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Episode 448: A Lib Too Far (Patreon)

Published:
2025-04-03 13:23:19
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

We descend into the gutter and figure out the political economy of Abundance, the subconscious yearn for a White Deng, and the magic of Freedom Cities.

The Abundance Agenda: Neoliberalism’s Rebrand

Discover more episodes at podcast.trueanon.com.

Files

Comments

Tooffixer

Good morning :DDD

JD Nonce

I feel like I need to read this book so I can dismiss it properly

Mango Bolsonaro

Yall yearn for a white Deng, I yearn for a white Yang We are not the same

Quinn

Thank you for helping me love another day

Budget Hireling

When I was slopless, TruAnon said “go in peace, and may your slop trough run over.” When I was without new brace takes to annoy my lib friends with, TruAnon said “go in peace, and be white Chinese”. And when I was without audio to drown out my thoughts on my dog walk, TruAnon said “ABUNN-dance, like the lady in White Lotus.” Allahu Akbar my brothers and sisters.

Boingo

Aboondance (liz voice)

TrueAnonPod

You actually do not need to read it I promise you

Joe Amditis

The best cold open of all time

TrueAnonPod

Read the day of creation by JG Ballard instead it’s more fun

Joe Amditis

Parable of the Abundance

Jawn Feddermang

May god give us Liz and Brace for the things we can change. And YC for the things we can’t.

Stevie

I hate Ezra Klein so much

Christopher Farley

You can really hear Brace's love for classic sci-fi in the cold open. 10/10

Spence Lee

How am I not first???

kmd

Goddamn that intro was grim lol

Lumpenpro

Wish this was in the free feed so I could send to my liberal leaning left friends to help. Liz and brace are so much better than I am presenting this.

Brian Long

Brace, Amanda Knox has now written 3 books

Sam Bondurant

Anybody else here get laid off and are making the probably terrible decision of going back to school??

Quinlan Bock

Fully Automated Luxury Abundance

Booga

A couple months back Brace mentioned Noah Smith in an episode, looked him up out of curiosity and he’s legit one of the ugliest creatures I’ve ever seen, also extremely stupid

Jayson Lantz

If I remember correctly, before it was a book, fully automated luxury communism was a group on”weird facebook” ca. 2013-2015.

Catholic Seinfeld

they’re right about housing. We have a massive shortage for the reasons they talk about

Austin Williams

I finished up thinking about Ezra about ten years ago. Neko Case is untouchable.

SH

“You work in B2B SaaS. You don’t know if you’re buying or selling it.” Brother if that didn’t hit a little too close to home

ploob

Liz boutta go off

k

Are you feeling liberated yet

Natalie J

Lol 6 comments until the mole appears.

The Marvelous Meredith Marks

It is a feat in and of itself that the 3 of you have not had a collective psychotic break given how every niche subject matter covered in the trueanon archives is essential to understanding our current moment.

Natalie J

Robert Heinlein’s A Nifty Shit.

Liam Farley

Never heard a good argument against degrowth that isn't presupposing no redistribution. I guess being able to afford more robot subscriptions is supposed to be good and the idea of working 15 hours a week but not having a touchscreen on my fridge or 3 family cars is bad.

Mark Owen

Foxy Knoxy! I didn't want to say I was from Seattle when in Perugia.

Kait Jensen

Neo-Irvine. yall know how to really hit us right in the fear centers of our brains

Natalie J

High Rise by JG Ballard also good

Luis

Currently working and making that decision

JD Nonce

What is the book Brace read about China? I’d read that

Liam Farley

But yeah degrowth is like an ecological economist academic movement, it's not a broad political ideology and it's literally just prioritizing reduction of human labor and ecological damage as technology advances instead of aiming for higher production.

cc

I mean, a drone valley in DC wouldn’t be soooo bad

Joe S

Des Moines mentioned

Cal

That intro 🔥🤭🫠

Luisa

Woke up this morning Took a nifty shit

Catholic Seinfeld

just beware of scammy masters programs (especially at prestigious schools).

Petrorenminbi

Tip line caller sounded like Brace doing an accent calling from a potato but I still believe every word of it

Catholic Seinfeld

dude became a Elon fanboy like a year ago. extremely embarrassing

Zane

This is the antidote to Citarella’s Ezra Klein interview (which was also somehow worse than when he talked to D*sha)

Jared Bauer

Listen to the Ezra Klein- Sam Harris debate if you’re into self harm

Yancy Clusto

going laissez faire with it is not the solution though. there are ways out of the housing crisis that are not just building a bunch of deregulated junk houses that will fall apart in 30yrs

Grace

Welcome back Philip k dick

Catholic Seinfeld

We currently build junk houses though (McMansions). What we need is more apartments (including public housing). Boomers block new construction because they own real estate assets.

dj hot fat baby boy

intro reminded me of obscure novel "the machine's dream" by prolific mosaic artist elberto muller

Sean

Sounds like heaven

Wesley M

I understand anger at tech companies moving into your city. But part of the reason housing costs went up so much in sf is that not enough new housing stock was built. And zoning laws are most of the reason why. Live in any mid sized city in the country for a week and you’ll understand that single family sprawl makes everything so so much worse.

Mark Owen

Jon Lovitz has been trying to bring The Critic back.

Qwerty

the podcast is 10x funnier when produced in Brooklyn

Wesley M

It’s not about building luxury apartments everywhere. Different kinds of housing arrangements that are currently illegal bc of building codes and zoning are needed. Eg student style apartments with communal bathrooms/kitchens, single staircase buildings, buildings that don’t waste space on parking spaces, etc. You don’t have to be a yimby to see that building those would lower rents for everyone and raise standards of living.

Tim U.

Neo-Irvine 🎯

GolfBaller

I hit the heart button and it said "69".

Natalie J

I think you should listen to the podcast you’re leaving hostile comments on.

Axel H.

I live in the Bay Area and the only type of high-density housing that ever gets built here is luxury apartments with a few token "affordable" units (i.e. 2500/month for a studio instead of 3500). I would love to see something else.

Romain Jacquet

As a person from the GZHKSZ Bay Area the reason why it works is because of abundant cheap labor.

Mark Owen

I think "Ruthless Cosmopolitan" could be a good reclaiming.

Wesley M

I would too! The first step would be allowing developers to build other things lol. I’m very sympathetic to what’s happened to the Bay Area, it’s tragic

Blank

NYT copying TA with its recent coverage on Shen Yun (like 3 years late!)

kmd

We need to build back better better

JDF

Best cold open in radio history

Gabe Juniper

I can’t make out what the tip line caller said after “his wife has taken an Israeli lover” can anyone help

rachel perry

Can anyone explain why Klein pronounces housing as “house-ing”? Is this a regional thing?

prickled.pear

Wait holy shit I was on the deabte team with Dylan Gaush- Lewis in college. Lmk if a connecting you would be useful

Bed Poopers

His wife was the one who wrote the article that eggs should cost more

Aaron Harrison

Des Moines shout out let's fucking gooooo

BHaa

Poor Nekp Case

Michael Shields

I know in my heart that Ezra Klein has an extremely thin, medium-length penis with the pee hole at the bottom. It is red. It is perpetually moist, and it smells like a dollar.

Tim O'

She has deboonked it

Tim O'

He has to be irritating on as many fronts as possible at all times

JDF

Cory booker is interested

k

Oh i love Adam Tooze

Ro

can someone please tell me what is prosciutto attention (19:01)

K W

Open the schools and get on that Jane Jacobs drip.

jay

Neko Case is good but she’s a jerk at the post office, let me tell ya

Maddie

Every time someone mentions Des Moines online it feels like a flashlight is being shone into my window… don’t look at us,,

Zane

You guys should have China Miéville on

Frankie

“wassupwitdat”

Ethan Crosby

1:02:30 Pittsburgh resident here. YC is right, I've traveled through many major cities in the US and they are far more driverless cars here than I've seen anywhere else. Everyone hates them.

AB

Listening and reading to any of these “thought leaders” drives me insane as someone who builds and develops physical things for a living. These guys have never built anything and never will. The work force isn’t there, the grid can’t handle it and even if it could no one at the top has a single idea of what to do. They just want to be able dump the used oil out of the generators powering the AI police brain directly into the dirt.

Petrorenminbi

Liz still a confirmed train hater

Sara

Sometimes I listen with an ear for which episode I could sneak on during a road trip with my Bay Area-born dsa bf who likes sci fi and hates podcasts. this might be the one

Jacob Mills

Libs love verbing the noun

sweetiepie

The scary music sound affect played right as my cat was yawning. Almost gave me a heart attack.

ResilientBastard

Brace would def like Alton Brown. Niko Case, eh

Nick

It’s tough to hear people pretend to not understand this stuff, but the intro was very good

i shyr

Abundance is posting screengrabs of blade runner 2049 with hashtag accelerate on your stevon universe tumblr blog. In the future every leader on the left will be required to take 2 years of improv classes at UCB and liberal grok will have a ‘randomnesssss’ mode

ploob

That's why they make the big bux AB

nathan

des moines loves you guys 2

regular bird

Crazy how much smarter, funnier, and better looking I've become since listening to trueanon. Abundance.

Isaac

Everybody wants to do doggy, huh

Nathan Bebo

Tulum special prostitution zone

Joebob

disappointed that Liz is not pronouncing it "aboondance"

Lara Sea

I had no idea what B2B SAS was until you guys (I literally thought you were saying businesses are sassy to one another yikes) and now every other ad on my tik tok is non ironic B2B SAS ads 😭 😭

Patience Moll

"trying to meme their way into power" - very nice

Egg B

Trains rule, try playing Mini Metro

Sheep

We need a full brace belden sci fi audiobook

Barry

This is your most abundant intro. Thank you.

Char Kelly

Hit the Brittany-Broski-Kombucha-Sip when Liz said “juice box mafia”

Your Mum

Braceypoo that Asmr intro got me tingly and damp on my drive to school this morning

Cale

It’s crazy “freedom cities” are coming from republicans. What’s the difference between “freedom cities” and “15min cities”? If I were a conspiracy theorists, I don’t know?

Nathan Bebo

I think abundance should be pronounced like a de-boonker. Aboondance.

Return of The Mac 2nite

American SEZ is hella wild. That’s just Company Towns with extra steps.

NYCM&AHole

San Francisco was so much better before the tech scum. At least hipsters made an attempt to be cultured and ate locally.

D

As the episode was wrapping up I started to wipe the Flamin Hot Limon Dorito dust off my fingers in anticipation of making a flamin hot reproach of Liz going out of her way to avoid train discourse because she's been cowed by the sicko train losers and then I was happily surprised. Bravo and thank you, TA.

NYCM&AHole

GrowSF should stop growing and die

NYCM&AHole

I hope the SEZ will let me operate a death ray

D

I had my airpods in and was bending down to pet my cat and the sound made me thing an alarm was going off somewhere in my house. Freaked me out which caused my cat to freak out.

sweetiepie

True anon is anti cat. Sad. 😤

NYCM&AHole

It’s SaaS because I’ve dealt with too many of these companies

NYCM&AHole

And also the complaints by people who claim they want to live in a city but not actually interact with the city was wall punching maddening. It was like fuck off back to the suburbs, you nerds.

Blank

YC amazing callback to the Cigarette Flipping Incident (à la Seinfeld spitting incident, back and to the left)

N P

Saw an incredibly boring looking CRACKER man asking a Barnes & Noble employee if they had Abundance yesterday.

Bobby Volcano

1. If you watch the Pod Save interview you'd see neither Ezra nor Jon is wearing glasses these days. This should serve as a warning to any would-be spiritual successors to Pol Pot. 2. Thank you for finally revealing the Belden Plan is just USA join China. Why would they want us though.

snapplepeachtea

i don't think the middle class japanese academic who came up with this theory has any concept of the needs of developing countries or their growing populations, and thinks that everywhere is a resource-limited, de-populating island like japan.

snapplepeachtea

we need american provinces, utah-mormon autonomous zone, amish autonomous zone, the possibilities are endless

Leonardo DiCaprizoliano

We need to abolish single family zoning. That much is true. We need more apartments. But if the abundance crowd doesn’t realize that we need a state owned enterprise building a shit ton of housing then they are lost. If rents drop too much, the private developers stop building. It’s that simple.

Cale

They do have a plan and Mencius Moldbug wrote it.

sister love

oh yea the initial monologue gave me an aneurysm the way the AI gods intended

Gato gris

No Alton Brown slander on my watch. Good Eats was my favorite show as a kid. It was fucking awesome

Liam Farley

Most of the people I've known who've advocated for degrowth have been from the global south and also in favor of massive redistribution back to developing nations. I've never met anyone who's written or discussed it in a nationalist, it's usually popular with people who's specific goals are to reduce the harm of climate change on developing nations. But I admit I don't know much outside of a lefty environmental economic sphere.

Ben

Tired of all you libs saying "abolish the police, abolish ICE!!" Wrong!! We need to abolish the unnatural scourge that is every FIRE DEPARTMENT. Then in each city across this beautiful country, we just need to set a cow next to an oil lamp, look the other way, and let that baby RIP. London used to burn to the ground like every other century, and guess what happened after? They Built. Back. Better. What happened to the forests will happen to us. We tried to tame nature for too long, and now it's taking its revenge. This is an elemental battle, you can't fight it with policy, you can only offer up a sacrifice. Cowabundance, baby! 🏄‍♂️

Cale

Mencius is actually being explicit about what he wants and it really seems like they are all following the plan.

Your Mum

Austin Texas is where I realized I was a lesbian while quite literally underneath Hans Kim (kill Tony dickrider) .. I said to him “you’re gonna hate what I’m about to say” and then blue balled the fuck out of him. He then said bodak yellow was his favorite Nicki Minaj song (racist).

Tea for the Tillerman

Big food network fan as a kid too. I still often think of a good eats ep where he made a pan bagnat, at the time I didn’t know sandwiches could do that.

Kyle Smyth

It seems to me that Abundance is mostly a signal to the tech sector/billionaires to come on back to the dems when/if Trump implodes. The actual substance or coherence of its content is kind of besides the point.

Grendul

I used to have a professor who was high up at the niskanen center and he would let us vape in class with him and he would be blowing huge clouds so that you couldn’t even see his face when he was lecturing

Ben

Are you trying to get deported for thought-crime?

CC

Extremely surprised to see this request but I second it wholeheartedly

MadamAjab

Lmao this is an amazing story

d

Opening is basically The Machine Stops by EM Forster

Paul Lemaire

I keep recommending this in every comment section but anyone interested in this needs to watch Copolla's "Megalopolis". Besides the fact that it's a masterpiece of weirdness and sadly the last piece of Hollywood art, it actually is the unofficial Aboondance manifesto. Beneath the apparent nonsensical plot and dialog that people mocked, it essentially conveys the same pompous and vaguely Randian message for Clintonoid Yupies. Perfectly channeled by Copolla's mental illness and lack of inhibitions. Plot goes like this: Adam Driver, an autistic, misunderstood maverick technocrat/architect will save Gotham/Rome both from MAGA and whatever is left of New Deal red tape, by discovering Flubber and building the Hudson Yards out of nothing...

Alex

Jason Hickel guest spot?

Patrick ODonnell

Brace read the Kohei Saito book it’s interesting

Pelican Grief

Gonna hit the gf with the Schumer this evening

Major Pisano

E donkey is a mdma user at a rave. They are E donkeys. Abundance abounding altruism is b2b sas mantra when in an ecstatic mind state for e donkeys. Effectively generating abundance through e donkey altruism for a better abundance based future. That’s what a e donkey is.

Axel H.

I wonder if they would build such things if they could. I’m sure developers have financial incentives to build luxury apartments over communal housing for students. I agree it’s the first step though.

ETHAN ASHLEY

New is by definition luxury. A new building will never be cheaper.

Gato gris

All the episodes are on max ! I watch them before bed. Very relaxing

PT

I wonder if it’s partly because Pittsburgh has uniquely tricky terrain and traffic (lots of steep hills, ice/snow, winding narrow lanes, that nightmarish stretch of squirrel hill tunnel, the 51) and it’s great learning material for autonomous driving tech.

PT

I’ve almost gotten run over walking to CMU or Pitt by an autonomous car several times on Forbes.

Wesley M

If building codes allowed them to, most developers would probably choose to build more units per square foot. The luxury apartments that are appearing every where in every city accros the US are a function of existing laws and building codes - developers have basically figured out that, if they’re going to have to build a massive parking structure (to provide the 2-3 parking spaces per unit most localities require), multiple staircases, elevators, kitchens and bathrooms in every unit, the way to do that profitably is to build those ‘luxury apartments’, 5 over 1s and the likes that you see everywhere

Wesley M

If laws allowed them to, they might be motivated to increase their profit by building more units per square foot on their properties by doing things like, eliminating excess parking spaces, having floors with communal bathroom arrangements, etc etc. And you should think of this not as a way to force people into denser, less comfortable living arrangements; but rather as a way to house people that are currently living in tents.

christian

i can't believe you got ezra klein for the intro

Payton M

No Matt Bruenig on the ep? Smh

Wesley M

I live in Charlotte, NC. the apartments that get built here, even in very walkable transit rich areas of the city, have massive parking decks that are usually bigger than the actual apartment building itself is. What a waste.

Paul Lemaire

Degrowth ideas haven't really made their way into mainstream in the US (hopefully Ezra will help change that) but they gained significant traction in leftist circles in Europe. To the point of becoming the punching bag of centrist and right wing pundits and politicians for whom it's an absolute heresy they truly cannot compute and find extremely offensive. The whole thing is being somewhat smeared as a lifestyle philosophy for joyless petty bourgeois who want to retreat from life, whereas if we only gave a chance to tech innovations we could invent nuclear fusion and grow the economic pie while magically solving Climate change. All of these people who fancy themselves pragmatic when they tell you re-distributive policies are unrealistic are unwilling to address the core common sense premise of degrowth which no techno-magic solutions can get around : you need resources to do make stuff and resources are limited. So we need limits to how much we produce and a clear idea of what, how and why we produce, and how wealth is distributed. Even if all energy was solar or something you still need the minerals to make pannels, and all the other polluting and limited resources used for all kinds of things in industrial society. Greenwashers seem to think "abundance" can be summoned out of thin air against the most basic reality principle, because the philosopher's stone is out there somewhere. Especially ridiculous in Ezra's case considering the fact his incoherent book seems to be winking at "Half Earth" (rewilding half the earth and leaving it untouched) which is a very ambitious idea that is by definition antagonistic with the imperative of economic growth for its own sake.

Ana

I could not possibly care less about the middle class.

Chris

When brace said “hit em with the Schumer” it painted a picture in my mind more real than life

Quinn Redman

You guys don’t remember Good Eats with Alton Brown???

Wesley M

Lol can’t tell if you’re joking or if you’re a dumbass

quinns

when are yall gonna get AOC back on the pod

Tim O'

People are very aroused

Sam Krider

Braces Badazz Black Mirror

Sean Dickey

This country can't even do the easy shit so I fully expect to die before anything remotely cool happens here. I really should continue studying Chinese.

T Sur

USAmericans always think their way is better. The way the laundry machines work wears on clothing much faster. It’s clean and thorough but wears. This paired with the fact that even expensive clothing is mostly plastic these days means that they are covering their homes HVAC in a fine dust of polyester fume. But sure steel is cheaper. Or was cheaper.

MirrorOooMirror

Am I the only one who immediately noticed the parallels with “abundance” and the WEF ideas AKA “the great reset” (predicted to happen by 2030 winky wink) to create the “you will own nothing and be happy” world? Maybe Ezra is part of the same cabal…muwahaha(evil laugh). But seriously, some serious parallels in ideologies here. But also seriously, who will own all the stuff we all used to own? Basically a class war undercover agent Ezra, shared/same visions by ruling global elites, just being dressed up differently and delivered by same-team different/team puppets. So I guess it’s just more same ol same ol war games propagated by global master elites accelerating the subjugation of their global mass plebs. NWO shall overcome! Yep, the use of a Henry Kissinger quote confirmed my paranoid delusions, that sucks

MirrorOooMirror

So no freedom of movement, live where you’re told to live (in some damned and toxic urban industrial center-6 story dorm style building), and this is a future worth envisioning? This is a better future? So basically like US of China? Are we going to be advocating for social credit scores next? Yay!

Khemith

Abundance is a hot dog water version of "effective altruism" which is a off brand Little Debbie snack cake version of neo liberalism. They have no more ideas. No more treats. This is the end before the great violent uprisings that will be immediately snuffed out by the state that doesn't have to pretend anymore.

Me

Buy my script! Buy my script! Buy my script!

MirrorOooMirror

Redistribute wealth down down down down, otherwise your solutions wont solve anything. Oh and kill the poor, without these things nothing will be in abundance but mass death.

Yancy Clusto

I've been saying this! Bring back great fires!

Yancy Clusto

Brace, read up on what Seattle is doing around social housing. Early days but it's exciting

Lu

Build back betar

AP

Uhhh-buhhhn-dance (Liz voice)

Sybian Musk

Thank you For the Nick Mullen “ummm you’re Chinese“ reference, I needed that boost today

Sean Bickety

Can you unlock this one so I can send to my lib mom 🙏🏽

Jerimiah

We need FREEDOM CITIES to invent new shitcoin rug pulls. I hope murder is one of the waived laws.

Jeremy

Crackpots tier should also include a google doc of links to Liz-approved articles

Jerimiah

"In this city, we put colloidal silver in the water supply."

Nik

cant believe BAP hit the tip line

K Barlas

Brace baby you were right when you said vestigial you just repeated the definition

K H

San Fran should have put in at least a few high rises and a lot of single family homes should be bought out and switched to multi story flats. The clustered areas of single family homes looks like barios because there are no trees or plants..

Ashley Naftule

Talking about the dragon is rising and there’s no gong hit?! We used to be a proper country

boop

i would pay for this

Robert Sayre

Oh, they even got (North) Yemen in there for a while. See "United Arab States" 1958–1961.

Ethan Crosby

Same here, and I think you're probably right about the terrain. They've also build some pretty crazy test tracks in some of the old steel mill sites. There's one near Hazelwood for example

Doc Adna

Inspired absolute trust

Wade Catt

Please do an episode on data centers. Connections with big tech, AI, environmental destruction, and zoning laws

Joey Fazzoli

These 2 hour eps are difficult to finish but I do it for the metrics 🙏

K

Im not from CA but I grew up in a single family house that had been converted into apartments and it was great, but I’ve also lived in a few of them since then and they sucked bc the landlord was a greedy parasite and then you’re just like living in a dusty evil fucked up attic. And then the high rise condos would prolly just have all been bought by rich people who don’t even live there but just want to park their money. So, as the libs like to say, “YMMV”

Max

When Brace started whining about the prospect of having to dry his clothes on a line, I for the first time truly understood Jdpon in my heart. All US-Americans deserve to suffer from the Trump taxes.

K H

Oh no for sure it would need to be state owned or it would still be a dense waste of housing slowly degrading into slums.

Dennis

Hamilton is keeping it 1600

Hot Rod

We’ve gotta stop trying to make the Jetsons and real - we only get THX-1138.

Hot Rod

Thank you for the Letter From an Occupant drop.

Norbur

All the Pundits are saying "let's be China but without so much gov't" then articulate ways of ignoring how policies are creating mutants living in crumbling underground infrastructure.

Baby J

Austin always catching strays.

Weed

eine kleine ezra

Marcus

我们什么时候能得到中文翻译版？

Tarab_ish

Seriously, I loathe "yimbism" (or more accurately the real estate astroturf/market fundamentalism behind it) but it's ridiculous that the whole western half of sf looks like that, and that people in cars can expect to just pick any street/ave in a grid system and barrel through neighborhoods to get across the city. We could look like Barcelona with actual neighborhoods and artieriolar roads so easily

Tarab_ish

Arterial? Goddammit

Matt

This is a William Gibson intro. I wonder if they've ever read it.

That Guy

Thank you Yung Chomsky for standing up for Neko Case the reincarnation of Bobbie Gentry

Zzz

Thank you for the review bc I ain’t reading that shit

triplevalaska

Jelly much. I've never read the book, but it really doesn't sound that bad. But I guess that is kinda of their lane

quadomatic

In Joshua Citarella's interview with Ezra Klein, Klein does speak to feeling aligned with Marc Andreesen and being a sort of liberal version. So it's interesting he doesn't acknowledge it in the book. Sonja Trauss also doorknocked my building when she was running for city council. She clearly didn't know how. She said she was running for city council and asked if I voted yet, without saying her name at all.

Joseph E.

At least I will still be able to take a nifty shit in the morning.

CJ

Structural and critical analysis and insights on point in this one. Liz and Brace on fyahhhh 🔥 this is what I sub for! Thanks for reading a boring book for us, it led to a v good ep 👍🏻

Tvvvv

I hate these freaks!

Tvvvv

This book and nazism and the current American state are caused by too many drugs. The wrong people are doing the wrong drugs in the wrong amounts.

Son of El Topo

Gibson famously said he stopped writing cyberpunk because it all came true. Makes you think.

Tvvvv

These interviews are making me dislike Citarella. He’s like a Kleinist. He may be the only open follower of Klein thought. More like De-Klein.

Son of El Topo

How does gender donkey factor into this?

Tvvvv

More snow crash than Gibson but similar.

Son of El Topo

That movie is truly insane. It’s awful yet I have felt compelled to watch it 3 times now. The politics of it (and everything else) are baffling.

D5er

Took me half an hour to realise u weren’t talking about Ethan Klein; I was so confused/free associating like “wait that guy took a break from rage baiting Hasan Stan’s long enough to write a book?”

Zzz

👊🏼🇺🇸🔥

A Yee

😭😭😭 bro i hate it here

MirrorOooMirror

How can this abundance absurdity be taken seriously without addressing the immense abundance already in existence but hoarded by a few oligarch pigs and their parasitic corporations? Why do so many people (this forum included) do the bidding of the beasts by insisting on building more apartments? No! Stop building shit! Take back what is already ours from the parasites who stole it! Redistribute now! Naw man, lets like fix the zoning codes and abolish single family homes for like dormitory style apartments we can all be crammed into. Don’t worry, our overlords will have multiple estates, underground bunkers, yachts bigger than 50 of our apartments put together, rental properties, and their corporations will own entire neighborhoods of single family homes, but we want apartments.

Major Pisano

They’re in the same milieu. The gender donkey’s frequent the same scene but e donkey’s are deep into abundance and MDMA is the ceremonial sacrament to be effective in the ecstatic donkey b2b sas abundance altruism. Gender donkey doesn’t fuck with most if their shit they get bought into, they don’t buy the abundance altruism effective disorder products.

JZA

Bingo, eyes on the prize 🥂

drewb

The One Where Brace Says Ahegao

CD

We need a pic of The Schumer

Brent

Using butter batter, before Biden breeds bees in the bedroom!

JDF

I love you guys so much yall been FRYING lately —incredible run just incredible

Throw Away

Grok please create a version of Giovanni’s room but with Nick Fuentes and Ezra Klein

JV

"we want to do DOGE but different and better"

Doug Cartel

I like to think that I'm....better than Ezra (guitar riff)

Seth

Alton Brown is the GOAT of the cookbook world

Jack

Nimby? Yimby? I'm a NYLTFUA (not your land to fuck up anyway).

Jack

The reality is... Living in towers is bad for humans. I say SPREAD EM OUT in aircrete domes on contour lines at densities proportional to bioregional carrying capacity. Take that steel out of the towers and make it into broadforks and stainless pipes.

Ben Kalinsky

John Bellamy Foster degrowth gawd

Jack

Global demand for new infrastructure by 2040 is $68 trillion? Cool. Cost of deffered infrastructure maintenance in the US from the last 50 years is $168 trillion projected 10 years into the future. We are toast.

Christopher Farley

"So we're just gonna switchies??" almost made me spit my drink out

quadomatic

I thought the interview was at least good in that he got Klein to open up about parts of his world view that were completely unaddressed elsewhere. I thought the post he wrote up later about the Abundance agenda marking a transition away from neoliberalism towards great power competition was interesting. I haven't watched the other interviews other than a bit of the will menaker one though.

Doug Cartel

Problem: USA wants chip factories but has no rare earth metals. Addendum: China has rare earth metals. Solution: dig a hole to china and steal the REMs

Bryan Duff

I could go for a "nifty shit"

CWR

Am I the only person whose two favorite podcasts (by far) are TrueAnon and The Ezra Klein Show? I know I am setting myself up for a torrent of abuse— let it fly!

SH

Parker posey voice: AHHHBUNNNNDAHHHNCEEE

Phillip Harris

Far too kind to this repellent fake ‘smart’ person. Disgusting

CWR

I guess the question ought not to be if anyone else fervently loves both of these podcasts, but if anyone else sincerely enjoys each of them

Nic Bodiford

Maybe you’ll cover this later in the episode but I think a lot of people are curious to know why you all moved out of CA!

Paul Lemaire

"Redistribute" sounds nice but it's a pie in the sky. The effective thing to do would be to grow that pie and use its trickling crums to make millions of little pies we can eventually throw in the face of the homeless. With a nice ABUNDANT turd in the middle of each cake. Voilaaa!

wormhole

Metallica recorded a bunch of ping-metal classic album “St. Anger” in the Presidio

N P

Full UNEQUIVOCAL SUPPORT for Freedom Cities because I want to see warring city states in America. Just imagine: ‘Breaking!! Drone City officials announce a full scale assault upon Bitcoin Valley in the wake of a devastating NFT Cyber Heist. Bitcoin Valley, with assistance from Nintendo Switch Village, took credit for the digital attack. The Baron of Bitcoin City is expected to address the nation from XVideos Plaza within the coming hour.’

Ethan

Not a bad episode but Jesus fucking Christ I have never had an episode take that fucking long to get to the fucking point holy fuck.

Nothingburger Burgerreich

Brace is like one of Socrates interlocutors with his replies. “Indubitably!” “By the gods it is true!” Also I think you’re all rootless vagabonds

Nothingburger Burgerreich

This is what I was hoping Liz meant by “not engaging with reality and the real world that actually exists”

Paul Lemaire

Watched it twice but I think I will watch it again. A monstrous film in the best and worse ways.

dean tierney

This intro is just the plot of RachelOrmont.com

ERIC

Hard cut to brace saying he doesn't give a shit was excellent production work.

emily

Do you have any recs for books about the balkans

Thom Main

@Wesley M “this isn’t a way to force people into dense living arrangements but rather a way to house people living in tents” This doesn’t make any sense. If laws are changed to incentivize developers increasing their profit by building more units per square foot, then those units will not be going to the people in tents. People living in tents can’t even afford an “affordable” unit, incentivizing developers to build smaller and less comfortable units will just make that the norm for people who can afford an apartment. I swear people who argue for communal bathrooms and kitchens to be the norm have never lived with a roommate let alone dozens of roommates.

Wesley M

I don’t believe that those are the only kinds of housing that should be built, no one does, I only bring it up as an example of a denser kind of housing that, if it existed, might provide an affordable option for single people with lower incomes, or for students. When I was in college I shared a bathroom with a whole floor and had four roommates. It wasn’t that bad! Most people will always desire larger spaces, obviously, myself included. Which is why I don’t believe that zoning laws should be totally eliminated. Rather they should be modified to fill gaps in our current housing supply - missing middle, density in downtown areas, duplexes, quads, townhomes etc.

Jack

Degrowth is when you use a clothes line

Steve Manjowski

“Abundance” summarized in a single sentence: “Trust me, rEaL NEoliBrALism hAS nEvEr BeEN tRiEd BeFoRE.”

Brent

Liz articulates these complex issues in so eloquent and understandable a way. Brace, you’re also cool.

Steve Manjowski

Klein & co. look at the history of unparalleled development successes of the world’s s largest centrally planned transitional socialist state (which most certainly uses state capitalism as a controlled tool for industrialization) and only take away the lesson “we need more deregulation (in America lol)”. Dammed be those universal programs, a policed financial sector and regulations/reforms for non elastic markets (housing, transport, healthcare, ie human needs). The central paradox of “Abundance” and those who preach it is that they want the benefits (mainly coordination) of (ostensively socialist) central planning without the capital owning class ceeding any real power. It’s really telling that the only way “abundists” can imagine coordinating the immense amount of resources required for major projects such as high speed rail isn’t through coordinated nonmarket public institutions (such as those in China) but rather to privatize & gift the capital owning class the remaining power our relatively uncoordinated and weak state institutions have left in hope they’ll do something worthwhile with said resources (despite having very little class interest to do so and honestly little chance of such efforts being successful). The “Abundance agenda’s” first (and always unspoken) priority is to maintain (and perhaps enhance) the capital owning class’s position, and only after that has been ascertained some very vague appeals/grumblings to some nebulous utopian future with “clean concrete” and other nonsense. This is why (weather he realizes it or not) a self described “policy nerd” like Klein has no comprehensive plans for change in the text as it’s primary function is to subvert its reader from forming any coherent understanding of class consciousness (in an environment where declining material conditions make attaining such consciousness increasingly more clear for the average worker). TDLR; it’s confusing & empty on purpose, I think as they point out on the pod one can learn more about “Abundance” by what the text decidedly chooses NOT to discuss: any serious form of class politics.

A Yee

i was not ready for it and i don't want Liz to know about that

David Walker

Heard Derek Thompson on CNBC for the first time ever today which luckily is after listening to this. OMG he is pathetic

Christian Bendillo

I’ve been a white Dengist since 2017, so it’s good to see other people finally getting on the “train” (sorry Liz). Also, Brace you actually have an exceptional talent for these cold open monologues, that shit had me dying lmao.

Kevin

"You cannot do your little liberal doggie!"

CJ

Tbh all the different Kleins can get in the bin they all seem to be as bad as each other... Are there any good Kleins out there? Naomi maybe?

Greg

Jazz heads loved that "So What" reference- good one, YC

Brian Ward

Liz honey you can afford whatever sort of dryer you want, treat yourself

Shfifty_five

She's alright. People get angry at her now with the assumption she was a Marxist or something but she's always been a liberal. She just had a banger of thesis in an era where some liberals were still anti- globalization/neoliberalism.

Shfifty_five

Though I haven't followed her in a while so if she's on some Zionist bullshit then my apologetics are irrelevant

james

Came here to say this, we love you YC

Shfifty_five

Not to hate on it as a drug since it can be quite therapeutic but MDMA is sus as hell dawg. At least it was in the 90s when it all of a sudden flooded the market and it seemed to originate from Israeli organized crime networks with Mossad connections. Also it and related RC's replaced LSD as the new wonder drug for ONI/CIA psychological research and violent desensitization.

CJ

Is the gong gone?

Anne Peterson

I live in a large northeastern metro area. The ideas of Klein and Thompson are bog standard among Dems here, and they are not working. Anyone who earns under $150K (200K to 300K per household, which is generally needed to buy a home and live here without kids) cannot live here. So, unless Klein and Thompson can come up with a way to restructure capitalism to suit their agenda, abundance is a farce and an insult to the working class, which = most people earn under $100K a year in metro areas.

david l vassallo

being from austin, i too enjoy when people move here, realize it sucks, then leave

riley

who up drinking and using they ipad 😤🔥

Olivia

I’m sorry - you’ve never heard of alton brown?

mawkwind

She has a great record on the latter: anti-Zio and anti-genocide, for sure — using her platform to advocate.

sappho.io

we outta imperial superprofits

DarylBarenziah

Seattle and San Francisco really do have ruthless cosmopolitanism though. Brace is right too it is anti semetic to not complain. Full circle with the Judeo Bolshevik, the Bolsheviks being the ultimate complainers.

sister love

i love to listen to you guys talk about SF 🤩🤩🤩🤩

Jabroni Ludd

Brace didnt even have the courage to do Ezra’s lispspsp in the cold open #NotMyTrueAnon #DoxThatBB #Amerikkka’sTopLibPod

Will

I think Brace was on drugs during the height of his cultural impact

Dakota

I enjoy an occasional ezra if the guest/topic is interesting. Did enjoy him and ta-nahisi coates struggling for an hour and a half to discuss the very obvious atrocities of israel without actually just condemning it as a state outright.

Hamish

Banger ep, i’m chinese

Shiv

Grateful to y’all bc I couldn’t stand to read this book with all these EOB’s (Enemies of Brace)

Shiv

Can confirm: 6th ST always been crazy!!

Major Pisano

The Israeli mdma from Ukraine is ultra sus. Israeli drug dealing is the real cartel people should actually worry and watch out for. So, that’s why the e donkey is also ultra sus. Sus abundance of mdma to mind warp the dead head and blooming rave scenes even more . Effective abundance altruism day dreams on Molly. Gender donk is straight edge.

Shiv

They want moribund-ness

tapwaterskeptic

Whose abundance pilled? Sound off 🗣️🗣️🗣️

wolfgang

The episode only reinforces my theory that it was the libertarians who were the libtards this whole time.

Sardonic

While the YIMBY movement and Abundance itself are largely a farce it cannot be exaggerated how much harm has been done by bad zoning policy and giving far too much deference to people who prioritize 'neighborhood character' over affordability. Public opinion in Austin firmly broke against those people in recent years, and as a result we've seen some policy changes and a lot more development. And it works, even as people continue to move to Austin! A lot of cope is thrown around trying to discount Austin's success but at the end of the day, prices are falling, fewer people are being forced out of the city due to costs, and that's a win.

Sardonic

Never going to look at B2B SaaS the same way again

Zzz

I wish brace would’ve continued on public housing and why it’s problematic re: segregation and poverty

Icy Mike

Came home and my roommate is reading this book! What should I do ??

OG Cracker Barrel

Us PITTmasters know all too well. Dr Robby knows too.

Dustin Peabody

Why do you have a European dryer, you live in New Jersey??

k

New York podcast valley - special economic zone

Robert Weaver

Shouts out to yungchmsk shouts out to Pittsburgh

bk

if you liked the intro, you should read Until You Continue To Behave

alie lerm

Liz and Brace when are you going to get pilled on Nicos Poulantzas and hit us with some hot state theory on the pod

Zzz

I know it’s just during the ep he didn’t go into detail specifically for SFs housing authority and housing vouchers - it’s all good I just like when they delve into and finish their thoughts lol

Grenadine Vetch

Geoffrey Deihl on substack is a solid example of degrowth writing. I think he’s great. You would surely find flaws but I recommend anyway. Maybe Patrick Donnelly too… environmental guys

S Lakraze

The arrogance of these guys saying they want the Presidio for their test lab when it’s one of the most beautiful places in SF - because it was protected - kills me dead. Why do they get to have it?

Major Pisano

Talk to them about ways to find help and that you are a safe person to talk about the life decisions that they are choosing and asking gently if they’re ready to get help.

Major Pisano

Miles! He’d definitely be like “so what.?.” Without a doubt. The producers obviously a music nerd. Yc the maestro of production! Sonically superior to the ear.

Lulu

The intro deserves a Pulitzer.

B

I am so relieved I don’t have to read that crap book and can just listen to this gold podcast everyone brave enough to speak out and say “actually! you can judge a book by its cover” is so vindicated right now. Thanks Ezra AmeriKKKLying ✌️

Jeremy

Aegyo is very different from ahegao which is what brace meant to say lmao. Perhaps two sides of the same coin though 👁️

Quinn Johnson

Love the long episodes. Brace is the liberal Joe Rogan.

Liam Farley

Forget which episode had the complaining about laughing during movies but can Brace and YC please go see the Minecraft movie in a theatre filled with teenagers? It seems they're all into screaming and throwing buckets of popcorn as a trend and all the comments online are like supporting them for having fun it's blowing my mind.

Wagner Koop

Brace doesn’t know Neko Case.. 😔

Paul Lemaire

Scratch a leftist and you'll find a consumerist. So many of them merely want to socialize our debasing, passive 21st way of life, "regulate" the internet so we can spend our entire lives on it without guilt, get UBI to pay for junk food and universal health care to cover Brazilian butt lifts. And make sure to foster an "inclusive" environment where none of that gets judged. Would turn one right wing if the right was not itself even more fully invested in accelerating their own anti-human version of "progress". Crazy how the entire political spectrum including the supposedly environmentally-conscious left finds the notion of putting limits on production and thinking about what kind of production to prioritize, so offensive and unrealistic, yet no one has explained to us how we ought to get constant exponential growth without exhausting the limited resources of earth and humans. What is an "abundant" re-distributive and environmentalist agenda if not one that limits growth in at least some capacity, beginning with the constant growth of capital accumulation ?

Mike

I'm grateful for whatever is occupying brace's mind where neko case would have been

Mike

No, Liam. Fuck off with that.

Liam Farley

I need to know how bad it actually is and I refuse to go

Franklin

this intro is breaking my brain

grahamby

Liz's concise, if less than full-throated, defense of degrowth actually IS the answer. It's the one that doesn't strip mine the planet and accelerate ongoing extinctions for magical concepts like no-one should have to use a clothesline and Truck Nutz: yes, if it's a union-shop. At this stage of the game, a Left without an ecological critique of capitalism and the kinds of "progress" birthed within it is DOA.

wigglybuddy

This is just shitty LinkedIn Lit 101

Will Thornton

Does anyone know where I can read more about Gary Tan funding crackheads?

OG Cracker Barrel

Air drying your clothes makes them last WAY longer and reduces the chance of a lint fire.

Sam

Degrowth is deleting instagram

pizzapope

fyi Brace; germ = an initial stage from which something may develop, comes from the germ of a seed of a plant -> from germination (the process of a plant growing from a seed). Our ideas are beautiful buds waiting to bloom! 🌸

pizzapope

yo wait the iPad in the trash thing is giving hella Deja Vu

bobore

2 hours and 11 minutes of podcast and Liz did not once say "aboondance" Unsubbed

Felicia Bimboman

Notorious hater of degrowthers - Lydon Larouche

S

Took my little brothers to see it in a theater full of kids and had no incidents of anything like that

Sam

Matt Christman called for the U.S. - China merger 7 years ago. Credit where it’s due

T

I think abundance makes clear the prevailing trend in liberal democracy which is that any center left party, group, or think tank has largely ceded bold decision making or theory crafting to the right. what they’re proposing isn’t new, but a liberal spin on “how do we lean out our current process to make the same ridiculous amounts of money or more?”. it’s almost goofy in its simplicity and corporate jargon

nicole rowe

jackson hinkle mentioned... i went to high school with that guy

Joséphine

Some say Brace is the handsome version of Ezra Klein

Jonah

if neoliberalism is so great why isnt there a neoliberalism 2 😯

Jimjams

Did she say “Prosciutto attention”. What does that mean?

T

the crucial contradiction liz mentions briefly at around 1:03, that cone head doesn’t want this “innovation” in his own home, is a historic one. I was recently in acadia and the history of how bar harbor and acadia were formed was the result of the rockefellers seeking to create a refuge from the world their creations made. the ultra wealthy largely know their products are a poison to the earth and help create a world even they don’t want to live in. the throughline in modern times being technofuturists who want to either escape earth into space, or into virtual space, to escape the world they’ve created and plundered. all that is to say, it’s not a contradiction, it’s a core belief, they know they’re peddling things they themselves don’t want their families exposed to, but want to enrich themselves from. none of these freaks would live in a YIMBY or freedom city, but they’d be happy to see them made

Fausty

What was the Neko Chase/New Pornographers song played?

Eric Neilson

degrowth is coming whether we like it or not.

M

Bar Harbor sucks lol

ITSRON

letter from an occupant

Fausty

Thanks!

Hunter Priniski

"I don't even need to interact with the city I so desperately have to live in." pretty much sums it all up

Internet jones

Jamaica changed the face of music like 5 times probably cause they never did live music and just built really big stereo systems for parties. Austin will never reach Jamaican power

Athron

I feel like everyone has their moment with the podcast where that particular idiosyncratic perma lib-brained version of you gets called out. Them going at the Yimbys was my moment. Build that fucking housing stock. Build build build.

Chas.

fuck you young comkski I got letter from an occupant stuck in my head for like 5 days now

J.P. McD.

I don’t see why “tech bros made it more expensive when they moved in” (I doubt that holds up to scrutiny, everyone wants to live there) changes the fact that you need to build more housing for them (and everyone). What do you want to do, ban certain types of people and ship them out?

Joelio

Shout out the GOAT of culinary edutainment: Alton Brown

Emily Bosakowski

I've known people who work at major social media companies, and all of them refuse to let their young children touch an ipad. The poison is fine for other people's babies, but not their own.

Sam de Waele

If the red tape wasn’t there, Dr Langdon would be saving lives right now. But the woke right and left are conspiring to keep hardworking benzo enjoyers out of a job.

Sam de Waele

“A Treatise on The Measurement of Roma Skulls: Contemporary Life in Belgrade”

Sam de Waele

I understand each of the individual words involved in “b2b SaaS” but on a whole it makes no sense to me and I like that the loud boy and the smart woman inside my phone hate them too.

@okthxbb (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-07 00:00 was I supposed to understand that caller?
2025-04-10 19:29

chorchy

Hilarious that you are framing tech bros as a sort of ethnic or cultural identity

Marie

listening to the intro after drinking my kava felt like being hit with a newspaper.

drewb

I saw one bee make fun of another's stripes yesterday. it's bee to bee sass

Kern Mailer

This episode is bringing back fond memories of when Garry “extra r” Tan started responding to my 6 follower Twitter account after I made some jokes about how YIMBY is just deregulation meets trickle down economics and a blatant developer scam

Ronin Fredricson

A gorgegous sprawling valley filled to the brim with stem cells

Dan

Godzilla and Mothra were usually aligned, I think. King Ghidora, Mecha Godzilla, Rodan would have been better foes for him to fight.

Rob

I’d like to take a moment to tell everyone: I’m Chinese

K8

I agree

K8

Can you guys get Richard Wolff on the pod

sne

Nj transit sucks dick and balls i stand with you liz

Timothy

45 minutes in and Liz has not yet pronounced it "aboondance"

Mark

Excellent episode. I feel abundantly unpilled.

Mathias Marvin Huseby

I just think its weird how none of the 'groups' you mention are unions. Pesky tenant unions wanting things like air filters, and builders unions who wont even build on active floodplains, are the two main antagonists that "Abundance" takes aim at eliminating. Unions and regulations. They want more people to die for profit as neoliberals always want. I think youre very correct in assuming it was written expecting a Kamala win. Now it seems kinda pointless unless you, like me, enjoy shitting on Ezra Klein

Phil Darovic

I don't know about his politics but Alton brown's TV show is great

Hardcore Virgin

True Anon should build out a speculative sci fi story. I’d be down