Who wants to work in Congress anymore?

Make Me Smart November 22, 2023 Transcript

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Kimberly Adams 

I am rolling now. We can get to it. Hello, everyone, I’m Kimberly Adams, welcome back to Make Me Smart where we make today make sense.

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m Kai Ryssdal, thanks for joining us on this Wednesday, November 22. Thanksgiving Eve this year.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes, which is why I am joining from inside of my mother’s car so that I could escape the wonderful children making lots of noise in my mother’s house.

Kai Ryssdal

How many kids?

Kimberly Adams 

That would be four of them, ranging in age from seven to 13. Yes, lovely. It’s great. But before we get to those wonderful festivities and let everybody go for the long holiday weekend, let us do some news and some smiles. Kai, why don’t you go first?

Kai Ryssdal 

Alright, so I’ve got two, both are just kind of like, wow, this is kind of wild. The first one is a riff on the Sam Altman OpenAI news, that’s been you know, brewing around all weekish. I don’t want to talk about Altman, I don’t want to talk about OpenAI, I don’t want to talk about the employees who banded together and said, we’re not doing this, I want to talk about the new board of directors for that company. And bear in mind, they are the leading company in a technology that could conceivably destroy humanity, which is why I found it so interesting this morning, that they have chosen former Treasury secretary and former president of Harvard University, Larry Summers to be on their board. Now, Summers is a brilliant, brilliant guy. In fact, he will tell you that he is often the most brilliant person in the room, he is also unafraid to say that he doesn’t really make mistakes that he knows better than anybody. He is brusque and self-advancing. And it just, it troubles me that he’s helping to run this company. And I don’t quite understand what they thought his qualifications were. That’s it. That’s it. I just don’t get it.

Kimberly Adams 

I can tell you what his qualifications were. Okay. Go ahead. Washington connections to in the future regulation of AI. You want somebody who is very well connected in Washington. And he is.

Kai Ryssdal 

I, yes, I totally agree with that. And I give you full credit for thinking of that when I really hadn’t. But my comeback is, yes. But so many people in Washington hate him, because of all the things I talked about, you know.

Kimberly Adams 

Hate him, but still go to him for a lot of things.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, I guess, I guess, right. Strange bedfellows. And all that, I suppose I think that’s a fair point. Well, all right, good, good for you for coming out with reason I didn’t, but it still just kind of made me go really?

Kimberly Adams 

So the only thing I have to say about this whole OpenAI thing is I wonder if we’re going to look back at this moment, you know, five years from now, a decade from now, and say, This is the moment where there was a decision between sort of the more altruistic, slow and steady not be too commercial version of AI development and the full steam ahead we are all in this. And we went for the latter. Like is this gonna be the moment that people look back on and say that was the turning point?

Kai Ryssdal 

Right. Right. May well be, may well be? I don’t know. I don’t know. So that was my one substantive news article. The other one, and this is substantive, they’re just in a completely different way. Crazy article in The Wall Street Journal today about development of new high tech artillery shells, that are basically rockets that you fire out of a cannon that can go 90 miles. So there’s just a whiz bang part of it, no pun intended, on the whiz bang thing. But here’s, here’s just an amazing amount. I know I’m sorry, an amazing, amazing statistic. Hang on, I scroll down and I’m gonna find it. So both the US and Europe produced about 300,000 artillery shells last year. So that’s each and that’s according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The European Union believes its companies can increase production to 1 million shells by next year in the US is looking at 1.2 million. So oh, my goodness gracious. That’s a lot of artillery shells, which are going to Ukraine and other allies and also Israel and all of that stuff. It’s just very interesting. The demand for armaments now is very high. And the high tech is kind of wild there. These artillery shells are like rockets. Absolutely. Wow.

Kimberly Adams 

Wow. Yeah. I don’t know what to say about that. Weapons of war.

Kai Ryssdal 

I think I know they can go 90 miles. That’s New York to Philadelphia. From a cannon. Yikes. Anyway,

Kimberly Adams 

Okay.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s it for me.

Kimberly Adams 

Well, I’ll pivot to other things that are going far distances. Members of Congress are fleeing Washington. So we had two more retirements and retirement announcements in the House this week. It was longtime California Democrat Rep Anna Eshoo. It says she’s going to retire from her seat, which is a Silicon Valley seat after this term in Congress. She’s and then Republican Bill Johnson of Ohio, who leads the Energy and Commerce and environment subcommittee says he’s leaving to head to Youngstown State University. And this I’m reading from Politico here, “The decisions by Eshoo and Johnson continues a flood of retirements, with November marking the most announcements in any single month since at least 2011. There have been at least 12 to date — not counting several other members like Reps. Dean Phillips and Sheila Jackson Lee pursuing bids for other elected offices — and still more than a week to go in November.” And then if you bump over to The Hill, you know, there’s two quotes about all of these departures that I thought were really interesting. Representative Debbie Lesko of Arizona said in when she announced that she wouldn’t run again, right now, Washington DC is broken. And then representative Brian Higgins Democrat from New York said, “too often elected officials chase the 24 hour news cycle, focusing on the issue of the day. And when you look back, there’s little to show for it.” And he also has opted against running for reelection. And it makes me wonder, Who wants these jobs anymore? And if people who are, you know, civically minded, find it too much of a hassle and too challenging with not enough. You know, it’s one thing if you have to put up with all the stuff you have to put up with as a member of the House, if you can actually pass legislation and see that you’re making a difference and see that you’re making change. But when nothing gets done, and you only have to deal with the negative consequences of it, which I’m sure that’s not all they deal with. I’m sure there’s still some perks. But you know, it’s kind of like why bother, you can make more money elsewhere. With less hassle, less drama, less oversight, you can trade on all the info that you have, and your new connections and probably, you know, do quite well for yourself and not have threats against your family or people attacking your place of business while you hide in the bathroom or in bunkers. And I just worry about who will run for public office in this environment. And if civically minded people do not run for public office, what we will get instead are people bankrolled by special interest groups that may or may not have the best interests of the overall country, in mind. And that concerns me and I think it’s worth noting. So anybody out there listening, who is civically minded, and actually cares about our democracy, and you want to run for Congress, that seems like there’s gonna be a bunchs of openings. Good luck.

Kai Rysdal 

Yeah, I, I endorse everything you said. It’s deeply distressing. And if you can’t actually get things done and make life better for the people of this country, and it’s all toxic, negative stalling and maneuvering and terribleness. Why are you going to do it? You know? Yeah, I totally agree. Totally.

Kimberly Adams 

Well, we need some smiles. Let’s go. I want to go first, now.

Kai Ryssdal 

Okay. All right. So this, this isn’t really a smile, smile. It’s a it’s a combination of, boy, this is really good. And I’m glad this is happening. And wow, this has to happen. Starting in the new year, students K through 12 students in the state of California, are going to have to learn media literacy skills, such as recognizing fake news and thinking critically about what they see online. It’s going to be along with core courses like mathematics, science and history. It’s a new law that governor signed back in October and it goes into effect January one, I think it’s great. I think it’s it’s as important as financial literacy and historical literacy and social literacy and economic literacy and all of those things, especially in today’s environment. And I’m a little embarrassed to say that even though this news came out about two, three days ago, I didn’t really see it until this afternoon. So that’s why if you’re like, yeah, probably that was two days ago. That’s why.

Kimberly Adams 

There’s been a lot going on. It’s a holiday week, we’re trying to cram a bunch of stuff into a couple days. So all right, well, my smile is sort of unique blend. It’s in the Washington Post where I live most of the time, Washington DC, but it is about Thanksgiving. Sorry, St. Louis and Thanksgiving where I’m in St. Louis for Thanksgiving. Anyway, headline is “The NFL’s brief forgotten X experiment with Thanksgiving in St. Louis.” So I’m just going to read a little bit. For nearly half a century Americans have watched the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions host games on Thanksgiving, it’s as etched into the holiday as the Macy’s Parade and sweet potatoes. But if things had turned out differently during a mid-1970s scheduling test run, St. Louis could have supplanted Dallas as one of those Thanksgiving hosts. Back then the St. Louis Cardinals football team, not the baseball team, were one of the NFL is most dynamic teams routinely storming back to win games behind high flying offense. Offense that earned the nickname cardiac cards. Skipping ahead a little bit, but so they did these games in 1975 in 1977, but they got blown out both times quickly putting it into the experiment. The second of those games a 55-14 drubbing at the hands of the Miami Dolphins on November 24, 1977 also marked the implosion of a once great team. Not only did it snap a six game winning streak, but it launched a 12 game skid that extended to the next season. The Cardinals never made the playoffs again in St. Louis, except for the strike shortened 1982 seats. So, history, there you go. It was really I had no idea of any of this. I mean, mainly because I’m not the sports person. But also you know, cool a little bit of St. Louis history and Thanksgiving related so it made me it made me smile a little bit even though I’m sad they lost because, boo. Anyway.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s awesome. Yeah. That is awesome. We’re, we’re done for today. We’re off the rest of the week. Obviously for Thanksgiving, not around on Friday as well back Monday with Matt Levin. Until then keep sending us your state cocktail submissions. Remember we mentioned that yesterday I think makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.

Kimberly Adams 

Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Today’s program was engineered by Drew Jostad and our intern is Niloufar Shahbandi.

Kai Ryssdal 

Ben Tolliday and Daniel Ramirez composed our theme music our senior producer is Marissa Cabrera. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcast. Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital and on demand.