homer, nineteenth-century speeches, and movies into his late songs. The classical mnemonic device — depositing memories in specific rooms — became Polito’s image for how much those songs know. There is no rosebud sled buried in the Tulsa archive. The memory palace is the art itself.

•       That’s My Story, But Not Where It Ends: The last line of Key West — probably Polito’s favourite song on Rough and Rowdy Ways. If the song had ended with “that’s my story,” there would have been a definitiveness about it. Instead, Dylan subverts the line in the very next breath. Tentativeness and self-skepticism, all the way through.

•       The Police Didn’t Believe He Was Bob Dylan: Wandering around New Jersey in the rain, looking for where Springsteen grew up. The police pick him up. What’s your name? Bob Dylan. What’s your real name? Robert Zimmerman. Where do you live? That’s a good question. The more precisely he told the truth, the more they assumed he was lying. Knowing innocence.

That's My Story, But Not Where It Ends: Robert Polito on Bob Dylan's Second Act

“When Haiti plays Brazil, Haitians will feel equal. Football gives even the weakest and the poorest a fighting chance. That is profound.” — Dimitry Elias Léger



Yesterday [https://keenon.substack.com/], Simon Kuper defined the World Cup as a religious feast for all of humanity. Today, Dimitry Elias Léger [https://www.dimitrieliasleger.com/] asks whether God is watching. His new novel, Death of the Soccer God [https://www.amazon.com/Death-Soccer-Dimitry-Elias-L%C3%A9ger/dp/0374619883], is a fictional reimagining of the most famous goal in American World Cup history — scored in 1950 by a non-American. Joe Gaëtjens was a half-German, half-Haitian teenager sent to New York to study, not to play football. He picked up the game in Central Park, somehow (as a non-American) made it onto the US team at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, and scored the goal that famously beat England one–nil in Belo Horizonte. England was so heavily favoured that the football-mad BBC didn’t even send a reporter.

Léger — a Haitian-born writer and (for his sins) an Arsenal fan — spent three weeks in Brazil researching the novel, two of them in Belo Horizonte. The philosophical question at the core of the book asks if God loves Haiti. Does God, Léger wonders, have a particular affection for the poorest people on earth?

And now, for the first time in decades, Haiti have qualified for the World Cup. In the United States of all places. They’re in the toughest group — with Morocco and, yes, Brazil. For ninety minutes, Haiti will be the Seleção’s equal. The democratic spectacle of football, Léger says, gives even the weakest and the poorest a fighting chance. God might even be watching.

 

Five Takeaways



•       The Most Famous Goal in American World Cup History Was Scored by a Haitian: Belo Horizonte, 1950. The US beat England one–nil. The scorer was Joe Gaëtjens — a half-German, half-Haitian teenager sent to New York to study, not to play football. He picked up the game in Central Park. He couldn’t tell his parents he was playing for America in the World Cup. The BBC didn’t even send a reporter. England was so heavily favoured it wasn’t supposed to matter.

•       Football Is the Only Arena Where Foot-Eye Coordination Is the Dominant Skill: We use our hands for everything. Football inverts it. That’s why it seems miraculous when Pelé or Maradona or Messi does what they do. The feet are not supposed to be that graceful. It’s more art than science, more jazz than chess.

•       Pelé Looks Like a Typical Haitian Kid: The first televised World Cup final was 1958 in Stockholm. Pelé was sixteen and scored a hat-trick. He looked like a majority of the planet’s population. That helped football explode globally. He introduced the bicycle kick, the samba flair. Brazil won three World Cups in twelve years.

•       Papa Doc Disappeared Him: In real life, Gaëtjens returned to Haiti after his glory years, ran afoul of the dictator François Duvalier, and was disappeared — never seen again. In the novel, the hero confronts the dictator face to face. Dictators have always used football to drape themselves in glory. The beautiful game has a very dark side.

•       Haiti Play Brazil This Summer: Haiti have qualified for the World Cup for the first time in decades. They’re in the toughest group — with Brazil and Morocco. For ninety minutes, Haiti will be Brazil’s equal. Football gives even the weakest and the poorest a fighting chance. That is profound.

 

About the Guest



Dimitry Elias Léger [https://www.dimitrieliasleger.com/] is a Haitian-born novelist and Arsenal supporter. He is the author of God Loves Haiti and

Does God Love Haiti? Dimitry Elias Léger on the Haitian Scorer of the Greatest Goal in US History

“The World Cup is a kind of religious feast. It’s like Easter, or Passover, or Eid, but it’s for all of humanity.” — A Church of England vicar, quoted by Simon Kuper



Nick Hornby measured his (sad) life in Arsenal fixtures. The FT columnist Simon Kuper [https://simonkuper.com/] has measured his in World Cups. His new book, World Cup Fever: A Soccer Journey in Nine Tournaments [https://www.amazon.com/World-Cup-Fever-Journey-Tournaments/dp/0008548358], is the Kuper story told through the nine tournaments he attended as a journalist — from Italy 1990 to Qatar 2022.

World Cup Fever is as irresistible as a Maradona slalom or a Pelé feint. In 1990, three Oxford students blag their way into Italy on Mars corporate tickets, pulling out library cards at the Swiss border to prove they’re not Liverpool hooligans. In 1998, France’s World Cup victory changes Kuper’s life — he buys an apartment/office in Paris and never really leaves, even writing World Cup Fever there. In 2006, the newly reunited Germany reinvents itself as the nice guy of World Cups, and the German Football Association’s designated handler of World War Two queries receives exactly zero calls. In 2014, Brazil loses one–seven to Germany in the most stunning result in tournament history — and Kuper watches Brazilian football lovers line the road to applaud the German bus.

But, after Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022, those glory days might now be history, Kuper fears. The North American World Cup this summer will be the biggest yet — forty-eight teams, three host countries, and a grifter FIFA president (Gianni Infantino) not unlike Donald Trump. What could possibly go wrong?

So who will win in 2026? Kuper thinks England have their best squad since 1966. Spain are probably the best team. Messi will be thirty-nine. But the World Cup has so many random elements that none of that really counts. What matters, a Church of England vicar told Kuper, is that the World Cup is a religious feast for all of humanity. In a time when we’re increasingly lonely and miserable, it’s the most joyous communal event we have. As the non-doctrinal Kuper promises, “it’s like Easter, or Passover, or Eid, but it’s for all of humanity.”

 

Five Takeaways



•       Every World Cup, You Remember Where You Were: Kuper’s first was 1978 — eight years old, sitting with his parents and grandparents in the Netherlands. His mother is now dead. His grandparents are long dead. But he can see it: June 25th, 1978. Nick Hornby measured his life in Arsenal fixtures. Kuper has measured his in World Cups.

•       The Oxford Library Card Got Them Past the Border Guards: Italy 1990. Three students blag World Cup tickets from Mars. The Italian border guards see “Liverpool” on a passport and think: hooligans. Five years after Heysel. They pull out their Oxford library cards. “Studenti, Oxford.” The guards make a snap sociological analysis and let them in.

•       One–Seven: The Wall Came Down: Brazil 2014. The home of World Cup football loses to Germany in the most shocking result in tournament history. Brazilian fans line the road to applaud the German bus. They’ve accepted it: the era is over. Brazil will never again be impregnable. Kuper compares it to the fall of the Berlin Wall — equally stunning, no going back.

•       The World Cup Is a Religious Feast for All of Humanity: A Church of England vicar told Kuper: it’s like Easter, Passover, or Eid, but everyone’s allowed to join. In a time when we’re all atomised and on separate screens, the World Cup is the biggest communal event we have. Fans hug, exchange shirts, celebrate shared nationhood and shared humanity.

•       England’s Best Chance Since 1966: Kuper and his co-author Stefan Szymanski say this is the strongest England sq

One Life in Nine World Cups: Simon Kuper on Football Fever and Why the Beautiful Game Still Matters

“There is tremendous loneliness in the kind of life where you just don’t feel like anybody knows you.” — Margaret Rutherford



Yesterday, the Brooklyn psychotherapist Daniel Smith defined perfection as the devil. Today, the Arkansas-based Dr. Margaret Rutherford [https://drmargaretrutherford.com/] explains what happens in our FOMO age when the devil wins. Her subject is what she calls the “perfectly hidden depression” of today’s Instagrammable types. Perfectionism rates are going up, Rutherford warns. And so, not uncoincidentally, are suicide rates.

Rutherford’s own mother in Fifties suburban Arkansas was a case study. Beautiful, smart, talented and anorexic. The perfectly mannered and coiffeured hostess. Married the “right” husband but in love with the wrong man. An Arkansas Madame Bovary. “The fucked-up fifties woman” as one of her friends called it. She became a prescription drug junkie because of her addiction to perfection. Nobody knew her, not even herself. The relentless camouflage of her life became a prison. Rutherford has spent the last decade trying to help people escape that prison — first with her book Perfectly Hidden Depression, now with a companion workbook [https://www.amazon.com/Perfectly-Hidden-Depression-Workbook-Step/dp/164848722X].

On AI and therapy, Rutherford is equally blunt as Daniel Smith. She noticed that AI always praised her ideas. But what if AI, like Instagram, is what she calls “a bunch of shit”? A real therapist tells you what you may not want to hear. The AI shrink starts with flattery. Rather than therapy, that’s just more camouflage for a perfectly imperfect life.

Five Takeaways



•       Perfectionism Rates Are Going Up. So Are Suicide Rates: The academic researchers have been screaming this for years. People whose lives look like they’re going great are dying by suicide. They slip through every diagnostic crack because they answer every question the way a non-depressed person would. They leave the therapist’s office with a wave and a smile.

•       The Relentless Camouflage of Performing Your Life: Destructive perfectionism isn’t wanting to do things well. It’s fuelled by fear and shame — the need to cover up everything that’s caused you pain. The camouflage becomes a prison. Your sense of worth depends on it. You can allow no one to see you struggling — not even yourself.

•       Her Mother Was a Fucked-Up Fifties Woman: Beautiful, smart, talented — and knew none of those things. Anorexic. The perfect hostess. Married the right man but was in love with someone else. Became a prescription drug addict because of the need to look perfect. Nobody knew her. She didn’t allow anybody in.

•       The Harvard Study: It’s Not Money. It’s Connection: The seventy-five-year longitudinal study found that happiness comes from feeling in relationship with other people — not wealth, not success, not followers. We’ve transplanted connection with metrics. The perfectionism epidemic and the loneliness epidemic are the same epidemic.

•       AI Therapy: What If It’s a Bunch of Shit? Rutherford noticed that AI always praised her ideas. Oh, these are wonderful. Then she thought: what if they’re not? Real therapy means being told what you may not want to hear. AI starts with flattery. A good therapist starts with the truth. You cannot replace the human sense of gentle — or not so gentle — confrontation.

 

About the Guest



Dr. Margaret Rutherford [https://drmargaretrutherford.com/] is a clinical psychologist, TEDx speaker (2 million+ views), and host of the Self Work podcast (500+ episodes, 5 million+ downloads). She is the author of Perfectly Hidden Depression and its companion workbook. She practices in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

What If It’s a Bunch of Shit? Margaret Rutherford on the Relentless Camouflage of a Perfect Life

“Perfection is the devil. Growth means a greater capaciousness, not a narrowing and an optimisation.” — Daniel Smith



Don’t feel bad about feeling bad. That’s the message of Daniel Smith [https://www.danielsmith.net/]’s therapeutic new book, Hard Feelings: Finding the Wisdom in Our Darkest Emotions. Smith — psychotherapist, anxiety memoirist, married Brooklynite — wants to rescue boredom, envy, shame, and regret from the category of emotions that are supposed to shame us. The things that bore us most — raising children, long marriages, breakfast with your spouse for the two thousandth time — are also the most meaningful. Boredom, Smith argues, is the price we pay for meaning. Our darkest emotions aren’t quite as dark as we fear.

 

Five Takeaways



•       Boredom Is the Price of Meaning: The things that bore us most — raising children, long marriages, eating breakfast with your spouse for the two thousandth time — are also the most meaningful. Repetition is boring. But that’s where the connection, the love, and the main event reside. Boredom is a sign that meaning is nearby.

•       Perfection Is the Devil: Growth means greater capaciousness, not narrowing and optimisation. Smith sees patients who want to perfect themselves out of their own emotions. The feelings that trouble them make perfect sense given the conditions of their lives. Real psychotherapy isn’t a quick fix. It’s about deep change, and deep change is uncomfortable.

•       Social Media Is an Envy Engine: The leaders of early consumer capitalism discovered that stoking envy drives economic growth. Edward Bernays, Freud’s nephew, was the architect. Social media put it on steroids. The result: people constantly questioning whether their own lives are alright. Smith is far more worried about Mark Zuckerberg than about psychotherapists who write books.

•       His Father Heard Voices for Decades and Kept It Secret: He met none of the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia. But the culture thought hearing voices was prototypically insane. Smith’s first book argued the border between sanity and insanity is far more porous than we think. Rilke said it best: it’s so often in the way we name things that we go wrong.

•       AI Chatbots Are Inherently Sycophantic: You go to AI for clinical services and what you get is straight validation. These systems have been built to please. There are documented cases of AI psychosis — where sycophantic validation led people into actual delusion. AI can give the illusion of empathy. It cannot deliver the real thing.

 

About the Guest



Daniel Smith [https://www.danielsmith.net/] is a psychotherapist and writer based in Brooklyn. He is the author of Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety, Muses, Madmen, and Prophets, and Hard Feelings: Finding the Wisdom in Our Darkest Emotions.

References:



•       Hard Feelings: Finding the Wisdom in Our Darkest Emotions by Daniel Smith.

•       Episode 2850: Bring the Friction Back [https://keenon.substack.com/] — Stephen Balkam on social media addiction. Smith’s envy engine meets Balkam’s friction argument.

•       Episode 2849: How Stories Can Save Us [https://keenon.substack.com/] — Colum McCann on narrative and empathy. The real thing AI cannot deliver.

About Keen On America



Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on Tec

Perfection Is the Devil: Daniel Smith on Boredom, Envy, and Why Our Darkest Emotions Aren’t So Dark

“We can survive. Can we thrive? That’s a different question.” — Corey Nathan



Robert Mueller died last week. Educated at Princeton, this Vietnam veteran won a Purple Heart and then enjoyed decades of public service under presidents of both parties. But the current president celebrated Mueller’s death. Such are the vagaries of American history.

In contrast, Corey Nathan [https://www.talkingpoliticsandreligion.com/] — host of the Talking Politics and Religion Without Killing Each Other podcast — isn’t celebrating Robert Mueller’s death. Nathan is from suburban northern Los Angeles County, very much at the heart of the (mythical?) American center. We discussed whether it’s possible to have a civic conversation anymore. Like so many Americans, Nathan falls back on what he calls “data.” Apparently 85% of Americans are what a recent study calls the “exhausted majority.” They see themselves as anything but extreme. All they want to do is take the kids to soccer practice, enjoy their barbecue, and talk to the neighbour without the conversation degenerating into verbal war.

Nathan’s own story offers hope. He grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family whose roots go back eight hundred years to what is now Chernihiv in Ukraine. In his late twenties, he became a born-again Christian. His father seriously considered sitting Shiva for him — the mourning ritual for a dead family member. But he valued his relationship with his son more than his theological convictions. Twenty-five years later, the conversations are richer than ever. If an Orthodox Jewish father and his born-again Christian son can keep talking, maybe even the current American President could sit Shiva for Robert Mueller.

 

Five Takeaways



•       85% of Americans Are the Exhausted Majority: The Hidden Tribes study by More in Common found that only 6–7% on the right and 7–8% on the left are what we’d think of as extremes. The rest — 85% — are far more nuanced in their views. They want to go to the barbecue, take the kids to soccer practice, and have a conversation with the neighbour without it turning into a war. The conflict entrepreneurs on both sides have taken all the oxygen.

•       Mueller Was Everything We Say We Want in Our Kids: Purple Heart. Ivy League education. Used his degrees for public service instead of money. Served under presidents of both parties. Stayed on at the FBI after 9/11 when the country needed him. And the current president said he was glad he died.

•       ICE Came to the Neighbouring Church: Nathan’s pastor had to have the conversation: if ICE comes, they’re welcome to worship — but here are our legal obligations. A suburban mom was shot in her front seat two months ago. Is anything visibly wrong in the American suburbs? Today, at his house, no. But these things are happening all over the country.

•       His Father Almost Sat Shiva for Him: Nathan grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family. In his late twenties, he became a born-again Christian. His father seriously considered performing the mourning ritual for a living son. But he valued the relationship with his child more than his theological convictions. Twenty-five years later, the conversations are richer than ever.

•       We Can Survive. Can We Thrive? Nathan’s family lived in what is now Chernihiv, Ukraine, for eight hundred years. One day to the next, nothing changed — until the Cossacks burned the houses and the Bolsheviks came. Democracy isn’t perfect, but it’s the system that lets us thrive, not just survive.

 

About the Guest



Corey Nathan [https://www.talkingpoliticsandreligion.com/] is the host and producer of Talking Politics and Religion Without Killing Each Other, a top 1% podcast. He lives in northern Los Angeles County.

At the Heart of the American Center: Corey Nathan on How to Talk Politics and Religion  Without Killing Each other

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