We should try to keep in mind how Baumol's Cost Disease impacts things here--jounalists need to pay for a modern lifestyle, but in a county of 10k, there's only so much demand for local coverage. This feels like a place where public subsidies could really make an impact. #XC420

I had some friends who were confused as to whether Green Day said anything as they were expected to. It certainly feels like legacy media is on edge and on the rope. #XC420

There's a part of me that wants to think about propaganda as something similar to financial scams--younger generations are generally a lot harder to scam, and require more sophisticated methods to trick. But I don't know if us "kids these days" are as resilient as I might hope. #XC420

And with this, I think that I can see that we bristle at the idea of propaganda because it shows up in places where it doesn't belong. We want emotion in art; we don't want it creeping into how we inform ourselves and learn things about the world. #XC420

As a follow-up, is it possible for us to change our preferences so that we'd rather be right than angry? #XC420

Honestly, I'd say that deepfakes have played a much smaller role in American politics than I was expecting them to back in 2022 or so. #XC420

Specifically, the model where philanthropists either donate money to endow an outlet, or directly purchase one to run as a hobby. Obviously, that has its own problems (someone like Jeff Bezos can get bored and pull the plug), but it's the only way that I can see to fund high-quality journalism.