Some More News: O Their Prophetic Souls

 Well I decided to take a break from posting videos from The Majority Report and instead post another video from Some More News. I love these guys and you should too and you should give them money every month like I do. YouTube shows like this are like the Daily Show in the early 2000s.

Topics for this episode include The Twitter Files; Elon Musk; Repealing Roe V. Wade; the Metaverse failure; the Fake Shoplifting Crisis - Candace Owen gets a shout-out for her Nazi shit; Havana Syndrome is not a thing; Grifters - includes Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin; and Tucker Carlson.

Chat GPT spills the tea about Peter Thiel and the Intellectual Dark Web

Since ChatGPT told me that Bari Weiss received a quarter of a million dollars from Peter Thiel in 2017, it occurred to me that perhaps her 2018 article for the New York Times about the splendors of her fellow travellers, Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web, was a public announcement of who had agreed to be on the Peter Thiel payroll. In addition to all those associated with Quillette.

In the article there were twenty-five individuals named by Weiss as connected to the Intellectual Dark Web, including Steven Pinker, Kanye West, Milo Yiannapoulos, Stefan Molyneux and Alex Jones. 

But the most significant of the IDW bunch are those who were photographed for the article, standing in the dark in the bushes. 

I guess the photographer wanted to make a point by posing these Intellectuals in the Dark, but drew the line at literally portraying them in a Web and so had to stick them in some bushes instead.

The eight bush skulkers include Joe Rogan, Michael Shermer, Sam Harris, Heather Heying, Christina Hoff Sommers, Dave Rubin and Eric and Bret Weinstein.

So what does ChatGPT have to say about them?

NOTE:  this must be investigated further, since ChatGPT is known to be factually unreliable.

        Has Peter Thiel ever funded Sam Harris?

Yes, Peter Thiel has provided funding to Sam Harris in the past. In fact, Thiel was one of the early supporters of Harris' podcast and helped fund the creation of the Waking Up app, which was later renamed to the Sam Harris app. Thiel and Harris have also engaged in public conversations and have expressed mutual respect for each other's work in various fields.

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Supposedly Harris says he's done with the Intellectual Dark Web.

I came up empty on a Thiel funding source for Michael Shermer, but ChatGPT did have this info, which is not even available at SourceWatch.

Has the Skeptic magazine received funding from Donors Trust?

Yes, according to public records, Skeptic magazine has received funding from Donors Trust, a donor-advised fund that provides support to a variety of conservative and libertarian organizations. Specifically, tax filings from Donors Trust show that they provided funding to the Skeptics Society, the organization that publishes Skeptic magazine, in both 2014 and 2015. It's worth noting that Donors Trust supports a wide range of organizations across the political spectrum, and the fact that an organization receives funding from Donors Trust does not necessarily imply any particular political alignment or agenda. 

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Donor's Trust is the infamous right-wing funding vehicle that also gives millions to racist monsters VDARE.

ChatGPT had nothing about Thiel or Donors Trust funding for Christina Hoff Sommers, but it's not a secret that she's taken money from Koch-funded organizations for decades. ChatGPT agreed:

Christina Hoff Sommers, a conservative writer and critic of contemporary feminism, has received funding from a number of conservative and libertarian organizations over the years, particularly those focused on policy, education, and advocacy. Some of the organizations that have provided support to Sommers     include:

• The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank that promotes free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values. (Pinkerite's note: funded by Koch)
• The Bradley Foundation, a conservative foundation that supports a range of causes, including education, civic engagement, and free markets.
• The Charles Koch Foundation, a philanthropic organization that funds research and education programs on a variety of topics, including economics, political science, and civil liberties.
• The Independent Women's Forum (IWF), a conservative organization that advocates for policies and initiatives that promote economic freedom, limited government, and individual responsibility. (Pinkerite's note: funded by Koch)
• The Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank that focuses on policy research in areas such as urban policy, energy, and education. (Pinkerite's note: funded by Koch)

Here's what ChatGPT had to say about Heather Heying:

Heather Heying has received funding from a number of conservative and libertarian organizations over the years, particularly those focused on science, education, and policy. Some of the organizations that have provided support to Heying include:

• The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, a conservative think tank that promotes free speech and intellectual diversity on college campuses.
• The John William Pope Foundation, a conservative foundation that supports a range of causes, including education, healthcare, and public policy.
• The Templeton Foundation, a philanthropic organization that funds research on science, spirituality, and human purpose.
• The Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank that promotes intelligent design theory and critiques of evolutionary biology.
• The Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank that focuses on political philosophy, constitutionalism, and American exceptionalism.

I'm curious what The Discovery Institute hopes to get from Heying for its money, since it promotes intelligent design and critiques of evolutionary biology.

We do know that Heying and her husband Bret Weinstein have promoted junk science during the Covid pandemic. But that's Game Theory.

When I asked ChatGPT about Dave Rubin it said:

Rubin has expressed support for many conservative and libertarian ideas and causes, and he has collaborated with a number of individuals and organizations in these spheres. Some of the individuals and organizations that have expressed support for Rubin or his ideas include:

• Peter Thiel: As mentioned earlier, Thiel has expressed support for Rubin and his work, but there is no clear evidence that he has provided direct financial support to Rubin.
• PragerU: Rubin has collaborated with PragerU, a conservative educational organization that produces videos promoting conservative and libertarian ideas.
• Turning Point USA: Rubin has also worked with Turning Point USA, a conservative student organization that promotes conservative and libertarian ideas on college campuses.
• The Federalist Society: Rubin has expressed support for the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization that promotes originalist interpretations of the US Constitution.
• Republican politicians: Rubin has expressed support for several Republican politicians, including Donald Trump, Rand Paul, and Ron Paul.

Eric Weinstein of course works for Thiel Capital, but I did not know he and Bret had been Thiel Fellows:

Bret and Eric Weinstein were both fellows at the Thiel Foundation, which provides funding to young entrepreneurs to start their own businesses. The Weinsteins have also been associated with the Intellectual Dark Web, a loose network of public intellectuals who are known for challenging mainstream narratives on a range of topics. While the IDW is not a formal organization and does not receive direct funding, many of its members are supported by conservative and libertarian donors who share their views.

Curiously ChatGPT wouldn't say that Bret Weinstein was funded by the same organizations who fund his wife, Heather Heying, which makes no sense. It did say about Weinstein:

Weinstein has also been critical of what he calls "woke ideology" and the progressive movement, and has spoken out in support of free speech and academic freedom. These views have earned him support from some conservative and libertarian organizations and donors. For example, he has appeared as a guest speaker at events hosted by the National Review Institute, a conservative think tank, and has been praised by conservative commentators like Ben Shapiro.

Shapiro was another person named in Weiss's NYTimes article as IDW.

I came up with bupkis for Joe Rogan.

So according to ChatGPT,  Sam Harris has taken money from Thiel, and Eric and Bret Weinstein were fellows at the Thiel Foundation, and all the others, except Joe Rogan have connections to lots of other far-right funders.

And since Thiel has funded Quillette we can infer these people have received Thielbucks due to Quillette authorship (my annotations in parentheses):

Quillette is an online magazine that publishes articles on a wide range of topics, including politics, culture, science, and technology. Some of the individuals who have written articles for Quillette include:

• Jordan Peterson: Canadian psychologist and author (IDW member per Weiss article)
• Claire Lehmann: Australian psychologist and founder of Quillette (Quillette is the primary publication of the IDW per the Weiss article)
• Sam Harris: American philosopher and author (see above)
• Christina Hoff Sommers: American philosopher and cultural critic (see above)
• Jonathan Haidt: American social psychologist and author 
• Heather Mac Donald: American political commentator and author
• Gad Saad: Canadian evolutionary psychologist and author
• Bret Weinstein: American biologist and evolutionary theorist (see above)
• Douglas Murray: British author and political commentator (named member of IDW)
• Andrew Doyle: British comedian and writer (or "comedian")
• Cathy Young: Russian-American journalist and author
• Debra Soh: Canadian sex researcher and science writer (named member of IDW)
• Conor Friedersdorf: American journalist and writer
• Peter Boghossian: American philosopher and professor
• Toby Young: British journalist and author (also was Quillette associate editor)
• Maajid Nawaz: British activist and writer
• Meghan Daum: American author and columnist
• Yascha Mounk: German-American political scientist and writer
• Helen Pluckrose: English author and editor of Areo Magazine
• James Lindsay: American author and mathematician
• Bruce Gilley: American political scientist and professor
• Claire Fox: British author and commentator
• Jamie Palmer: British writer and commentator (Quillette editor)
• Heather Heying: American evolutionary biologist and writer (see above)
• Ed Husain: British writer and commentator
• Coleman Hughes: American writer and podcaster
• Frances Widdowson: Canadian academic and writer

This is not an exhaustive list, as many other individuals have also written articles for Quillette.

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It's important to note that Peter Thiel is a democracy-hating far-right funder of monsters like Donald Trump, and has been called both a psychopath and a sociopath. And he's a babbling, Bible-quoting crackpot, with billions to spend on his far-right agenda. 

And those people have taken his money.

Or as David Bertoli, one of the admirers of the Anna Krylov/Jerry Coyne grift might say:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” 

The "cockroach" strikes back at the shamelessness of Steven Pinker, Michael Shermer and friends

When members of the IDW aren't patting themselves
on the back for their civility, they are insulting people.

Phil Torres made some very well-justified criticisms of the work of Steven Pinker, noting Pinker misrepresented the work of others, and as a result, Pinker and his buddies Jerry Coyne and Michael Shermer insulted him for it and then claimed misrepresentation was no big deal.

This all went down back in January. I wrote at the time:

Even though I've recognized for many years that Steven Pinker is a weasel, I was astounded. "so what?" I was going to write my own response but found this piece by Olle Häggström via Phil Torres' Twitter feed. I admit I was relieved to find it. Pinker's dismissal of Torres' valid point was so shameless I wondered if I misunderstood somehow.
But no, Pinker really is that brazen.

And now Torres has a piece in Salon telling the story himself: Steven Pinker, Sam Harris and the epidemic of annoying white male intellectuals

Torres writes:

Shermer’s (cockroach) tweet is notable for a couple of reasons. First, not only does it contain a personal attack, but the personal attack is overtly uncivil. That’s a bit humorous given that Shermer, as well as Pinker, are famous for accusing progressives, especially those who care about women and people of color, of “incivility.” For example, in May of this year, Pinker tweeted:

Are you concerned about the growing illiberalism, incivility, intellectual conformity, and repression of debate in today's universities? Join us at the meeting of the society set up to encourage viewpoint diversity and constructive debate on campuses. I’ll be giving the keynote.

But Pinker did nothing to call out Shermer for his patently crude, puerile behavior, which has also included calling people he disagrees with (seriously) “namby-pamby bedwetters” and (seriously) “losers.”

But of course Steven Pinker is a hypocrite, supporting the careers of actual right-wing operatives (and race science promoters) Steve Sailer and Razib Khan while claiming that Stephen Jay Gould's scientific opinions about sociobiology and evolutionary psychology should be discounted because Gould held left-wing opinions.

Meanwhile Shermer published an article recently in his Skeptic magazine Shedding Light on the Intellectual Dark Web which of course Steven Pinker promoted in a tweet.

It should be no surprise to anybody who has tracked the carelessness of the IDW, Shermer gets things wrong. He states:

The Guardian sardonically pronounced (in its headline) the IDW to be the “supposed thinking wing of the alt-right,” featuring a photograph of Alex Jones, mentioned by absolutely no one as being part of the IDW.4

Yet Shermer makes clear in the same article, before this passage that he is aware of the importance of Bari Weiss's naming of IDW individuals in her article:

In the May 8, 2018 issue of The New York Times the editor and writer Bari Weiss introduced the world to the “Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web,” which she described as “an alliance of heretics” who are “making an end run around the mainstream conversation.”1 These heretics, she noted, are “iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades and media personalities” who were “purged from institutions that have become increasingly hostile to unorthodox thought.” In response, their sweep around what Weiss described as “legacy media” included podcasting, blogs, social media, YouTube channels, and public speaking. 

Included in this initial cohort were the mathematician Eric Weinstein (who coined the IDW label), the podcaster Joe Rogan, the neuroscientist Sam Harris, the talk show host Dave Rubin, the evolutionary biologists Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, the psychologist Jordan Peterson, the conservative commentators and authors Ben Shapiro and Douglas Murray, the anti-extremist activist Maajid Nawaz, the feminist activists and authors Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Christina Hoff Sommers, the magazine publisher Claire Lehmann, the neuroscientist and sex researcher Debra Soh, and I (Michael Shermer). As the conversation continued past Weiss’ New York Times feature, other intellectuals were added to the assemblage, including Steven Pinker...

The Weiss article does mention all those names that Shermer does, and which I bolded. But the article also explicitly mentions Pinker, in spite of Shermer's incorrect claim that Pinker was added to the IDW after the Weiss article. Weiss also mentions Charlie Kirk, Abby Martin, Candace Owens, Charles Murray and Kanye West.

Now is Shermer just careless or did he deliberately leave Pinker out because Pinker is counted as IDW in the exact same passage as Alex Jones? (My bold emphases):

“There are a few people in this network who have gone without saying anything critical about Trump, a person who has assaulted truth more than anyone in human history,” Mr. (Sam) Harris said. “If you care about the truth, that is quite strange.” 

Emphasis is one problem. Associating with genuinely bad people is another.
Go a click in one direction and the group is enhanced by intellectuals with tony affiliations like Steven Pinker at Harvard. But go a click in another and you’ll find alt-right figures like Stefan Molyneux and Milo Yiannopoulos and conspiracy theorists like Mike Cernovich (the #PizzaGate huckster) and Alex Jones (the Sandy Hook shooting denier).

It is crystal clear that Weiss is including Molyneux, Yiannopoulos, Cernovich, Jones and Steven Pinker under the umbrella of "Intellectual Dark Web." She may be using Pinker as the respectable exemplar in contrast to the motley crew - but she is indisputably including all of them as members of the IDW.

Shermer co-authored the piece with Anondah Saide and Kevin McCaffree. Maybe each thought one of the other two was going to handle the fact checking.

As if that isn't bad enough, the Shermer article counts vicious, toxic, professional misogynist Christina Hoff Sommers as a "feminist activist."

Christina Hoff Sommers, a member of those champions of civility the IDW,
and a "feminist activist" per Shermer, joins with professional misogynist
and NAMBLA fan Camille Paglia to insult and dehumanize Lena Dunham

Even worse the article fails to mention that what ties this allegedly "diverse" group together is their agreement with hereditarianism, specifically evolutionary psychology and race science.

It's just like Phil "the cockroach" Torres writes in his latest Salon piece:

...the entire IDW movement is annoying. It’s really, really annoying — its champions misrepresent positions without their (mostly white male) audience knowing, and then proceed to “embarrass” the opposition. They embrace unsupported claims when it suits their narrative. They facilely dismiss good critiques as “hit jobs” and level ad hominem attacks to undercut criticism. And they refuse — they will always refuse, it’s what overconfident white men do — to admit making mistakes when they’re obviously wrong. I am annoyed, like Robinson, mostly because I expected so much better from the most popular “intellectuals” of our time.

Cathy Young publishes a steaming pile of non-apology for GamerGate

Cathy Young, alerting her Twitter followers to her
friendly interview with Eron Gjoni
"for the 2nd anniversary of #GamerGate"

As I noted on this blog last month, Cathy Young celebrated the second anniversary of "the Zoe post" by giving a friendly interview to Eron Gjoni.

Three years later she's had a chance, as a sober-minded public intellectual of late-middle-age to reflect on GamerGate and possibly reassess her support for it.

Perhaps consider apologizing for her role as a GamerGate cheerleader.

No, of course not.

Instead she's doubling-down publishing (another) defense of GamerGate in Arc Digital.

And she's still defending Eron Gjoni. Young is a contributing editor for right-wing/libertarian Reason Magazine, and I thought libertarians were in favor of privacy rights.

But Cathy Young thinks it's perfectly OK for Eron Gjoni to tell the entire world about his relationship with his ex-girlfriend.

For instance: The ex who started it all, programmer Eron Gjoni, was a pro-social justice leftist who ostensibly intended his post on August 16, 2014 as a “call-out” about psychological abuse (as recently noted on Twitter by strongly anti-GamerGate video game journalist Ana Valens). He also published it with support from female, and feminist, friends. Gjoni accused Quinn, a prominent progressive activist in the video game community, of multiple infidelities and deceptions — with chat screenshots as corroboration — and charged that this conduct violated Quinn’s own professed ethical standards, under which a truly consensual relationship requires absolute honesty.

WHY is it Cathy Young's business what Zoe Quinn does in her personal life?

Young doesn't appear to think that what Gjoni did was unethical in the least, instead preferring to constantly harp on Quinn's ethics. This tweet is from less than a year ago, September 25, 2018.

If the genders were reversed it's unlikely that Cathy Young would be so cavalier about Gjoni's obscene invasion of privacy. It's truly instructive to compare Cathy Young's defense of Eron Gjoni, who did something clearly unethical and vicious, with Cathy Young's hatred of Kristen Roupenian because Roupenian committed the crime of writing a short story in which a fictional man is portrayed unflatteringly.

Is there any doubt that if a woman posted a screed against her ex-boyfriend, causing the ex-boyfriend to be the target of constant death threats, Young and the rest of the GameGate apologists would never stop using the phrase "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"? The rules are different for men.

This obvious double standard reveals the toxic, festering, internalized misogyny of Cathy Young, which is what Reason pays her for.

Imagine how much Cathy Young would hate Kristen Roupenian
if she had violated the privacy of a non-fictional person,
causing that person to receive death threats.

Cathy Young has already written many, many articles in defense of GamerGate, but I suppose her shamelessness would not rest until she did it again, in response to the NYTimes series on the topic. And Arc Digital apparently has nothing less done-to-death to publish.

The worst thing about the article is Young's shameless dishonesty in omitting the role she played, personally, in the promotion of GamerGate, neglecting to mention she was referred to by fans of GamerGate as "based auntie" (in contrast to their honorific for Christina Hoff Sommers of "based mom.")

Young mentions Milo Yiannopoulos in this latest GamerGate apologia:

There is strong evidence that as the alt-right began to gather steam in late 2015, Yiannopoulos tried to channel GamerGate — which he often tried to treat as his private army — in its direction. In January 2016, someone leaked chat logs in which pro-GamerGate blogger Ethan Ralph, who was close to Yiannopoulos, and several of his friends from /ggrevolt/ trashed GamerGate, agreed that the culture war needed to move on to the alt-right, and discussed plans to “reappropriate” GamerGate for the alt-right by purging liberals, who were mocked as “SJW-lite.” 

But Young doesn't mention that she appeared on a panel about Gamergate with Yianopoulos and Christina Hoff Sommers in 2015. Nor does she mention that in an article she wrote for Arc Digital in 2017 she said:

This is not to rehash GamerGate but to say that I still think Milo was basically on the right side of it.

I was alerted to Young's most recent defense of GamerGate by Matt Jameson on Twitter. He makes an interesting point about Young and Sommers being non-gamers and much older than the median gamer.

So why exactly did Cathy Young and Christina Hoff Sommers get involved in GamerGate?

My theory starts with Young's description of Yiannopoulos in this latest Arc Digital piece:

...some conservatives and critics of the social justice left were sympathetic. Breitbart, in particular, made GamerGate its pet cause, starting with a September 1, 2014 article by the soon-to-be-infamous Milo Yiannopoulos titled “Feminist Bullies Tearing the Video Game Industry Apart.” Yiannopoulos also championed GamerGate on Twitter; with his flashy bad-boy persona, he quickly became a hero to many in the movement, even those who otherwise had no affection for Breitbart’s politics.

It was catnip to catty persons. After all, hating women in general, and feminists in particular is why the Kochs and other right-wingers support the careers of women like Cathy Young and Christina Hoff Sommers. GamerGate was a chance for them to level their careers of hating feminists up to notoriety, glamour and relevance thanks to Yiannopoulos and his "flashy bad-boy persona."

To get a sense of what GamerGate and Eron Gjoni are really about, you can't depend on the self-interested, dishonest portrayal by Cathy Young in an op-ed rag like Arc Digital. I recommend Boston Magazine's Game of Fear - the Story Behind GamerGate by Zachary Jason - a better publication than Arc Digital and a better writer than Cathy Young. An excerpt:

Gjoni, a software engineer, had set out to construct a machine to destroy his ex. Every written word Quinn had ever entrusted with him—all of her flirtations, anxieties, professional grudges, and confessions about her family and sex life—would serve as his iron and ore. He scoured their entire text and email history, archiving and organizing Quinn’s private information on his laptop and cell phone. Then he typed it all in black and white—minus, of course, the tones in their voices, their laughter and tears, and any context whatsoever. 

Of course, Gjoni could have just deleted the document, along with Quinn’s phone number and email address, and tried to woo one of the millions of other women on OkCupid or joined any of the roughly 5,000 other dating sites. He could have posted his thoughts on a blog and omitted her name. After several days, though, Gjoni decided to go through with it—after all, he was protected by the First Amendment, right? Gjoni has sometimes claimed that he simply wanted to warn people about his ex-girlfriend. But over the course of several months, he described to me how he painstakingly crafted “The Zoe Post,” a post that detonated with ruthless force and efficiency, for maximum pain and harm. 

From the start, it seems, Gjoni wanted to make certain that his blog about Quinn would connect with a large base of people in the gaming community, some of whom he already knew were passionately predisposed to attacking women in the industry. 

As Gjoni began to craft “The Zoe Post,” his early drafts read like a “really boring, really depressing legal document,” he says. He didn’t want to merely prove his case; it had to read like a potboiler. So he deliberately punched up the narrative in the voice of a bitter ex-boyfriend, organizing it into seven acts with dramatic titles like “Damage Control” and “The Cum Collage May Not Be Accurate.” He ended sections on cliffhangers, and wove in video-game analogies to grab the attention of Quinn’s industry colleagues. He was keenly aware of attracting an impressionable readership. “If I can target people who are in the mood to read stories about exes and horrible breakups,” he says now, “I will have an audience.” 

One of the keys to how Gjoni justified the cruelty of “The Zoe Post” to its intended audience was his claim that Quinn slept with five men during and after their brief romance. In retrospect, he thinks one of his most amusing ideas was to paste the Five Guys restaurant logo into his screed: “Now I can’t stop mentally referring to her as Burgers and Fries,” he wrote. By the time he released the post into the wild, he figured the odds of Quinn’s being harassed were 80 percent. 

As he wrote, Gjoni kept pressing Quinn for information. About a week after their final breakup in San Francisco, Quinn finally stopped responding to Gjoni’s barrage of texts, Facebook messages, emails, and calls. He interpreted this not as a surrender or a retreat from his unwanted advances but instead, paradoxically, as a kind of attack. As he wrote at the time and later posted online, “GOD FUCKING DAMN IT. SHE’S AVOIDED ME EVER SINCE THIS CONVERSATION BECAUSE SHE IS PARANOID I MIGHT GO PUBLIC.” From this circular reasoning emerged a twisted justification: By withholding information, Quinn was somehow forcing Gjoni to “go public.” Eventually, Gjoni would come to see himself as the victim. “I was panicking at the thought of not publishing [‘The Zoe Post’],” he told me. “I didn’t care what the outcome was for Zoe.”

Cathy Young, who still seems to admire Eron Gjoni for what he did, in a rare act of legitimate journalism, and after the Boston Magazine article was published, got Gjoni to admit he would do it again:

Cathy Young: Let’s say that tomorrow someone comes to you with a time machine and you can go back to August 2014 and decide whether or not to do it all over again. Would you do it, and would you do anything differently? 

Eron Gjoni: It would be harder to do it. I would still do it, but it’s like—oh, this is going to suck. (Laughs) I suppose I’d take out the “burgers and fries” joke. I wasn’t sure about it, but people who were looking it over at the time said it was too funny to take out [and] like, “All right, I’ll trust you on it.”

I just hope that Gjoni never publishes a work of short fiction which presents a non-existent man in an unflattering light. Cathy Young might call it quits after that.

Sam Seder v IDW

Sam Seder's channel is really good at keeping tabs on the more outrageous and media-centric members of the Intellectual Dark Web:

• Mike Cernovich
• Alex Jones
• Charlie Kirk
• Candace Owens
• Jordan Peterson
• Joe Rogan
• Ben Shapiro
• Milo Yiannopoulos

and of course Dave Rubin who has a feud going on with Seder.

Areo Magazine, Quillette's slightly more subtle twin sister

Areo Magazine is basically Quillette light. 

Its articles are not as relentlessly full of anti-21st century grievance as Quillette's but that's not a high bar.

Meanwhile it has much in common with Quillette.


1. Areo is a sausage party
At recent glance Quillette's front page bylines consisted of 24 men and six women. Looking at Areo Magazine this is the gender breakdown on the front page without clicking the "Load More" button at the bottom. The count is 26 men, three women, and of the three, two of them are Areo's editors.

1. Gabriel Andrade
2. Mitchell Blatt
3. Kevin Butterhof
4. Logan Chipkin
5. Jonathan Church
6. Martin Countach
7. Allen Farrington
8. Norbert Francis
9. Shane Fraser
10. William Garcia
11. Megan Gafford
12. Iona Italia
13. Matt Johnson
14. Ahnaf Kalam
15. James Kierstead
16. Cody Kommers
17. James A. Lindsay
18. Matthew McManus
19. Helen Pluckrose
20. C. K. Ryan
21. Chris Sabaitis
22. George Schifini
23. Pavio Shopin
24. Wael Taji
25. Phillip Theofanos
26. M. "Lorenzo" Warby
27. Galen Watts
28. Blake Winter
29. John Wood, Jr.

2. Areo publishes many of the same authors as Quillette

Of those listed above, Jonathan Church, Allen Farrington, Matt Johnson, James Kierstead, Matthew McManus, Chris Sabaitis, George Schifini, Wael Taji, Galen Watts and John Wood, Jr. - that's ten, have bylines in Quillette. In his byline C. K. Ryan (a pseudonym) claims to be published in Quillette although I was unable to find it. And then there are the race science proponents published in both: Razib Khan, Bo Winegard, Ben Winegard. There are almost certainly others.

3. Helen Pluckrose is a long-time member of the Quillette crowd

• When Helen Pluckrose and her pals hoaxed gender studies publications, it was relentlessly publicized in Quillette. 
• Pluckrose was part of the James Damore Memorial Freespeech Grifter Circus along with Quillette regular Andy Ngo and Christina Hoff Sommers, so memorably recounted by GQ.
• Pluckrose and right-wing professional misogynist Sommers have a long-time mutual-admiration society.

4. Areo loves the "Intellectual Dark Web"

When Sam Harris and Ezra Klein debated, Areo took Harris's side - and in fact seems to have a real antagonism towards Klein. It often defends Charles Murray and even Milo Yiannopoulos. It adores Steven Pinker - although most of the media does, after all, as Pinker will be the first to tell you even though he blames the media in part for the radicalizing the alt-right. They admire Jordan Peterson, although not quite as much as Quillette. 

5. Areo supports Evolutionary Psychology 100%

On searching through its archives, not a single article that mentions EP criticizes it. Rather the opposite, in articles like Gad Saad on Hysteria and “Collective Munchausen” around Donald Trump, Speaking Out as an Academic, and Evolutionary Psychology 101.

6. Areo also attacks Green Energy & Promotes Nuclear Energy

• Areo: Environmental Legislation for Humanity
• Quillette: Why Renewables Can't Save the Planet

Quillette and Areo have differences, but they are fundamentally more alike than different. And I would not be at all surprised to discover they have many of the same funders.

Michael Shermer is possibly the sleaziest member of the Intellectual Dark Web

And that's saying a lot considering that the Intellectual Dark Web, per the canonical Bari Weiss article in the NYTimes, includes Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike "Pizzagate" Cernovich.

Here we see Shermer hawking the absolute garbage right-wing swill written by sleazy Quillette author Terry Newman. The one that smeared me personally while joining the mobbing of a Canadian academic by the Quillette/Intellectual Dark Web/Rebel Media gang.



Because of course he would.

Here he is praising "racist alt-right" Stefan Molyneux.

Lest you think that Michael Shermer's sleaze is only about promoting crappy websites or alt-right racists, he's also made a name for himself as a creep in "New Atheist" circles:

“Shermer has been a bad boy on occasion — I do know that,” Randi told me. “I have told him that if I get many more complaints from people I have reason to believe, that I am going to have to limit his attendance at the conference.
“His reply,” Randi continued, “is he had a bit too much to drink and he doesn’t remember. I don’t know — I’ve never been drunk in my life. It’s an unfortunate thing … I haven’t seen him doing that. But I get the word from people in the organization that he has to be under better control. If he had gotten violent, I’d have him out of there immediately. I’ve just heard that he misbehaved himself with the women, which I guess is what men do when they are drunk.”

So now he's on Twitter bragging that he's going to write a piece about the trumped-up "witch-hunt" invented by the Quillette/IDW/Rebel Media gang that will apparently be an even bigger load of bullshit, enough to make heads explode.

I think the Canadian academic targeted by the Q/I/R has dealt with enough so I don't wish Shermer to go after her again - but Pinkerite is ready to address any and all lies and smears that Shermer may publish.

Trump aligns with the Intellectual Dark Web

Jerry Coyne was all ready to jump on the New Yorker article about the Southern Poverty Law Center but somehow missed the New Yorker article that demonstrates Trump's alignment with the Intellectual Dark Web as well as the free speech grifters called Trump’s Free-Speech Executive Order and the Right’s Fixation on Campus Politics.

Exactly a year ago, at a forum for millennial Republicans at the White House, President Trump was asked by Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative youth group Turning Point USA, what he made of recent controversies involving the free-speech rights of conservatives on college campuses. “You go to the real campuses, and you go all over the country, you go out to the Middle West, you go out even to the coast in many cases, we have tremendous support,” he replied breezily, brushing off the purported crisis.“I would say we have majority support. I think it’s highly overblown. Highly overblown.” 

He has since been better at sticking to the script. In a White House ceremony on Thursday afternoon, Trump signed an executive order barring colleges that are deemed unduly restrictive of free speech from receiving federal funds—a move that was previewed in the President’s speech to this year’s cpac conference, earlier this month, and in a tweet that he posted in early 2017, in response to protests that had broken out at U.C. Berkeley over a scheduled appearance by the right-wing agitator Milo Yiannopoulos: “If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - no federal funds?”

You better believe Quillette immediately jumped in to praise Trump.

It will be interesting to see if the Trump administration takes a reactive or a proactive approach to restricting funding, warning offending colleges of their intent to strip funding unless something changes. Either way, the Executive Order is a step in the right direction. The requirement that colleges adhere to a transparent speech code which protects academic debate in return for federal dollars is both reasonable and measured. It empowers the Federal Government to be better stewards of public funds, while upholding the rights of its student citizens.

Funny how the American Enterprise Institute, like Charlie Kirk, also changed its mind - from the New Yorker article:

In October, 2017, the American Enterprise Institute published a report recommending that federal funding for schools thought to be insufficiently protective of free speech be withheld either by legislation, at the discretion of grant-making agencies, or, as Trump has now done, by executive action. Interestingly, just months earlier, A.E.I. had issued another report, based on survey data, that challenged the panic over free speech and expression on campuses. “Recent protests against speakers at different colleges have raised questions about free speech on campus, with some critics characterizing universities as increasingly intolerant,” the report’s summary read. “Polls of college students and young people show little evidence of such a trend, although responses differ depending on the nature of the speech in question.”

And as the article points out, this free speech tactic has long been a favorite of the right:

The right’s fixation on campus politics has never had much to do with realities on the ground, of course. William F. Buckley’s jeremiad against the power and influence of leftists in the academy, “God and Man at Yale,” was published in 1951, a time when leftists were being hounded out of their jobs at American universities and elsewhere by a Second Red Scare. The victimization narrative has changed little since then, even as the conservative movement has come to wield an extraordinary amount of power in American politics and life—so much so that they’ve managed to enlist a President of the United States as an ally in their undergraduate squabbles.

So of course the IDW and Quillette are doing it too - because Quillette also leans right, per the web site AllSides. Even though Claire Lehmann claims it's centrist.

In an interview, Quillette founder Claire Lehmann told The Australian that her publication is "independent, not polemical, not writing on behalf of vested interests and reasonably centrist." 

Jerry Coyne on the SPLC

Christina Hoff Sommers gloating about SPLC

Steven Pinker fanboy Jerry Coyne wonders whether the Southern Poverty Law Center is going to die.

The SPLC has not been shy about criticizing members of the IDW - Coyne mentions two of them in his piece, Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, married to rightwing political operative and sometime economist Niall Ferguson.

SPLC has also made unflattering mentions of other IDWers including Sam Harris, Christina Hoff Sommers, Stefan Molyneux, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson,  Milo Yiannopoulos - in fact it looks like Steven Pinker might be the only IDW who isn't mentioned in a negative way by the SPLC.

So of course the IDW bitterly hates this venerable organization devoted to fighting racism and sexism.

Coyne cites a recent New Yorker article about SPLC which details its organizational dysfunctions.

Having worked for a variety of organizations over my career, from huge corporations to tiny start-ups to non-profits to government agencies to food co-ops, it doesn't sound all that remarkably bad. It's an organization run by fallible human beings. An organization that is currently cleaning house, which is exactly what it should do.

Coyne writes:

Author Bob Moser worked for a while at the SPLC, and observed some of its dysfunctional culture before leaving. In fact, the racism and sexism was a standing joke at the operation

Then he quotes from the New Yorker piece.

It's hypocritical that he should be so concerned about racism and sexism at the Southern Poverty Law Center when Quillette, which he has praised and which Pinker has written for, is devoted to racism and sexism - carefully couched as science, of course. Utterly crappy science, but the right-wingers who look to Quillette as a shining beacon for their beliefs aren't too picky about the science - it's good enough for them that someone is comforting them: oh no, you and James Damore and Bo Winegard aren't racists and sexists! You're just pro-science!

Quillette's author line-up has long been a sausage party, and looking at every byline currently listed on Quillette today, it still is. I count 31 names of which 6 are women, one of them is Quillette's founder.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Jerry Coyne to complain about that.

1. Mallen Baker
2. Jaspreet Sigh Boparai
3. Tomas Borgardus
4. Spencer Case
5. Jonathan Church
6. Lauren Cooley
7. Libby Emmons
8. Jeffrey S Flier
9. Daniel Friedman
10. Raphael Tsavkko Garcia
11. Blake J. Harris
12. Cameron Hendy
13. Coleman Hughes
14. David G. Hughes
15. Max Hyams
16. Jonathan Kay
17. Claire Lehmann
18. Matt McManus
19. Kathrine Jenson Moore
20. Paulina Neuding 
21. Clay Routledge
22. Steve Salerno
23. Gideo Scopes
24. Zachary Snowdon Smith
25. Debra Soh
26. Bradford Tuckfield
27. Graham Verdon
28. Russel T. Warne
29. Mark S Weiner
30. Bo Winegard
31. Jacob Willer

A major problem with SPLC, it appears to me, is that it's been run for too long by aging white men with 20th-century mindsets. Much like the New Atheists where Sam Harris, at age 51 is the spring chicken.

Meanwhile Donald Trump is aligning with the IDW. There's even an article in the New Yorker about it and Quillette is celebrating it but for some reason it has avoided Coyne's notice.