The H&H Podcast

Rob Henderson joins the podcast to talk about Season 2 of The White Lotus, Episodes 5 and 6. We originally said we would do Episodes 5-7 all together to close out the season, but decided there was enough here to have an additional conversation, and I’m glad we did.

In the course of the discussion, I identify the ideology of the show as “Bisexual Classical Liberalism.” I got this from remembering having previously read that Mike White, the show’s creator, had described himself as a classical liberal. I can’t find this through googling, and maybe it’s an attribution that came from someone else (or something that I just imagined in my head). If you know of anything out there on this, please let me know. Regardless of how White describes himself, I think this ideology I just identified is a great way to understand the worldview of the show, with its openness towards sex, skepticism towards neurotic women and identity politics, and acceptance of human nature. If I were to guess, I’d say that White’s favorite writer is Andrew Sullivan. In Episode 6, we see a nod to the ideas expressed by Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now.

Rob and I get into a possible cuckoldry storyline, which Rob doesn’t think there’s a lot of evidence for, but which I think could explain where the show is going. In contrast, we have similar views on what is going on with the hookers. We’ll be back to discuss the season finale next week.

Listen here, or watch the video of our conversation on YouTube.

Links

Me and Rob Henderson on The White Lotus, Season 1

Me and Rob on The White Lotus, Season 2, Episodes 1-4

On Paul Manafort being a literal cuck

Andrew Sullivan on The White Lotus, Season 1

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Rob Henderson joins me on the podcast to discuss The White Lotus, Season 2: episodes 1-4.

I explain why I think the show is too similar to the first season. Rob goes into its portrayal of the neurotic liberal white lady, and whether she is vindicated or not regarding her suspicion that seemingly happy people are actually miserable.

I make the case for a kind of right-wing maximalist interpretation of the show this season with regards to its view on relations between the sexes. We end by speculating on where the show goes from here, and which of the characters will die.

For me, the first few episodes were particularly interesting, although the parallels to last season have started to bother me more and more as time has gone on. Nonetheless, there is enough that’s new for the show to remain compelling, particularly the Harper character, who is very attractive and, although she’s a liberal white lady and a civil rights lawyer of all things, aspires to be something better. I look forward to the last three episodes, which I’ll have Rob back on again to talk about in a few weeks.

See here for our discussion of Season 1 last year. This podcast is also available in video form on YouTube.

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Chris Nicholson is back on to talk about the war in Ukraine, this time with a specific focus on how the conflict might end. See here for the transcript and the video where Chris takes us through a map of Eastern Ukraine. We start by discussing the Ukrainian capture of Kherson, and Chris puts forth the theory that Russia pulled back from the city in order to focus on the capture of the entirety of Donetsk province.

We go through different scenarios of how the war might move towards its end, whether through a Ukrainian victory or something of a stalemate, which is the best Chris believes the Russians can hope for in the short- to medium-term. Over the course of the conversation, we realize that Chris and I have very different intuitions about the likelihood of the West pulling its support for Ukraine. I think that if the war ends anytime soon, it’ll be because Ukraine wants to move towards peace, while Chris thinks that the US and Europe might nudge it in that direction. In my view, Ukraine has a blank check as long as it’s willing to fight and die. As I told Chris, I defer to him on battlefield questions, but I trust my own judgment on American politics.

We recorded this conversation on Monday, November 14, so before the deaths of two people in Poland yesterday from what was first thought to have been a Russian missile, but may have been fired by Ukraine in self-defense instead. The latest news is a reminder of the ever-present danger of escalation, and why it’s important to think carefully about how we can get to a settlement of the conflict.

Links and Previous Discussions on Ukraine:

“A Strategic Strip Of Sand. Rumors Of Ukrainian Raids. As Russian Forces Retreat, Keep An Eye On The Kinburn Spit.”

“Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, November 13.”

“US privately asks Ukraine to show it’s open to negotiate with Russia.”

“The Impact of Winter, and Iranian Drones and Missiles” (Discussion with Chris, on October 24, 2022, audio and video)

HIMARS as Miracle Weapons (Discussion with Chris, October 3, 2022, audio)

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In our final episode on the miniseries Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Rob and I discuss episodes 8-10 (video here). We go into the show taking a relatively strong stance in favor of genetic explanations of human behavior, the saintliness of the black neighbor, serial killer groupies and the nature of women, and what’s real and what’s fake regarding how the show portrays the Milwaukee police.

We close by discussing why interest in true crime stories and shows tends to be prole.

Links

Part I of Dahmer discussion, audio and video

Part II of Dahmer discussion, audio and video

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This is part two of my conversation with Rob Henderson on the miniseries Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, covering episodes 4-7. For the video, click here. Episode 6, as critics have noted, is the most emotionally charged of the show. I argue that the ending revealed a lack of courage on the part of the producers. Episode 7 is when the series goes full woke, bringing in Jesse Jackson to heroically hold the white power structure in Milwaukee to account. Rob doubts that Jackson would’ve been woke on LGBT in 1991, and I do a bit of googling and show that he was.

We talk about the strange thing where I call the guy “Dahmer” and Rob says “Jeff” like they’re old pals.

I explain to Rob why we can’t take the explanations of Dahmer’s motives presented in the show at face value, given that a lot of the information comes from the murderer himself in talks he had while trying to establish an insanity defense for his crimes. My theory is that Dahmer simply wanted sex without the inconvenience of taking into account the wishes or desires of others. Drugging men was a way to get sex, but then he realized he had to kill the men in order to not get in trouble. By the end he may have been more of a sadist, but I think that’s how he started.

We also go over what is real and what is fiction in the show.

Links

Part I of Dahmer discussion, audio and video

“What's real and what's fiction in Netflix’s Jeffrey Dahmer series, ‘Monster’”

Timeline of murders

“How Jesse Jackson helped bring gay rights to the Democratic mainstream.”

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I talk to Rob Henderson about Episodes 1-3 of the new Netflix miniseries Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (video here). I begin and end the conversation by talking about why watching the series and bringing attention to it makes me uncomfortable. What does it do to the families of the victims to make an artistic depiction of Dahmer’s life? Why should more attention be given to the story of a murderer than not only those of his his victims, but those of the vast majority of human beings who have ever lived? Don’t we end up retraumatizing innocent people, while also glorifying those responsible for heinous crimes? I don’t think there’s a good answer here, and let me just say I feel guilty about doing this.

Nonetheless, my job is to provide interesting content, and I promised Rob we’d do a few episodes on Dahmer, so here we are. The series is one of those that has a high disparity between the opinions of critics and reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes. We discuss why that is. Given that most of Dahmer’s victims were black, and police had opportunities to stop him before he was ultimately caught, the facts of the story definitely support a woke narrative. But given the source material, the show thus far avoids being overly preachy. Me and Rob also like the fact that it does not try to present some kind of narrative in which Dahmer is a victim of society, but mostly stays true to the facts and lets the viewer make up his own mind.

Talking about the Dahmer story leads us to discuss our own experiences with the police, and why we’re sympathetic to cops and react so strongly to liberals bashing them. I tell Rob about the time I got arrested for drunk driving short before my twenty-first birthday.

This episode is being released as paywall-only first, but will be made available to everyone after a week. See here for the audio. If you like what you see, I highly recommend you subscribe to Rob Henderson’s Substack.

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Chris Nicholson joins me again to talk about the war in Ukraine. Looking at a map of the situation (video of our conversation here), we discuss what is happening around Kharkiv, Kherson, and the Donbas. The Russians are in the process of evacuating Kherson, and the question appears to be what the withdrawal will look like rather than if it will happen. Away from the front, Iranian drones are apparently having a massive impact on Ukrainian infrastructure. Chris has changed his mind on this topic – while he first assumed that Russia could not effectively target Ukrainian infrastructure indefinitely, he now believes Iranian missiles and drones have created a new reality.

We talk about how much this will matter for the outcome of the war. In the end, things are looking a little better for Russia than they did at the beginning of the month, despite the impending loss of Kherson. As already mentioned, attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure are having a major effect, and the impact on the civilian population should only increase as we head into winter. More Iranian shipments of missiles and drones mean that things could get worse for Ukraine before they get better. Finally, Russian mobilization is only starting to have its effect. Regardless of what happens in the near future, it appears that we are a long way off from any kind of settlement to the conflict. We close by talking about reports of Russian losses in terms of men and equipment and whether they can be taken at face value.

The audio and video are for now only available to paid subscribers, but will be released to everyone else after 48 hours.

Links:

Liveuamap

Data on equipment losses based on photo and video confirmation

Ukrainian estimates on Russian casualties and equipment losses

“HIMARS as Miracle Weapons,” October 3, 2022, previous conversation with Chris Nicholson on the Ukraine War

“Could Long-Range Iranian Missiles Be Next For Russia?”

“Ukraine Situation Report: Iranian Officials Admit To Selling Russia Ballistic Missiles (Updated).”

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Chris Nicholson joins me to discuss the military and political situation surrounding Taiwan. We talk about the two ways China can try to take control of the island: a direct invasion or blockade. Chris believes that a direct invasion would be too costly. However, China does seem to have the potential to cut Taiwan off from the rest of the world with its navy. Furthermore, its collection of intermediate-range ballistic missiles gives it the ability to inflict serious harm on the American navy, should the US choose to get involved. US submarines remain a large advantage, but everything else is potentially vulnerable. Moreover, China’s naval advantage is increasing over time.

We also talk about why we should care about Taiwan in the first place. Chris explains the semiconductor issue, why it’s important, and the latest moves by the Biden administration to shut down Chinese progress in this area.

I present my theories about what China is doing with regards to Zero Covid. I argue that there are three main possibilities: 1) the government discovered a new method of social control and wants to hold on to it; 2) this is all about pride in the success of its system; and 3) they actually think it’s a good policy. We discuss the implications of what sticking to Zero Covid could mean for the future of Chinese growth and military power.

Click here for a video and the transcript of the conversation. In the video, you can see us reference a map and pull up other useful things from the internet as we talk. The audio, video, and transcript are all available to paid subscribers now and will be released for everyone else after one week.

Links:

Alexander Wooley, “Float, Move, and Fight: How the U.S. Navy Lost the Shipbuilding Race.”

Eric Tegler, “Nothing Left To Fight With: A New Paper Calls Out America’s Shrinking Air Force And Likelihood It Can’t Win Against China.”

Richard Burgess, “Navy Fleet Would Shrink Further Under 2023 Ship Decommissioning Plan.”

Mallory Shelbourne, “CNO Gilday: Industrial Capacity Largest Barrier to Growing the Fleet.“

Xavier Vavasseur, “Five Type 052D Destroyers Under Construction In China.”

Ken Moriyasu, “India presents China a two-front problem, U.S. Navy chief suggests.“

Thomas Shugart, “Mind the Gap, Part 2: The Cross-Strait Potential of China’s Civilian Shipping Has Grown.”

Lonnie D. Henley, “China Maritime Report No. 21: Civilian Shipping and Maritime Militia: The Logistics Backbone of a Taiwan Invasion.“

Scott Foster, “SMIC’s 7-nm chip process a wake-up call for US.”

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War is complicated. At the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, I listened to a lot of people who I thought made very plausible arguments that Russia had an overwhelming advantage and would ultimately prevail. At this point, it seems to me that one has to be pretty disconnected from reality to still be bullish on Russia. But I’ve been wrong before, so who knows?

No longer confident in my own ability to forecast military events, I’ve figured that the best I can do is listen to those who have been right up to this point. You may remember Chris Nicholson from our Better Call Saul podcasts. What you don’t know is that he also loves thinking and talking about war.

He told me very early in the conflict – it might’ve been as early as March – that he thought Ukraine would eventually take back all the land Russia had won, and even move into pre-February 24 territory. At the time I thought he was crazy. Sure, the Russian push into Kiev had failed, but Ukraine had not proved it could go on the offensive, and most observers thought that when the Russian military concentrated its efforts on the territory it held, it could at least maintain its current position. This view was reinforced when during the summer we saw Russia still making real, albeit slow and incremental, gains in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Then, practically overnight, in early September it was pushed out of Kharkiv province, losing ten percent of the Ukrainian territory it had taken since February 24. The speed with which this happened was shocking to me, as I had been used to watching Russia struggle for weeks and months against heavy resistance to take a series of cities and towns it was now giving up without a fight.

All of this had me rethink what Chris had been telling me at the start of the war, and frankly gave me a lot more trust in his ability to clearly understand what is happening in a very complicated battlefield environment. He thought that Ukraine’s will to fight plus open-ended and unlimited support from the West meant that time was on its side.

The Russian collapse in Kharkiv appears to only have been the beginning of what will be a much longer process. One day after Putin announced that Russia was annexing four provinces of Ukraine, his troops lost Lyman in Donetsk. Some of the residents of the town, having been cut off from electricity and the internet, were apparently surprised when they were informed that they had been residents of Russia for a day. Ukraine is making gains on multiple fronts, and it is possible that there might be another breakthrough by the time you read this. I recently speculated that Russia may have been annexing territory in order to justify soon using nuclear weapons, based on the theory that they are currently on the defensive and it would be too humiliating to claim land and then immediately lose it. But Russia isn’t even being clear about what the borders of its “new territories” are, which indicates that they’re not in fact committing to anything concrete and instead sort of stumbling along. It’s difficult to explain all of this in any way without giving at least some credence to the idea that the regime really is as corrupt and incompetent as its worst critics allege.

Given where we are, I decided to have a chat with Chris about the war so far and where it’s going. As you’ll see, he thinks Russia is in deep trouble. We get into the technical details as to why, with Chris explaining to me how artillery works and the game changing nature of HIMARS. We also discuss whether the Russian war effort can be saved by the recent mobilization of personnel and which strategies make sense for Putin at this point. I ask Chris why, if things are as bad as he suggests, Russia wouldn’t just roll the dice and decide that going nuclear is its only option. He replies by arguing that there are still steps that the US can take on the escalatory ladder, which leads me to ask whether that means Putin can game things out and realize that threatening to destroy the world might be his only card to play.

Near the end, we converge on a reasonable explanation of Russia’s seemingly puzzling decision to annex territory it either does not control or is in the process of losing.

This was a frightening but ultimately fascinating and productive conversation, and before long I hope to have Chris on again to talk about the war.

Links:

Wikipedia: M142 HIMARS.

The New York Times on GMLRS rockets. Video demonstration of the weapon. Article on the subject.

BBC article comparing HIMARS to other weapons in terms of range.

Liveuamap.

The Washington Post: “Russia’s spies misread Ukraine and misled Kremlin as war loomed.”

The New York Times: “The Kremlin, after trumpeting annexation, admits it doesn’t know where the borders are.”

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Marc Andreessen and Chis Nicholson join me to discuss the final episode of Better Call Saul and reflect on the Breaking Bad universe.

In the course of our conversation, it becomes apparent that I had a unique and much darker take on the final episode than apparently anyone else who watched it. Marc and Chris wear me down a little bit, but I still want to believe in my theory. Looks like they were right though.

We reflect on what made Walter White special. Marc mentions how the show takes him being a scientist extremely seriously, similar to the ways in which Better Call Saul pays homage to the legal profession. I call these examples of “men being really into stuff,” a recurring theme of the Breaking Bad universe. I note the distance between Walter as a scientist and the modern role of the “scientist” in our era of political polarization and liberal cultural hegemony.

We also get into Marc’s idea of the Breaking Bad universe as being riven with both Christian and Nietzschean themes. He argues that in our contemporary culture we can’t have either story in an undiluted form, and Better Call Saul is no exception to that rule.

See here for the Wikipedia page on the ADX Florence prison, called ADX Montrose on the show.

Listen to the podcast or watch the video here.

For previous conversations on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, see

The Breaking Bad Universe

Better Call Saul: S6E7, Plan and Execution

Better Call Saul: S6E8, Point and Shoot

Better Call Saul: S6E9, Fun and Games

Nietzschean or Christian? Marc Andreessen on Breaking Bad and Saul

Better Call Saul: S6E10, Nippy

Better Call Saul: S6E11, Breaking Bad

Better Call Saul: S6E12, Waterworks

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