Stephen Colbert Closed Out The Late Show by Doing What He Does Best by Sam Adams

I am well past my days of devoted late-night television viewing, but I get enough of the shrapnel that flies through social media to admire what Stephen Colbert has done with The Late Show. In particular, I adore that he unabashedly brought to the stage his own cultural obsessions and personal grapplings with the big questions of faith, life, and mortality. I have no concept of what the dueling Jimmys even like, but I am confident that I know what Colbert truly, deeply loves. That sense of connection is no small thing in this fragmented media landscape. Of course, the craven decision by the corporate overlords of CBS to cancel Colbert’s program is indefensible and despicable. Writing for Slate, Sam Adams does a fine job detailing how Colbert’s fundamental decency held true through the frustrating circumstances of the past year.

AI Rage Is Inextricably Fused With Justified Loathing Of The Extraction Class. ‘Deal With It’ by Karl Bode

Writing for his own website, Karl Bode runs down the mini-trend of special guest speakers at college commencement ceremonies espousing the glory of artificial intelligence only to be met by load, angry boos from the assembled graduates. It’s baffling that these successful people tapped to speak to outgoing college classes are so intellectually ignorant that they believe collections of people fretting about their employment prospects are going to be overjoyed to hear about technology that is wiping out all appealing job sectors. Especially after the first speaker met fierce resistance, why decide that your homily about the greatness of this hated technology will be the one that wins over the crowd? Bode effectively explains how the hostility is directed a whole class of myopic tycoons basking in the ill-gotten gains of late-stage capitalism and also how those modern robber barons are so walled off from contrary opinions that they can’t help but be blindsided by the loathing.