I guess I’m not the only one who noticed the blatant ironies of The Intellectual Dark Web
. So did Nathan Robinson.
Weiss says that “offline and in the real world, members of the I.D.W. are often found speaking to one another in packed venues around the globe,” such as the O2 Arena, where they dare to say “That Which Cannot Be Said,” offering “taboo” thoughts like “There are fundamental biological differences between men and women. Free speech is under siege. Identity politics is a toxic ideology that is tearing American society apart.” (Gosh, perhaps it’s just the fringe conservative circles I move in, but I seem to hear that stuff constantly!)
Well, are they right? Are they being “purged” as part of a “siege” on free speech by the illiberal left? It’s interesting that Weiss chooses to use the formulation “feeling locked out of legacy outlets,” since I seem to remember a great philosopher once saying that Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings. These people may feel as if they are persecuted renegades, suppressed at every turn by Postmodern Neo-Marxists. But there are a lot of facts to say otherwise.
First, even from the evidence in Weiss’ article, we can see that freely speaking about the “siege on free speech” is impressively lucrative. Dave Rubin’s show “makes at least $30,000 a month on Patreon” while Jordan Peterson “pulls in some $80,000 in fan donations each month” and recently released a bestseller. Ben Shapiro gets 15 million downloads a month and has published five books, Sam Harris gets a million listeners per episode and has published seven books. Though Joe Rogan insists “he’s not an interviewer or a journalist” (I wouldn’t disagree) his three-hour podcast conversations are among the most downloaded in the world. These dissident “intellectuals” each seem to make about as much money in a month, with far larger audiences, than is made annually by the critical race theorists and gender studies professors they think are keeping them from being heard.
I guess we can put all of them soundly in the conservative camp, since they meet the two main diagnostic criteria: they make money off their persecution complex, and they’re all flailingly hypocritical.
Won’t somebody please think of the poor status quo?!?!
Jesus Christ, who are these people? I’d be thrilled with a fraction of that a year.
@Caine:
yeah, 35k/year Canadian would work for me, take home about 25k, spend 12k on housing, 13 k left over for family food, + personal transportation (Ms Crip Dyke has a car for family needs, I just need a bus pass) & various other things, not including kids clothes and summer camps and some other things traditionally covered by MsCD. That’s assuming that she continues to pull in money from her professional work that can cover some of the things for the kids that my hypothetical 35k wouldn’t. 65-70k Canadian total would work for the whole family, and that’s only because we live in the super-expensive Lower Mainland. In most of the country 40-50 would be more than fine.
Really makes you think about developing a persecution complex, doesn’t it.
okay. It doesn’t.
$80,000 per month for being a fascist pseudo-intellectual?
Speaking as a member of the single-adult-making-less-than-$30,000-a-year demographic, may I say that it’s official: There is no fucking justice in this universe. None. Not a particle of it.
I plan to start a podcast for lions who feel oppressed by wounded and infirm antelopes, old and disabled water buffalo, and the like. It’s high time those vicious attacks on innocent lions end. I know I’m not being “politically correct” and I’m probably triggering flight responses, but I just think lions need their pride back.
davidnangle @ 5
Where’s your Paetreon page?
IDW should be renamed WRS (Whiny Rightwing Snowflakes)
Yet another opportunity to remind people that Jordan Petersen, self-proclaimed champion of free speech for unpopular views, has repeatedly called for the dismantling of entire humanities departments at universities because he doesn’t like what they teach.
The WRS seem to a have a real problem with not being able to provide microaggressions against peoples who have be historically discriminated against. One wonders why they are so scared of treating ALL humans equally?
My theory is that they know they can’t compete…..
@David Nagle:
Well played, good gentleperson. Well played.
“Mane Justice.”
Sounds strangely similar to how the poor, beleaguered oil companies are struggling to tell the truth in the face of the monolith that is “climate science”, which grows fat at the teat of government research grants.
(I’m being sarcastic, in case that isn’t clear.)
I’ve been known to fail to see the fun, Colin J, but even I got that one.
davidnangle wrote:
Hey, don’t forget to promote the nutropic products:
The funny thing with Rogan is that, while he has a sort of libertarian tilt, his guests cover a more broad range than you would think at first glance. This is especially true if you find his stuff on youtube. There the general dominance of right wingers and anti-feminists etc means that any clip of his you watch will immediately prompt the algorithm as to what sort of stuff you’ll like (according to youtube) and feed you all of Rogan’s clips with ..the rest of the rather brightly lit “Intellectual Dark Web” as well as their own stuff.
I think this does at least tell you something about Rogan’s fans.
I agree with some of these “thinkers” that there is no evidence for the supernatural god theory, and that liberal, constitutional democracies with separation of powers and separation of church and state are a superior form of government. But that’s pretty much it.
Sonja that is known as “damning with faint praise”. Good shot.
@11 SC (Salty Current)
I think you’ll find that’s the Manes Rights Movement.
Why, the logical end-point of a society that voluntarily chooses to reward vice and punish virtue absolutely every single fucking time, of course.
And at Forward
https://forward.com/opinion/400698/no-dark-web-intellectuals-like-sam-harris-and-jordan-peterson-are-not/
Further snark from the inimitable Roy Edroso (who you should all be reading anyway) – Harry Peterson and the Intamalectual Dork Web:
@11 Manes going their own way?
Aren’t there “fundamental biological differences between” any two people, even identical twins?
Jerry Coyne has critiqued your posts on this topic (at the bottom of this post).
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2018/05/10/criticisms-mine-and-others-of-bari-weisss-intellectual-dark-web-piece/
Looking at that list of things the members of the “Intellectual Dark Web”* so bravely utter in the face of supposedly violent retort, I can’t help but remember Intelligent Design and it’s proponent’s insistence that their ideas were the hot freshness of science and not just the warmed-over moldy rot of rank creationism.
* And it must be the Dark Web because how else are we to know it’s edgy and dangerous?
I vote we call them the “Intellectually Dim Web,” as Pierce Butler suggested yesterday.
ghee I thought the dark web was where you could find child pornography, illegal drugs, human trafficking,terrorist cells and all the personal data you would need for identity theft.
never thought it was the place to find “the intellectual elites” and thought leaders too
uncle frogy
Michael@24,
Why the fuck should anyone care what Coyne spews?
@28 Aside from his readers, perhaps PZ or someone else would like to respond? Personally I enjoy reading both, evaluating their arguments, and deciding for myself who makes better points.
I actually read the Coyne post. He had one good point about PZ: the group wasn’t self-appointed, or at least the members weren’t self-appointed to this particular group. Coyne criticized the title as misleading and I think he’s right on that one.
The rest was either not worth anything or actually counterproductive and/or ignorant. He actually said that Alice Dreger had been criticized for discussing people with “non-binary sexuality”, which of course is ridiculous. She doesn’t study sexuality and doesn’t really talk much about it. She researches the treatment of people with non-binary biological sex (not sexuality) and the comments for which she’s received the most criticism were statements about gender and the medical treatments available for gender dysphoria.
I really would have expected a biologist to know the fucking difference between reproductive body parts and sexual behavior though. That seems pretty fucking big.
@30 Regarding his point #2, I’m not familiar with all of the people listed, but I have met Bret Weinstein, and I’m not sure why he would be categorized as an a**hole. Then there is the hypocritical comment of point #5.
I was a regular over at Why Evolution Is True until about 3-4 years ago when he really got up on his high horse with the “Regressive Left” crap. Good riddance. Those in this whole crowd (Harris et. al.) fancy themselves so smart and insightful. Reminds me of a great Sherlock Holmes quote: “Never theorize before you have data. Invariably, you end up twisting facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts”.