John Mulaney’s new, just-concluded Netflix comedy limited series, Everybody’s in LA, felt experimental in a number of ways. It’s not only Netflix trying out an interesting format — the show debuted live on May 3 and played out over the past week in a series of six nightly live episodes — but it also feels like Mulaney soft-launching a side gig.

As the host to a motley crew of Los Angeles natives and town-invading comedians, Mulaney seems to be testing the waters for what kind of comedy his audience wants from him now. His 2023 confessional special Baby J won an Emmy for outstanding writing and delved into his recent struggles with sobriety, but it brought mixed reviews from critics — some of whom seemed skeptical at best that Mulaney had done enough to bare his soul for the rest of us.

After a rough few years for Mulaney, such cynicism about the comedian seemed to be the prevailing sentiment. In particular, 2021 saw him enter rehab for drug addiction. Shortly after his release, it became clear that Mulaney had chosen to end his marriage to his then-wife of six years, Anna Marie Tendler, and begun a relationship with actor Olivia Munn — the timeline of which has been described as “tight.” No sooner had Mulaney filed for divorce than rumors of an affair leaked, followed by news that Munn was pregnant.

The scandal hit the public unusually hard in a pandemic-era culture that clung to its heroes, and Mulaney’s transgressions spawned both intense backlash and intense discourse about whether our parasocial relationships have gotten too warped. The period severely damaged Mulaney’s relationship with his core audience, once full of people who responded to his idealistic charm. Those folks didn’t seem to move on easily — not even by April 2023, when Mulaney, through Baby J, proffered a way forward via the more traditional route: a redemptive confessional.

Jump ahead to May 2024, and perhaps, if attempt one didn’t totally set a clear path forward for the comic, attempt two will: enter, an intentionally random daily comedy talk show built around the threadbarest of excuses. The show’s raison d’être: LA is weird. The solution: gather an unexpected bunch of funny people and locals together to talk about how weird LA is. The host: a comedian famed for his own likable random weirdness.

Mulaney seems to be covering his bases. “We are only doing six episodes,” he explains in the introduction to Everybody’s in LA, “so the show will never hit its groove.” If this flops, it’s fine. Mulaney jokes that he doesn’t know why he’s doing the show, which functions as a side event for Netflix’s elaborate LA comedy festival, Netflix Is a Joke. “I need structure,” he says, a non-justification that also doubles as a subtle reminder for some viewers that we’re looking at a person who has a history of addiction and is presumably in recovery.

That’s about as deep as this show gets, however; though we do get some gestures to sociocultural topics like environmentalism and the incessant problem of LA traffic, they’re handed to us in the guise of, for example, a coyote wrangler or a gonzo helicopter journalist. Mulaney features famous comedians, yes, but also everyone from hypnotherapists to former OJ Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark. (And really, what could be more LA than that?) In between conversations, Mulaney features pretaped sketches from more guest comedians and Daily Show-style comedy correspondents. As if that’s not chaotic enough, he also has call-in guests. At one point during episode five, a seismologist sits quietly by while a caller recounts being awakened by an earthquake while sleeping in the nude. These probably aren’t the talk show beats you’re used to.

Mulaney’s one-week fling with the city also works out well for Netflix. Despite trying on and off for years to make Netflix talk shows a thing, and despite intermittently bringing David Letterman back to do one-off long-form interviews, the platform has never nailed the format before this. The nightly show seems to be making a small impact; it’s currently hanging around at No. 10 on the Netflix US Top 10 shows for the day, and it’s moved up and down the chart for most of the week.

Not a bad beginning; the beginning of what, exactly, remains somewhat unclear. Netflix could also be using this show as a pilot entry for similar themed efforts from other temporary hosts — in other words, more appointment TV. It certainly seems that the entire week, beginning with Katt Williams’s live standup special Woke Foke and the jarringly uncomfortable Roast of Tom Brady, was an experimental make-or-break week for Netflix and live programming.

Or perhaps Netflix will do this again next year during its next comedy fest; perhaps in a few months, Mulaney will move to another quirky American city with another quirky band of guests. It’s an interesting concept: What would this type of series be like if it took both it and the city it’s in a little more seriously? What would viewers make of it if we didn’t know as much about the city itself as we’ve absorbed about Los Angeles from decades of cultural osmosis? I’m not saying Everybody’s in Boise is the way to go, but I am saying I’d probably watch it for the local color.

Whether this is enough to restore Mulaney to the top of the comedy world seems equally uncertain. The main charm of the show, all told, has less to do with the assemblage of guests than watching Mulaney’s effortless wrangling of them. Night after night, Mulaney embraces all the awkwardness of live comedy, and it doesn’t always embrace back: Often the guests are hostile; the sketches don’t always land; the callers are too eager to grandstand. Mulaney sidesteps it all like it’s Dance Dance Revolution and he knows this particular song by heart. As a host, he’s fab.

Yet the idea of Mulaney as a talk show host on an ongoing basis feels like a net loss rather than a gain. Sure, he can bring together comedy titans and make sure they don’t run over an hour, but he’s probably fit for better things. If the dominant criticism of Baby J was that it coasted too lightly over Mulaney’s self-recrimination, then Everybody’s in LA directs his talents entirely outward; it’s intentionally lighthearted, deliberately shallow. There’s meaning in the edges, but that usually has little to do with why we love Mulaney himself. The arguable best moment in the series, in fact, doesn’t involve Mulaney at all, but rather a pretaped segment in episode two that reunites core members of the LA punk scene. They sit around reminiscing, then write a silly punk song together on the fly.

It’s fun, it’s poignant. But it’s not as fun or poignant as Mulaney himself can be when he’s alone onstage with only his flaws and a thousand people willing to laugh at and then forgive them. If Everybody’s in LA brings his audience closer to a suspension of hostilities, then it will have been well worth it.

Twenty years ago, American celebrities like George Clooney and Ryan Gosling urged us all to “Save Darfur” from the brutal conflict and ethnic cleansing campaign occurring under Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir.

Bashir is now gone, but the militias he empowered have been carrying out brutal ethnic cleansings yet again in at least some parts of Darfur, according to a report released Wednesday from Human Rights Watch.

The report details horrific, ethnically targeted crimes like the killing of men and boys from ethnic Massalit and other non-Arab tribes in West Darfur, as well as rape, other forms of sexual violence, torture, other war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The Massalit and other ethnic groups in the Darfur region endured similar agonies in the early 2000s, when a group of militias known as the Janjaweed — which have now evolved into a powerful paramilitary force called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — crushed uprisings in the region.

Today, the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are locked in a ferocious, deadly power struggle that began last April, quashing the country’s long struggle to transition to democracy. Since the war broke out, 8.7 million people have been displaced, the risk of famine is imminent, and thousands have been killed, with no end in sight as much of the globe turns toward Israel’s war in Gaza.

It’s a tragedy that directly stems from the lack of accountability militias faced in the early 2000s. As both sides of the struggle continue to operate with impunity, the risk of future crimes only increases.

Why ethnic cleansing is occurring in Darfur 20 years later

One year ago, the RSF and the more traditional Sudanese Armed Forces broke out into war. To be clear, this is not ideological; at the baseline, it was two different factions of the military feuding over which one got to be in charge.

But they’ve pulled the entire country into terror with them as they fight for dominance.

Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned last year that the nationwide conflict could stir up old hostilities in the Darfur region. In the early 2000s, violence between ethnic groups there led to the first genocide of the 21st century, one that killed 200,000 people and displaced millions more.

“In El Geneina, West Darfur, deadly ethnic clashes have been reported, with an estimated 96 people killed since 24 April,” she said in late April 2023, calling on all parties “to use every possible means to de-escalate the situation.”

Since then, the violence has only gotten worse, surging in June and November of last year.

Gathering information in the RSF stronghold of Darfur is challenging in part because of internet and social media shutdowns throughout the country, perpetrated by both sides. The details in the HRW report indicate that the RSF and other militias targeted the Massalit ethnic group in West Darfur.

The report focuses on the months between April and November 2023, and only on one area, the city of El Geneina and the suburb Ardamata, which have large Massalit populations, though the RSF has perpetrated crimes in other parts of the region, according to the report. Since 2019, the RSF has engaged in a campaign to marginalize the Massalit there and, along with Arab militias, wrest political power from the group.

To that end, the RSF has targeted community and political leaders, teachers, lawyers, human rights defenders, and religious figures, including allegedly kidnapping and killing the Massalit governor of West Darfur in June of last year. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people were killed in El Geneina alone last year, according to an estimate from the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan. The SAF has responded, in part, by restricting humanitarian aid shipments from entering the Darfur region through Chad’s eastern border, citing concerns about weapons entering with them.

Though conflict in the Darfur region is often attributed to ethnic differences, it is just as much a question of political power. The ethnic groups in Darfur involved in the 2003 uprising that precipitated the genocide — the Fur, the Massalit, and Zaghawa — were frustrated with the lack of representation in the national government, pushing them to revolt.

Omar al-Bashir, then Sudan’s authoritarian leader, utilized Janjaweed militias made up of Sudanese Arab fighters, including the forces that would become the RSF, to put down the uprising in the Darfur region. That conflict displaced an estimated 2.5 million people and killed 300,000, according to Reuters.

Though Darfur and other non-urban parts of Sudan continue to be underserved and exploited for natural resources like gold and gum arabic, the RSF isn’t confronting an uprising there.

Rather, the group has essentially brought the war to the country’s westernmost region where it has bases and experience, asserting power there by brutalizing the population. Now, the violent campaign in Darfur is part of the RSF’s effort to gain political power and control for itself, as part of the larger power struggle with the SAF.

Impunity for all actors breeds more violence

After the genocide in Darfur two decades ago, prosecutors with the International Criminal Court subsequently accused Sudanese government officials and Janjaweed leaders of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in that conflict. But most have so far avoided accountability.

“They have no real reason to believe that they’re ever going to face any consequences for what has happened before, for all the crimes against humanity and war crimes that they’ve committed, because they haven’t been so far,” Hagar Ali, a postdoctoral researcher at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, told Vox in an interview.

Without accountability for the Darfur genocide and the crimes of the present war, the problems that have led to this point will only recur, allowing violence and ethnic cleansing to occur again.

Power struggles are nothing new in Sudan. Since its independence in 1956, Sudan has undergone the highest number of attempted coups of any African nation. That kind of entrenched instability tends to breed further coups, too.

Though various groups including the RSF and SAF did work together to oust Bashir, the relationship between them has at times been fraught. The integration of the RSF into the SAF was supposed to be a tenet of the democratic transition, but disagreements over power-sharing spiraled into the conflict and atrocities of today.

Now, getting the two leaders of the different factions — General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (called Hemedti), head of the RSF, and General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who leads the SAF — to agree on an end to the conflict is nearly impossible because, without international pressure, there’s no incentive for them to stop fighting. Neither side has the ability or resources to ensure a decisive victory.

Furthermore, both groups have been woven into the power structure before, making it difficult to dislodge either. The SAF has always been involved in Sudan’s political leadership and likely expects to be in the future, despite the Sudanese people’s desire for a civilian government. The RSF under Hemedti is likely unwilling to be subsumed into the SAF; that proposition sparked the current power struggle.

“There was a courageous nationwide social movement that pushed for a power-sharing arrangement between civilians and the military and security in 2019 and 2020,” Susan Stigant, the Africa director for the US Institute of Peace, told Vox in a March interview. But “the power was never shifted away from the military and the security elites.”

Furthermore, the flow of arms into and out of Sudan — from Russia’s Wagner Group, the UAE, Libya, Niger, and other surrounding African countries — is significantly fueling the fight. But international sanctions systems are not prepared to combat this kind of illicit armed transfers, Ali said, and the different actors involved have no incentive to stop.

If the situation in Sudan seems desperate, that’s because it is. And there’s no clear way to maneuver through it and hold those responsible accountable. But without that accountability, the world is likely to see more — and possibly worse — crimes.

Because humans are imperfect, complex social beings, we argue. We disagree. We butt heads. If you’re not fighting every once in a while, congratulations for being perfect or extremely conflict-averse. Ideally, on the other side, we come to an agreement everyone is satisfied with: a shared understanding, an apology, a more efficient workflow. Even in the worst-case scenario, each party should feel heard, even if disagreements linger. “A good argument is one in which both sides walk away feeling like they would do that again,” says Bo Seo, author of Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard, “not that it’s life-changing or a hugely positive experience.”

As many of us know from our own experiences, though, most arguments fail to meet that standard. John Gottman and his wife Julie Schwartz Gottman have seen their fair share of argumentative blunders in their decades of research on couples. This history has earned them a reputation as two of the most popular and well-regarded experts on love and relationships. One of the biggest mistakes people make in disagreements is fighting to win — to prove the other person wrong and persuade — rather than to understand, Gottman said. We may be tempted to levy personal attacks and blame the other person. We might dismiss and interrupt them. We may play the victim or completely shut down. The good news is it’s possible to have better, more effective fights. No relationship is without conflict, but a little conversational fine-tuning can transform an often frustrating experience into a fruitful one. Here’s what to keep in mind.

Understand what you’re really arguing about

Because no one truly anticipates an argument, it can be difficult to zero in on what you actually want to get out of it. Your motivation may be something concrete — wanting to finish the bathroom renovation — or more amorphous, like getting an apology. Regardless of your desired outcome, there is often a deeper meaning behind the intricacies of the fight, says Chris Segrin, head of the University of Arizona’s department of communication. Although you may be arguing about what color to paint the bathroom, there is likely a larger symbolic issue at play. “‘We live in this apartment and everything in here is the way you set it up and the way you want it,’” Segrin notes as an example. “‘I don’t feel like I have any opportunity to have my style in here.’”

The Gottmans refer to this as the “dreams within conflict.” To determine the dream behind the other person’s argument, they suggest asking questions like, “Tell me why this is so important to you,” or, “Is there a story behind this for you?” One partner should do all the listening at first and then be given the space to answer the same questions, uninterrupted. “You come out of that with much deeper understanding of your partner,” Schwartz Gottman says, “and oftentimes more compassion, as you understand, for example, that they may have some baggage or traumatic history that influenced their position now on an issue.”

Ask yourself if you’re butting heads over a difference in worldview or in values, says friendship coach Danielle Bayard Jackson, author of Fighting for Our Friendships: The Science and Art of Conflict and Connection in Women’s Relationships. Sometimes the people in your life make different choices that may be annoying but ultimately don’t impact you. Other times, major gaps in core values may threaten the relationship. You should feel empowered to bring up how you feel their views impact you; you might consider whether you can continue to be in a relationship with them if they continue to hold these opinions, Bayard Jackson says.

Typically, people want one of three things out of an argument: to make a point, make a difference, or be heard.

Wanting to make a point, to be right, or to prove the other person wrong is not an effective strategy, Segrin says. “People just don’t respond well to that tactic,” he says. If you find yourself in this camp, consider why it’s so important for you to express this point and why getting the other person to change their mind is the right way forward. There are, of course, very crucial reasons to change someone’s mind: maybe they’re at risk of hurting themselves or other people, for example, or you’re their parent and you need to guide them. Generally, though, attempting to force someone to see things your way may drive a deeper wedge in the relationship.

Making a difference means transforming the relationship or the outcome in some way: hearing what motivates them, collaborating on how to move forward, and growing closer in the process.

It’s also possible that you don’t want anyone to debate you — or to change anything about the situation — but to make your voice heard. This can be an effective approach in professional settings, says Alison Green, creator of the work advice column Ask a Manager. If you’re on the other side when someone’s venting — especially if that person is a subordinate at work — make them feel heard, that you’re interested in understanding their perspective and how you might learn from it, Green says.

Sometimes our goals aren’t necessarily realistic: You probably can’t duck out of that company retreat or convince a lifelong vegan to eat meat. Understanding how much sway you actually have to change a person’s behavior or an unsatisfying situation can prevent a ton of frustration, especially at work. “The more detached you can be about it, the better,” Green says. “Ultimately, it might not be your job to make that call. It’s your job to give your perspective and your recommendation. If you can be okay with washing your hands of it and letting someone else make that decision regardless of what that decision is, you come away feeling better about it.”

Practice active listening

Because a fight is a two-way exchange, listening is crucial. “Listening isn’t about doing a favor to the other person,” says workplace expert Amy Gallo, author of Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People). Truly hearing someone better enables you to come up with a solution.

Rather than just waiting to talk, take deep breaths while the other person is speaking, Bayard Jackson suggests. In professional settings, you might jot down a few notes about what the other person has said and how you want to respond, Gallo says. The Gottmans also suggest note-taking and reading back what you heard to ensure you’re grasping their argument. You won’t be as reactive when you’re focused on transcribing the conversation.

One of the most effective forms of active listening involves repeating what you heard. Try saying, “Let me see if I heard that correctly,” or, “I think what I’m hearing is [the reason they’re upset] was really frustrating for you.” You can ask follow-up questions like, “Why do you think [the issue they’re concerned about] is happening?” or, “I know that’s hard. Why do you feel that way?” to signal you’re paying attention to their concerns.

As difficult as it may be, avoid interrupting. If the other party seems particularly inflamed, let them express all of their concerns so you can get the full picture of their argument, Seo says. Try asking them, gently, “Do you have anything more to add?” before recapping what you heard.

Try to be as objective as possible when hearing out the other person, Seo says. If you assume they’re acting in bad faith, you’re less likely to come to an agreement.

Focus on areas of agreement and negotiate where you don’t agree

In the heat of an argument, people feel the need to counter every detail their conversation partner brings up, Gallo says. Fight this urge and start by addressing where you agree, no matter how small. You can say, “That point you made about not wanting to go over budget is so important. I’m glad you said that.” Now, you have a shared goal. Agreement is an olive branch. Acknowledging the other party’s good ideas may lower their defenses and make them more receptive to other points you have to make, Segrin says.

In instances where you seemingly disagree on every point, work hard to find some common ground. Maybe you both are working in service of the company’s or your family’s broader goals. It’s worth it to ask, “What are we hoping to get out of this as a family? What path will serve those goals?” You can also invite them to imagine other people’s perspectives without directly getting other people involved: “How would our boss/teammates see this? What ideas would they come up with?”

“Rather than getting into a tug of war of just your perspective and their perspective, you’re inviting other people into the room, not literally, but in terms of their perspective,” Gallo says. “That will help expand the other person’s thinking about what’s possible and what are the options for resolution.”

One strategy the Gottmans use to facilitate compromise calls to mind the image of a bagel. Draw (or imagine) two concentric circles. In the smaller center circle, write what you don’t want to compromise. In the outer circle, write down all the ways you can compromise. Schwartz Gottman recalls a couple who were arguing about how to spend their retirement: The woman wanted to retire to a family farm in Iowa, while her husband hoped to sail around the world — these were their nonnegotiables. The timing, duration, and expenses were all flexible. The couple compromised by agreeing that they’d sail for a year, and then spend a year on the farm.

In conflicts where you are diametrically opposed to the other person’s point of view, restrain from tearing down the other person or insulting their intelligence. Attacking the person and not the argument is a sign of an amateur debater, Segrin says.

Even if there is a wide divide between your opinion and a friend’s, consider whether it’s worth the energy of an argument at all. Ask yourself how much of a margin do you give your loved ones to think differently than you, Bayard Jackson says. We expect our friends to agree with us most of the time, she says, but it’s unrealistic to be on the same page as someone all the time. Where are you willing to diverge in opinion from your friends?

How to handle your emotions

Arguments are inherently emotional: It can be difficult to hear how we’ve hurt someone or have our opinions challenged. Sometimes your body might have a physiological reaction called flooding, where your heart rate rises, your muscles tense, and you go into fight, flight, or freeze mode, says Schwartz Gottman. In these situations, you should step away from the conversation. Say, “We should take a break,” and set a time for when you’ll return to discussions. This allows you to cool off, reconsider the situation, and/or get an outsider’s perspective.

To blunt the impact of emotions in workplace conflicts, Green suggests thinking of yourself as a consultant: to provide recommendations and leave it up to the client (a.k.a. your boss) whether to take them. “But you’re not so invested because you’re not part of their day-to-day team who feels that same emotional investment,” Green says.

If you’re nervous to even start the conversation, Bayard Jackson recommends front-loading the conversation with reassurances that your goal is to strengthen the relationship, and to even highlight your trepidation. Try saying, “I’d love to talk to you about something and I don’t want it to be awkward between us or for you to think I’m pulling away from the friendship.”

What to do if you really can’t see eye to eye

It’s also entirely possible that the other party does not offer you the same respect and courtesy during a disagreement. If the person you’re arguing with is extremely critical and interrupts you, you might say, “Can we slow this down? I really want a chance to finish what I’m saying before I hear your response,” or, “I really want to understand you. Can you say it another way?” Schwartz Gottman suggests.

Maybe the other party is resorting to lies during the disagreement. Try not to respond to every single falsehood, Seo says, but instead pick a representative lie that demonstrates how their other arguments are untrue. Similarly, avoid going tit-for-tat with someone who’s particularly combative. “You can do real damage by either being drawn to brawling with the other side or continuing to be reasonable when clearly that’s no longer the nature of the conversation,” Seo says. Try saying, “I think we’re disagreeing in a way that’s not going to help us understand each other or to reach a good outcome. Let’s come back to this later. But before we finish I’d like to get a few things off my chest and I’d rather we didn’t argue about it.”

“Then you can have the last word,” Seo says.

However, if the other person’s values and beliefs consistently make you feel unsafe or inadequate, you might consider ending the relationship. But for many other relationships — professional connections in particular — you may just need to agree to disagree. If both sides can respect each other’s point of view and accept how it differs from their own, the relationship can continue so long as there is mutual respect, Segrin says.

“There are going to be things, when we have a relationship with another human being, we just have to accept about them,” Segrin says. “It’s not always bad. It’s not about who’s right. It’s just acceptance.”