E381. Attention Span is the New Class Divide - Spence Klavan

Spencer Klavan joins Bridget for a fascinating conversation about why Plato's 2,000-year-old warning about the invention of writing perfectly explains our AI panic, what it's like to invent an entire language for Daily Wire's Pendragon Cycle (and how it made him finally understand Tolkien), and why AI can only reproduce the "outer word" while humans alone possess the "inner word." They discuss how Instagram reels have replaced sitcoms as the shared cultural touchstone for exhausted parents, why students can't finish movies anymore and what that means for the future, the death of observational comedy after Hannah Gadsby turned standup into trauma porn, and why the real class divide is between people who can sustain attention and people who can't. They also cover how liberal arts education might be the most economically valuable thing you can do in the age of AI, the embodiment problem (why Bridget asked humans about cancer instead of ChatGPT), the fatal mistake of thinking truth is whatever the opposite of politeness is, the soul in a truly great work of art, and what happens when you realize learning comes with pain but knowing comes with joy.

Check out Spencer's Substack - https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/

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Walk-Ins Welcome with Bridget Phetasy - Podcast Bridget Phetasy admires grit and authenticity. On Walk-Ins Welcome, she talks about the beautiful failures and frightening successes of her own life and the lives of her guests. She doesn’t conduct interviews—she has conversations. Conversations with real people about the real struggle and will remind you that we can laugh in pain and cry in joy but there’s no greater mistake than hiding from it all. By embracing it all, and celebrating it with the stories she’ll bring listeners, she believes that our lowest moments can be the building blocks for our eventual fulfillment.

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