Episode 24 - Decentralization as an Answer to a Polarized Media

There are many who believe our fractured, hyperpartisan media landscape is hurting the country and hurting us.

Don Templeman is doing something about it. When most of us hear “blockchain,” we think of cryptocurrency, or maybe something involving Legos—not so with Don. As an undergraduate at Wake Forest University, he studied computer science and served as business manager for the student newspaper. In Ethereum’s blockchain technology, he saw the potential for a decentralized media platform—for independent journalism with all the funding of a traditional newsroom, but without the editorial direction.

The problem in 2016 was financial—Ethereum’s per-transaction cost was prohibitively expensive, and would have required subscribers to the new platform to pay hundreds of dollars a month for writers to see any return. Don put his idea on the backburner, and began working in finance in New York City.

But in the last couple of years, Ethereum’s per-transaction cost dropped precipitously, and what was only theoretically possible before became actually possible. Don left his job to begin Aemula, the company he’d been thinking about for over a decade.

Aemula, in Don’s own words, is “a decentralized protocol for independent journalism on a mission to reverse the trend of polarization in media. Writers, editors, and contributors can collaborate freely, access institutional-grade community resources, and publish directly to paid subscribers while retaining ownership and creative control of their work. Readers gain the freedom to explore new perspectives by accessing the work of all independent journalists through a single $10/month subscription. Everyone can trust that the entire ecosystem is verifiably neutral, free from outside influence, and governed by a robust moderation protocol. Aemula is focused on building a diverse, incentive-aligned community of real people sharing real news directly from the source.”

I’m not a tech guy, but I can get on board with “verifiably neutral” and “free from outside influence”—all of my articles are published on Aemula not long after they go out on Substack.

I had Don on to talk about all of it—about Aemula, blockchain, media polarization, using AI to write code, and much more.

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Episode 23 - Former Rep. Ben McAdams on Congressional Function and Dysfunction, Ideas for Reform, Pelosi, Biden, Trump, and So Much More

I hope he wouldn’t take offense to my saying this, but Ben McAdams is a wonk. He’s kind, he’s smart, he’s pragmatic, and he really, really knows his stuff. He represented Utah’s 4th District in Congress from January 2019 to January 2021 during the back half of President Trump’s first term. To get there, he ran through the gauntlet of an R+19 district, beating a popular incumbent by 674 votes. The flagrantly gerrymandered 4th District was the most conservative district in the entire country to be represented by a Democrat over those two years. He lost his race for reelection by a few thousand, which might seem like a large margin once you hear 674, but was the fifth-closest out of the 435 races run in 2020.

Born and raised in Utah, McAdams was bitten by the political bug in undergrad at the University of Utah, when encouragement from a professor and the free buddy pass of a friend who worked for Delta brought him to President Bill Clinton’s second inaugural address in January 1997. That prompted McAdams to intern for Ralph Becker, then a member of Utah’s state senate. After graduation, he attended Columbia Law School—as did his wife, whom he had known since high school and married before leaving Utah—and spent a few years practicing at one of Wall Street’s top firms, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, before returning to Utah. Not long later, he was poached from a new firm by his old boss, Becker, now mayor of Salt Lake City. McAdams served as a senior advisor to Becker, and spearheaded efforts to gain the conservative state legislature’s agreement to stand aside and let the mayor lead Salt Lake City in keeping with the more progressive politics of its residents. That led McAdams to his own stint in the state senate, and then to a term and a half as mayor of Salt Lake County—the second term being interrupted by the fact he needed to be sworn in as a member of the United States House of Representatives.

Now out of politics, McAdams is having what seems to be an awfully good time using his background in law and especially as a county mayor to advise state, county, and city governments on creating revenue and other public benefits from government-owned real estate through public-private partnerships. As it turns out—perhaps this isn’t a surprise—governments often hold millions and even billions of dollars worth of real estate that isn’t really benefiting much of anyone—and that they might not even know about. McAdams is trying to change that—to help other governments do what he did when he led Salt Lake County.

McAdams joined me last week to discuss his path to politics, what it was like running for and serving in Congress, why he didn’t support Representative Nancy Pelosi in her bid to again serve as Speaker of the House, and his views on the Biden administration and the Trump administration so far.

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Episode 22 - Zachary Elwood on the What, Why, and How of Depolarization

“America is deeply divided. We don't just disagree on the issues; we increasingly view people on the ‘other side’ as profoundly immoral and dangerous. This leads to many of us seeing ‘beating the other side’ as taking precedence over everything else. In our anger and fear, we can act in aggressive, unfair, and insulting ways ways — often without being aware of how our behaviors affect our adversaries.

To avoid worst-case scenarios of chaos, dysfunction, and violence, we need more people — from politicians to pundits to everyday citizens — to have a better understanding of how toxic conflict works and how it grows. We need more people to see that much of our contempt and fear is based on distorted, overly pessimistic views of the ‘other side.’ We need more people to see how our overly negative views of each other create a self-reinforcing feedback cycle of conflict.”

That’s from the book jacket of Defusing American Anger: A Guide to Understanding Our Fellow Citizens and Reducing Us-vs-Them Polarization, by Zachary Elwood. Zach is a former professional poker player, the author of three books on poker tells and two books on depolarization, and, in my view, perhaps the most consistent and productive depolarization advocate on Substack today.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Zach and I discussed why the point of depolarization isn’t to argue less, but to argue better, and walked through practical tips for people who want to help depolarize our politics while pushing hard to advocate for their views and expand their coalitions.

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