Megan McArdle on the Grenfell Tower Fire | Chapo Trap House | Episode 118

Поділитися
Вставка
  • Опубліковано 28 січ 2025

КОМЕНТАРІ • 158

  • @allypoum
    @allypoum 5 років тому +571

    I hope Matt never loses his righteous ranty rage it sustains me.

    • @KilgoreTroutAsf
      @KilgoreTroutAsf 5 років тому +7

      Love your user picture. Any relation?

    • @allypoum
      @allypoum 5 років тому +22

      Kilgore Trout not quite sure what you’re asking bud - I like the POUM flag because they were Marxists who fought fascists shoulder-to-shoulder with their anarchist comrades which chimes with my politics. Also there are family connections w/ the POUM thru an uncle who sent men to fight with them.

    • @KilgoreTroutAsf
      @KilgoreTroutAsf 5 років тому +17

      @@allypoum I see, your uncle was an international brigadist.
      I am both Catalan and anarchist, so the POUM acronym means a lot to the anti-Stalinist left here.

    • @allypoum
      @allypoum 5 років тому +23

      @@KilgoreTroutAsf My uncle was a union representative - a shop steward - and a member of the Independent Labour Party in '36 and he worked in the Glasgow shipyards (Astilleros). The ILP was a sister organisation of the POUM and my uncle George organised men to go to Spain. He couldn't go himself because of childhood polio. I lived in Spain for ten years during the 80s & early 90s - mainly in Madrid - and was involved alongside many anarchists in many occupations and 'manis' etc. Viva la revolucion compadre!

    • @KilgoreTroutAsf
      @KilgoreTroutAsf 5 років тому +11

      @@allypoum Viva la revolución! Visca la revolució!

  • @danielwhitt9150
    @danielwhitt9150 5 років тому +328

    Cushbomb yelling "shutup SHUTUP SHUTUP" is one of the greatest things I have experienced in this travesty called the internet.

  • @MrMollusk7
    @MrMollusk7 5 років тому +449

    7:28
    Every single "debate" on public TV should be interrupted by Matt.

  • @Rocketboy1313
    @Rocketboy1313 5 років тому +101

    "Consider the speed at which you drove to work--"
    "SHUT UP!"

  • @vaiyt
    @vaiyt 5 років тому +322

    Think of all the dead people who are no longer homeless thanks to unsafe housing!

  • @SweatyHatMan
    @SweatyHatMan 5 років тому +113

    7:37
    "Stround"
    When Matt gets so mad he makes up a word

    • @hunterwheeler8257
      @hunterwheeler8257 5 років тому +20

      Lol he's saying "drown" but the beginning was washed over by angry hissing

  • @IElrekkaI
    @IElrekkaI 5 років тому +331

    shortly after this matt got the cops called on him because people in the apartments nextdoor thought his screaming was him doing domestic abuse lmfao

    • @IElrekkaI
      @IElrekkaI 5 років тому +65

      17:20

    • @udonge1043
      @udonge1043 5 років тому +72

      oh my fucking god. the absolute legend. i want matt to scream at me until im a cowering sobbing mess.

    • @dandogzbutt1518
      @dandogzbutt1518 5 років тому +26

      *neighbors. Says so in the description. That’d be ever more hilarious if it was the cops tho

    • @rickymoen9482
      @rickymoen9482 2 роки тому +2

      *7:20

    • @randommodnar7141
      @randommodnar7141 2 роки тому +2

      It mustve sounded like they were living next to son of Sam 2 or something

  • @elaikehler6030
    @elaikehler6030 Рік тому +27

    had to come here after the Matt news…get better soon you big beautiful bastard

    • @markf5220
      @markf5220 Рік тому +2

      What happened to Matt? :^(

  • @insertnamehere8715
    @insertnamehere8715 3 роки тому +74

    The funniest thing to me is that she used the phrase 'hanging them in effigy'. Desperate to get away from saying 'burning' at all costs.

  • @danielfranklin9271
    @danielfranklin9271 Місяць тому +2

    "I don't want Matt to have a stroke."
    😭😭😭

  • @soconfused8031
    @soconfused8031 4 роки тому +51

    Matt's screams have resurrected Lenin from the dead, now he walks the Earth once more, hunting Megan McArdle to her grave.

    • @glitchedoom
      @glitchedoom 3 роки тому +9

      "Must. Crush. Capitalism!"

  • @artstsym
    @artstsym 3 роки тому +26

    My favorite McArdle piece was the Onion point-counterpoint "No Blood For Oil! vs Exactly How Much Oil Are We Talking About?"

  • @TheJonnyEnglish
    @TheJonnyEnglish 5 років тому +86

    Thank god for Chapo for letting me know these psychopaths exist.

  • @guri__mann
    @guri__mann 4 роки тому +31

    Matt bringing the extreme Philip Seymour Hoffman in Punch Drunk Love energy.

  • @zjc92
    @zjc92 5 років тому +81

    This is the angriest I have ever heard Matt and that's a true accomplishment

  • @Tom-kg8vu
    @Tom-kg8vu 8 місяців тому +10

    13:37 ☹️ get well soon Matt

    • @cya5983
      @cya5983 2 місяці тому +1

      Seems to be doing better, and goddamn not the 1337 😭

  • @biglacheese7449
    @biglacheese7449 4 роки тому +51

    Holy shit I completely forgot: “I’m a safety jihadist, Allahu OSHA”

  • @jenniferbrewer5370
    @jenniferbrewer5370 5 років тому +84

    English translation, Megan McArdle is GLAD those poor people died so horribly.

  • @Kamboshin
    @Kamboshin 5 років тому +54

    Ah yes, that one time Matt Christman almost got a heart attack from pure anger

  • @astrovaan
    @astrovaan 5 років тому +117

    7:15 is what you're looking for

    • @danielwhitt9150
      @danielwhitt9150 5 років тому +17

      There ARE still good people out there!

  • @Sorenzo
    @Sorenzo 5 років тому +82

    The common conservative tactic in economics is always to sneak in false assumptions into these arguments.
    The fact is, landlords neglect to install or maintain sprinklers not because they're too expensive, but because there's too little return on the investment. People expect the building to be safe, but they simply don't notice when it is not. In other words, they are largely paying rent AS IF the building had sprinklers, anyway.
    The clasic conservative tactic here is the insertion of a premise that's contradicted by the facts: Sprinklers are prohibitively expensive.
    This is similar to when they argue medicine prices should be high so drug companies can do R&D, but it's a doccumented fact that drug companies aren't spending surplus profits on R&D. It is also similar to the argument against the minimum wage, which posits that workers are paid proportionately to their productivity, so there's no way they could possibly get higher wages.
    The through-line in these conservative arguments is that they're dishonestly asserting "facts" that they've invented for the purposes of making the Invisible Hand theory work, which is essentially "begging the question" - smuggling your conclusion into your premises.
    You could also just say that they're repeatedly and consistently lying about how economics work. They know full well that these inane thought experiments aren't just relying on false assumptions that are contradicted by the real world; They know WHY this is - they know that capitalists abuse power relations and information assymmetries to screw us all over.
    And they support this.

  • @chuck1prillaman
    @chuck1prillaman 5 років тому +126

    I would never advocate violence against any particularly loathsome columnist, but....

    • @QuietWookie
      @QuietWookie 5 років тому +12

      how dare you shush megan like that??

    • @jj_abrams_aint_up_my_butt_yet
      @jj_abrams_aint_up_my_butt_yet 5 років тому +6

      Bandit no!!!!

    • @asare240
      @asare240 5 років тому +5

      I wouldn't be upset if someone tossed a brick through her window...

    • @psycher7
      @psycher7 5 років тому +36

      I was just thinking about how her whole speculation game could turn on her. "How many people will die (somehow) if we require sprinkler systems?" I don't know, Megan, how many people would LIVE if we started guillotining libertarians before they can enact their sociopathic ideas?

    • @Micho55
      @Micho55 4 роки тому +1

      allegedly in a game parody social experiment

  • @TSmith-yy3cc
    @TSmith-yy3cc 3 роки тому +8

    "This is a Talking Heads song".
    Underrated.

  • @whensomethingcriesagain
    @whensomethingcriesagain 5 років тому +68

    Her line of logic sounds like a conservative version of The Rattling Bog. "So the man died in a car crash, a rare crash, a rattlin' crash. He died in a crash, 'cause he lived far from work, 'cause the rent prices rose, 'cause the buildings must have sprinklers!"

  • @elizabethbennet4791
    @elizabethbennet4791 5 років тому +26

    7:30 Megan McGirdle "drowns you in banality AAAAGGGHHHHHH I CAN'T TAKE THIS!"
    As usual, you guys are pitch perfect and spot on

  • @jeanlucdiscard
    @jeanlucdiscard 5 років тому +78

    The thing is, who is deciding to make this trade off by not having working sprinklers? Not the people who would ultimately be effected if there was a fire. Tenants don't get to decide or have any influence on that decision. Landlords have complete control and additional profit was a higher priority for them that any a basic safety feature of most high rise buildings.
    And the whole, "well it might not have been installed in time for the fire," is the weak ass argument. Fuck, why bother enacting any change then?

    • @whensomethingcriesagain
      @whensomethingcriesagain 5 років тому +8

      It's even worse than that! This is public housing! They COULD AND SHOULD have installed fire protection, but May's housing department refused to because it would've cost 5000 pounds more!

    • @eminatorstudios
      @eminatorstudios 3 роки тому +6

      @@whensomethingcriesagain fun addition one year later:
      grenfell tower was built below budget, the cladding being part of the savings. So even if they didn't have the proper cladding the funds for sprinklers would've still been available. It's just a story about neoliberalisms disregard for human lives in the wake of profit to be made and/or money to be saved at someone else's expense

    • @cliveramsbotty6077
      @cliveramsbotty6077 2 роки тому

      @@eminatorstudios where did you get that from

  • @0ptimuscrime
    @0ptimuscrime 5 років тому +21

    The cladding was made from polyurethane foam. Yeah, no shit it went up in flames.

  • @GREGORYABUTLER
    @GREGORYABUTLER 5 років тому +55

    Allahu OSHA!

  • @QuietWookie
    @QuietWookie 5 років тому +46

    This is a classic!

    • @SockPuppet80
      @SockPuppet80 5 років тому +3

      Got me to read Voltaire's Bastards.
      Well, half of it.
      All right, the first 50-60 pages.

    • @mura9881
      @mura9881 5 років тому

      SockPuppet80 how is that book? I’m thinking about picking it up.

    • @SockPuppet80
      @SockPuppet80 5 років тому +4

      ​@@mura9881 It's pretty fucking great, actually, though denser than I would have liked. (I got the 2013 reissue in which the print was infuriatingly tiny.) I just wish it was written later, because it so perfectly describes the tech guru bullshit that we're being force-fed today, the whole "app for that" mentality.
      And I wish I had the time/the endurance to finish the damn thing. (In truth, I'm about 2/3 through.)

  • @travisbounds4746
    @travisbounds4746 3 роки тому +10

    Matt hasn't had the big mad since he found zen. I miss our big angry king. i have faith when the issue and time is right, that repressed anger and rage will resurface.

    • @Dawnrunner42
      @Dawnrunner42 2 роки тому +3

      I do miss his righteous fury, it snapped me out of that tepid milquetoast liberal mindset and I will be forever grateful for that.

    • @Resevil
      @Resevil Рік тому +4

      A man can only take so much. I’m happy he’s found something closer to peace. We have these old clips to enjoy.

  • @amhuir9648
    @amhuir9648 3 місяці тому +1

    I'm so glad that I've decided to finally listen in onto this podcast channel. Gives a real refreshing outlook on highly covered/political events such as this one (Grenfell Tower fire), the media circus which follows in suit and the reactionary manner that people interpret it as by whitewashing movements through Western exceptionalism.

  • @Micho55
    @Micho55 4 роки тому +9

    Matt while disposing of a human body: So there's this book from 1998 called...

  • @allypoum
    @allypoum 5 років тому +31

    Always a better class of comments on Chapo comment threads lol.

  • @alistairpage-mcgill2723
    @alistairpage-mcgill2723 5 років тому +31

    Never heard of this Meghan McArdle until today but wow she sounds awful, like an American Katie Hopkins. How does anyone write these things without feeling a deep sense of shame and self-disgust as a human being?

    • @fuuuursure
      @fuuuursure 5 років тому +15

      Megan in particular is an Ayn Rand fan, so, that should be explanation enough.

    • @semiclassical7620
      @semiclassical7620 Рік тому

      “How do sleep at night?” “On top of a pile of money, with many beautiful Ayn Rand books.”

  • @vantahawk2834
    @vantahawk2834 5 років тому +17

    This isAMAZIN! How can a so-called journalist engage in this degree of rationalisation?! XD

  • @GREGORYABUTLER
    @GREGORYABUTLER 5 років тому +39

    To translate for Americans, "social housing" a/k/a "council estates" is what British people call public housing projects

    • @skabossJ
      @skabossJ 5 років тому +7

      Gregory Butler We got it from context.

    • @tewodrosii2875
      @tewodrosii2875 4 роки тому +2

      Shows like chewing gum make me look at them like "oh, so this is just like the places where I buy good weed from here in the states! Ah!"

  • @lucasmurphy740
    @lucasmurphy740 Рік тому +5

    I love how she uses cars speed as an example like speed limits don't already exist.

  • @noahmansland3301
    @noahmansland3301 5 років тому +10

    i regularly come back here, just for the shut up

  • @jeanlucdiscard
    @jeanlucdiscard 5 років тому +61

    I love how she fails to recognize the irony of her own arguments, which can easily be used to critique capitalism. So adding sprinklers is a terrible idea, as it will increase rent prices and therefore contribute to further homelessness and lack of affordable housing. Therefore, only the rich and affluent have the right to not be burned alive in their own home. That's what we want, a system where essential safety standards (fucking sprinklers in a high-rise shouldn't be a luxury) is afforded only to the rich? That's a world you want to live in?
    The level of delusion and cognitive dissonance it takes to sustain such an ideology reminds me of a scene in the show Chernobyl, where KGB Chairman Charkov rationalizes the surveillance state by claiming that it provides a "circle of accountability." She would make for an EXCELLENT Soviet apparatchik.

    • @discountchocolate4577
      @discountchocolate4577 4 роки тому +6

      McArdle's argument only goes one way if you attribute greater weight to the utility of the property owners than to that of the renters who happen to live in it. Implicit in McArdle's argument - also an underlying justification for the entire neoliberal worldview - is a perverse lopsided utilitarianism in which rich people are Utility Monsters (because they have more income to lose) and that that's not somehow a problem.
      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster

  • @olliegray7068
    @olliegray7068 Рік тому +1

    I love McArdle's "there are ways to limit the spread of fire, such as sprinkler systems". That's some real "damn I need to hit the minimum word count" style.

  • @Hamun002
    @Hamun002 5 років тому +16

    5:46 So we gunna get the guillotines out or nah?

    • @RoyalFusilier
      @RoyalFusilier 5 років тому +3

      I prefer reform or electoral revolution to an actual one, but I have literally /never/ been closer to seeing the appeal than this column. Imagine being the kind of human being who sees at least (that you know of) thirty people burn to death, and the take is "but the COST of safety measures..."

  • @jeanlucdiscard
    @jeanlucdiscard 5 років тому +9

    @ 7:46 What an excellent argument. BuT iNsTaLlInG sPWiNkRuRs Is HaRdZ. LeT'S nOt Do. TaKe ToO wOnG.

    • @deeznoots6241
      @deeznoots6241 4 роки тому +1

      Sub Stantial has she considered whether its economically worthwhile for her father to take up land in the form of a grave? Surely that land could be better utilised for agriculture, its already very well fertilised

  • @joshuafane7324
    @joshuafane7324 5 років тому +8

    I think this is the episode that made me a Patreon subscriber

  • @newsourcetechno5777
    @newsourcetechno5777 Рік тому +3

    This is a certified hood classic

  • @ross4
    @ross4 2 роки тому +9

    I think we have to agree this was the most evil reading series they've ever done.

  • @saintbeau2779
    @saintbeau2779 5 років тому +11

    her whole point is "but what if you die?"

  • @mephybooks7309
    @mephybooks7309 5 років тому +22

    2:10 says it all

  • @tewodrosii2875
    @tewodrosii2875 4 роки тому +4

    The world is a beautiful place and worth fighting for. I agree with the second half.

  • @BrillTech
    @BrillTech 5 років тому +15

    The "sprinklers will put more people in to cars and kill them" line of thought is stupid, and you should laugh, but you also need to point out the fact that even if it's a little more expensive for the landlords... DEAD PEOPLE DON'T PAY RENT.
    It's better for businesses to eat the cost of a sprinkler system, than say, have no apartments to rent any more and dead tenants.

    • @deeznoots6241
      @deeznoots6241 4 роки тому +1

      BrillTech hell literally just slightly better fridge fire safety regulations or different cladding would have made the fire non-lethal. The fire was entirely the result of years of failing to improve fire safety regulations

  • @jonathannathan1754
    @jonathannathan1754 Рік тому +1

    I need a ten-hour loop of just SHUT UP through OH MY GOD

  • @GREGORYABUTLER
    @GREGORYABUTLER 5 років тому +13

    Also, every multiple dwelling should be required by code to have sprinkler systems, and should be banned from using flammable cladding

  • @spicoli306
    @spicoli306 5 років тому +30

    17:24

  • @residentgrey
    @residentgrey 5 років тому +14

    "Safety jihadist" ...bless you. ROFLMAO!!!!

  • @BinaBecker
    @BinaBecker 5 років тому +7

    This is why I call her Megan McAddled.

  • @rexstout8177
    @rexstout8177 5 років тому +11

    Matt❤️

  • @cameronvanberkum7353
    @cameronvanberkum7353 5 років тому +2

    12:54 "this..is a fucking talking heads song"

  • @0ptimuscrime
    @0ptimuscrime 5 років тому +8

    Expired fire extinguishers are haram

  • @chumbucket6989
    @chumbucket6989 5 років тому +2

    I’m so relieved to know others see through Malcolm gladwells constant bullshit

  • @Cruizinelli12
    @Cruizinelli12 4 роки тому +5

    How the hell did Megan ever get a job in journalism to begin with? Her writing is so tacky and juvenile. I don’t blame Matt for losing it.

  • @nospam3327
    @nospam3327 5 років тому +2

    I'm afraid this might be missed: in measuring the value of human life, think about Megan McArdle's salary, "That's a good unit [of measurement]." 17:32

  • @Gunman610
    @Gunman610 4 роки тому +3

    7:50 I think her argument, which makes me want to punch kittens, is that reform is unfair to the people who couldn't avail themselves of that reform. It's kind of like how we should have student loan forgiveness because it's unfair to people who'd already paid off their student loans, or how road repair is unfair to people who've already paid thousands getting their cars fixed.
    Some of you might say, "That's a pretty stupid argument."

    • @discountchocolate4577
      @discountchocolate4577 4 роки тому +3

      Unfortunately, policymakers and bureaucrats are the most likely people to _use_ that argument.

  • @charlesfosterkane
    @charlesfosterkane 2 роки тому +3

    I'm gonna say it: I miss McArdle readings

  • @Officefan2
    @Officefan2 Рік тому +1

    Anybody else check what Megan wrote in September after finding out Matt had a stroke?

  • @0ptimuscrime
    @0ptimuscrime 4 роки тому +3

    Dril should write another gospel for the bibble

  • @MxArgent
    @MxArgent Рік тому

    Classics of Pod

  • @williamwardell8731
    @williamwardell8731 Рік тому

    Dr Riviera can you explain your decision to use inflammable material in the construction of this unit? *tugs collar

  • @nathanswann1198
    @nathanswann1198 4 роки тому +1

    Love ya matt! It's OK man.

  • @MJFAN666
    @MJFAN666 5 років тому +1

    Did that lady just say abortion is the real eugenics?

  • @williamwardell8731
    @williamwardell8731 Рік тому

    Leading light of right-utilitarianism

  • @dariendude17
    @dariendude17 Рік тому +1

    11:45 ALLAH HU-OSHA!!

  • @harryedwards851
    @harryedwards851 5 років тому

    300,000 homeless in the uk

  • @williamwardell8731
    @williamwardell8731 Рік тому

    Shapiro is a good example of a redheaded step-xerox of Voltaire. Insert some statistics deemed factual into your just so narrative for status quo hierarchies.

  • @arubinojr5670
    @arubinojr5670 4 роки тому +2

    You hate to get sdrowned in chapsolute banality.

  • @madeconomist458
    @madeconomist458 3 роки тому

    The $5k for non-flammable cladding doesn't really tell us much. Sure, if we had installed the safer cladding on Grenfell tower then we could have saved up to 72 lives, but "find out which apartments will burn down and install cladding on them" isn't a policy that any society can adopt. The choice facing society is "do we install non-flammable cladding on all our apartment complexes?" and that really does require something like actual accounting of the costs and figuring out the expected lives saved.

    • @DennisA1213
      @DennisA1213 3 роки тому +5

      This is why safety costs are computed per life saved. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life
      It's not possible to predict exactly which buildings may catch fire without fire-fighting mediations, but it is possible to calculate the decrease in fire incidence if these technologies are implemented and the number of lives saved (reduction in mortality)

  • @justpettet3506
    @justpettet3506 5 років тому +2

    the facetime or phone call or telegraph this guy is talking from ruins it. isn't five people enough or however many you always have live?

    • @justpettet3506
      @justpettet3506 5 років тому

      he keeps interrupting and being obnoxious not only because of his personality but also the miscommunication you are practicing

    • @kyleleehufnagel
      @kyleleehufnagel 5 років тому +32

      “Man, they surely haven’t fixed the skype audio on this incredibly popular podcast since two years ago. I better chime in.”

    • @893loses
      @893loses 5 років тому +13

      no not really

    • @allypoum
      @allypoum 5 років тому +8

      No it doesn't.

    • @allypoum
      @allypoum 5 років тому +6

      @@dimmerster97 they must make exceptions for bot accounts.

  • @baggerjanus
    @baggerjanus 5 років тому +1

    Shrill yelling dude is pretty annoying.