Talk:Intellectual Dark Web

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Gateway to alt-right radicalization

No. Just no. Marijuana is not a gateway drug, violence in movies does not cause violence in real life, video games do not create misogyny (although some misogynists play video games), etc. This "gateway" mime usually turns out to be bullshit. Ariel31459 (talk) 02:31, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Here is a study that strongly demonstrates that "alt-lite" content radicalizes people into becoming alt-right. The theory is that as they get "red pilled" they seek out more controversial content. Youtube recommendation algorithms cause them to switch from Steven Pinker, Sam Harris or Dave Rubin to also watching much more far-right channels like Stefan Molyneux, Steven Crower, or Milo. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/youtube-far-right-radicalization-study-877061/

Here is a specific man who testified that Sam Harris who is now part of the intellectual dark web caused him to become alt-right. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/28/alt-right-online-poison-racist-bigot-sam-harris-milo-yiannopoulos-islamophobia --Hitchensiniraq (talk) 02:38, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

In my view we are a science based wiki. Neither alt-right nor alt lite groupings are coherent categories. They are at best political designations. But, unfortunately, this is the kind of politics that could change at the drop of a hat. "Youtube recommendation algorithms cause them to switch from Steven Pinker, Sam Harris or Dave Rubin to also watching much more far-right channels like Stefan Molyneux, Steven Crower, or Milo. " Did it occur to you that it is the Youtube algorithms that induce the so-called evidence for this alleged transition? This is not what I would call scientific. This is what I would call "not even wrong."Ariel31459 (talk) 21:08, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ariel31459 That's a dumb argument. Rubin and Harris host far-right guests and don't really push back on any of their more egregious clams, while Pinker seems to have taken up the habit of ignoring the problem altogether and habitually using the balance fallacy. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:15, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@GrammarCommie Really GC, you know better than that. You say I made a dumb claim, then provided no evidence. For the second claim (which is independent of the first one) The fact that some people choose to interview those on the right is evidence only that they are not on the part of the left intolerant of such opinion. I don't have to like it to listen to it. Did you see the post about Ed West? A conservative critical of small-minded conservatives. I think that guy is interesting. Ariel31459 (talk) 21:21, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ariel31459 I am unable to provide sources due to my bandwith being limited at the moment. (Someone is currently livestreaming a video chat.) Secondly, that is a bullshit talking point. I can link to a interview channel of a left wing persuasion. And pointing out that someone plays softball with far-right guests and tries to play hardball with anyone with a more nuanced or more center or left-wing perspective is absolutely connected to their credibility. Your unwillingness to put such basic connections together and use of talking points meant to obfuscate worries me. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 21:33, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@GrammarCommie "Playing softball" is a nice metaphor. However, I am not interested in poetry. I am interested in your opinions about ideas, but I am not interested in your opinions about me. Your opinions in this matter appear to be based more on intuition than facts. Kindly keep that in mind.Ariel31459 (talk) 22:00, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ariel31459 Don't play semantics. I used a phrase that reffers to giving easy questions durring an interview, one you could easily look up if you were confused. I explained why I cannot give my evidence at this time and you have the fucking gall to insinuate I'm making this stuff up?!!? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!!?! I FUCKING EXPRESS CONCERN FOR YOU SWALLOWING FUCKING TALKING POINTS, WHICH YOU CAN FUCKING VERIFY VIA THIS FUCKING SITE AND YOU HAVE THE FUCKING NERVE TO IMPLY I'M BEING DISHOESST!!?!?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!?!? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 23:04, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Calm down. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 23:48, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm calmer now and apologize for losing my temper. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 23:53, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Sure thing. Please try to reinstate your points but with a cooler head. I think your points will come off more clearly as a result, and Ariel will be more receptive to you rather than play defensive or stop engaging. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 00:04, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

GC is wrong to suppose I question his honesty. I question the narrative under current consideration. GC speaks of "talking points" as if my words and ideas are not my own. I find that perplexing. If the gang wants to maintain a spurious conspiracy theory, I can tolerate it.Ariel31459 (talk) 00:10, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ariel31459 Ariel. Firstly, I request an apology from you, given you have accused me, without evidence, of subscribing to a conspiracy theory. That is a form of poisoning the well, as well as an ad hominem attack. Nextly, I will point out that you are indeed using talking points. "The fact that some people choose to interview those on the right is evidence only that they are not on the part of the left intolerant of such opinion." Is a variation of the "Leftists are just afraid of/too dishonest to/ won't debate." This is a falsehood. The idea that Rubin is not at least right-of-center is also a falsehood. The idea that his interviews aren't supposed to launder the reputations of people like Molyneux, Crowder, Milo, Peterson, Tommy Robinson, and others is not only demonstrably false but also an open secret on his among his own viewers. Finally, and I'll just point this out, you told me that "Your opinions in this matter appear to be based more on intuition than facts. Kindly keep that in mind." After I told you that my bandwidth was not in a place where I could cite videos proving my case. You insinuated that I was lying, whether you intended to or not. I require an apology for such an attack on someone who has repeatedly engaged with you in good faith both now and in the past and sought only to correct errors on your part. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 01:11, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

My citations for Rubin being a misleading interviewer and "gateway to the alt-right" would be the study you dispute, as well as a series of three video essays. Part 1, part 2, and part 3 For Leftists engaging in interviews, I have David Pakman interviewing Milo (Pre-alt-right, durring gamergate) Note the difference in how Pakman frames questions, fact checks his guest, and informs his audience. Note how Rubin basically just passively endorses all of his far-right guests and pushes back on anyone who doesn't follow his "the left has turned into insane SJWs" trope. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 01:11, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

P.S. I was originally intending to include an interview Pakman did with Richard Spencer, but I was unable to find it from the original channel and did not want to use a third party channel in case said thrid party had edited it. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 01:33, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I've not really come to a conclusion about this. The evidence is not as good as it should be, a single non-peer reviewed paper from arXiv. Nonetheless, the paper did examine the recommendation algorithm of YouTube with regard to the IDW, and that is at least a plausible explanation for a 'gateway' process, what the authors call a "radicalization pipeline". I don't see how problems with the gateway drug theory make all analogous hypotheses invalid. Bongolian (talk) 00:13, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

"Alt-Right" is a designation primarily functioning as a political shibboleth on the left. They are basically KKK with iphones. "Alt-lite" is in incoherent category, a product of the reification fallacy: people who could jump right at any time. Why not start with a definition of "radicalization pipeline" and deal with the confirmation bias problem of google pushing alt-right recommendations to viewers of this set of youtubers?Ariel31459 (talk) 00:34, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ariel31459 If you or anyone else wants to add better caveats about the arXiv study into the main body of this page, I think it would be an improvement. The 1-person anonymous anecdote cited by Hitchensiniraq above doesn't really amount to anything. I agree that alt-lite is ill-defined, probably just a self-description cover for Nazis. As I've noted on the alt-right page, the term alt-right is just a euphemism for Nazis. Bongolian (talk) 06:57, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

@Bongolian I have a general idea now why the paper is not peer reviewed. I don't want to get involved in anything like defending the moral integrity of anyone involved in the Altright, Altlite, or even the IDW, but especially the Altright and the Altlite. Criticizing the cited paper is not the same as defending Eric Weinstein's construct of the IDW. As a matter of fact, the paper while acknowledging that concept by referring to the NY Times article, defines the IDW members through subjective methods conflating it with a wider group of channels the authors have determined to be IDW. What is the criterion? Don't know. The paper states that two of the authors were tasked with deciding what seemed altlite and what seemed IDW by watching videos. Maybe it'll be fine.

Individuals are conflated with omnibus channels such as Joe Rogan's. These omnibus channels interview anybody who can get a click or are right-wingish, excepting white supremacists, including persons found in the altlite. The top 3 IDW omnibus channels given in the paper are Joe Rogan's (1 & 2) and Prager University (not in Weinstein's IDW). Of the top 16 IDW channels mentioned in the paper, those three channels provided about two thirds of the individual views used as data. Of the 16 listed IDW channels, six are associated with Weinstein's IDW: Joe Rogan (3 channels), Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson. Whatever this paper really proves about radicalization cannot be directly applied to the names associated with the Weinstein IDW named in the Bari Weiss article.The paper's main author, Manoel Horta Ribeiro states in a posted commentary "the paper uses aggregated data, and thus it is tricky to say (insert member of the I.D.W. here) is radicalizing people." So there's that. The paper states that the clicking or migrating onto far-right channels (and commenting) is assumed to be a proxy for radicalization. I confess that I have often clicked on far-right channels only to troll the hell out of them. Does that count? Don't know.

Manoel Horta Ribeiro also said, "Another thing that the paper does not say is that the recommender system IS NOT responsible" [for the pipeline effect]. Thus, the Google algorithms might be creating the so-called radicalization pipeline. Is that important? Don't know. Incidentally he calls the Media group "the Control group" in this post, while the paper never makes such a claim saying only," We use these media channels as a sanity check to capture general trends among more mainstream YouTube channel". Also, "These [media channels] were obtained from the mediabiasfactcheck.com." Using the studies own criterion, 3 were unbiased, representing about 10% of the Media views data. The rest are left or left-leaning in bias. The author's post claims that bias doesn't matter in a control group. Maybe it'll be fine. Ariel31459 (talk) 19:17, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Just want to point out that Rogan also has hosted Gavin McInnes, so the claim on "not hosting white supremacists" doesn't really hold water. The real issue with those omnibus channels has to do with the YouTube algorithm. If you watch a Rogan podcast on YouTube, say while playing a video game or doing something else, and the autoplay next pushes a video where Rogan interviews McInnes, the YouTube algorithm tends to put McInnes's content next in the queue (point directly cribbed from Endnote 4 of the alt-right playbook from Innuendo Studios and in greater context from How to radicalize a normie in the same series). The engagement from "questionable podcaster who hosts anyone and everything" to "alt-right members" mostly comes from that. They're not outright alt-right, that's a more specific subsection, but they make use of the audience overlap between those channels, YouTube's autoplay algorithm and occasionally switching co-hosts and guests to draw people in. In that regard, they are, at the edges perhaps even unintentionally, gateways into the alt-right. The Crow (talk) 22:42, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes. However Bernie Sanders was on Rogan's show. What does that mean? Don't know. There are sixty IDW channels in the study. Most of them are not Weinstein IDW people. Anyway, I would agree that the algorithms may transport omnibus viewers to altright channels. The radicalization narrative is a pro forma assumption. The problem is associating IDW content with those channels. The authors are in the position of Christian apologists who believe they have found a proof of God's existence. Now, as Hitchens has said, all their work is still before them.There is a narrative of association between the Weinstein IDW and altright that can only be hinted at. The paper remarks, from its conclusion, " Our work resonates with the narrative that there is a radicalization pipeline." Sounds well enough until you realize "to resonate with a narrative" is not a phrase found in any glossary of statistical studies: "It is an immediate and unquestioned feeling that requires no further explanation." Statistics requires explanations. But maybe it's fine.Ariel31459 (talk) 23:48, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh dear, and Jeffrey Dharmer bought a pair of yellow contact lenses so that he could impersonate Emperor Palpatine whilst murdering his victims; I suppose this means Star Wars turns people into serial killers. To say nothing of what happened to John F. Kennedy and John Lennon. Those men had families, Salinger, you monster! --Let Them Eat Cake (talk) 16:43, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Alt Right

There is too much discussion of this as a concept in the article, which is ideological and not scientific. In reality, the figures comprising the intellectual dark web have a variety of different views crossing the political spectrum and most of them can't neatly be considered "right-wingers" in any objective sense. This is a problem with entire page and needs to be cleaned up so that it's more factual and less ideological. ^{— Unsigned, by: Einlanzer / talk / contribs}

You're deluding yourself if you don't understand why most of these people are on various stripes of the right wing (alt-lite, alt-right, libertarian, conservative). For the most part, we've already documented this on the people's individual pages, which are linked from this page. "Dissident", the term that you want to use is vague in itself, but usually connotes someone who is excluded from the national power structure and is politiclaly outpoken. Being a member of the American Enterprise Institute, such as Sommers, e.g. does not qualify oneself as a dissident but rather as a pawn of billionaires. Bongolian (talk) 18:01, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@Bongolian I think you will find that most of these people's individual pages are adorned with social justice type criticisms as well as ostensibly justified complaints for eccentric behavior, not anything associated with right-wing politics. I think Shapiro stands out as clearly on the traditional conservative right. Oddball ideas are not a characteristic of the right alone. For example, on Eric Weinstein's page there is an account of EW supposing his brother was in line to win a Nobel Prize. Speaking out of ignorance (and journalists often do so with respect to science), this is not a scorn-worthy idea in itself. Maybe his brother is a pretty smart guy. If ones object is to ridicule out of a sense of impuissant rage, this is the kind of thing I would expect to see. Then there are Michael Shermer and Steven Pinker. What stripe of the right do they fall in line with? An association with the IDW? That'll do it I guess. If this article is supposed to belong to the left-pole point of view I guess it'll be fine.Ariel31459 (talk) 23:37, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Given how society is currently quite unjust, and given how the types that seem to originate anti-social justice positions tend to be reactionaries and bigots, it seem to me that treating the matter as "Bigots are bad but also the people who are outspoken in their opposition to bigotry are also bad" "both sides" approach only really serves one group. Hint, it's the bigots. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:00, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

The largest part of any polity is usually the middle section, neither left nor right in overall character. You and I, as I see it, occupy a tiny part of the left. The rest are bigoted? Maybe. Bigotry is a human characteristic. I wouldn't expect it to disappear. But in general, disagreeableness is not bigotry. The bigot is both unsympathetic and unwilling to listen. This is not typical of liberal intellectuals who may not be progressives.Ariel31459 (talk) 00:28, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Always taking the middle ground in a shifting landscape means supporting the default victor, it also means having jack all in the way of any real positions. It's also a fallacy. I personally hold the neutral position until one side convinces me it is correct, that is, that it has met it's burden of proof. The IDW is center-right laundering of right-wing proper positions, most of them garbage. It's the effort to move the Overton Window hard right, and to normalize things such as but not limited to, Fascism, ethno-nationalism, eugenics, "race realism", authoritarianism, etc. This is mainly why I get annoyed at you Ariel. You act like those attempts don't exist, as if it's just a far off fringe and not something that could actually happen. In SJ Jargon, you have privilege blindness, a narrowness of worldview clouded by not examining things from the perspective of the disadvantaged. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:54, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Yours is an understandable complaint, though based on a fallacy. There is no such thing as one side that is correct about everything because there is no such thing as one distinct side. We are all sorts of different people with many similarities of thought, but with some divergences also. " Fascism, ethno-nationalism, eugenics, "race realism", authoritarianism, etc." are all ideas typically rejected by intellectuals of most stripes, but certainly the liberal ones. That's what liberalism really is you know. Accepting that contrary moral opinion is a necessary reality. Some moderates hate the modern right. Others just accept it as a passing phase (which it probably is) That is one of the good results of Protestantism. " The IDW is center-right laundering of right-wing proper positions." It is if you say so. But then you would not be talking about Weinstein's concept of IDW. I don't get annoyed with you because you are wrong. I wouldn't say you have any ulterior motive for your position beyond a generally good intent. People who tell you you are wrong are not automatically right-wing unless that is how you see yourself. ^{— Unsigned, by: Ariel31459 / talk / contribs}

Is Fascism right or wrong? Is Creationism right or wrong? Is drinking bleach to cure cancer right or wrong? Out of all of these, which is the correct choice? By your argument, they're all valid, and we should waffle on about how we should try a little of each. Was it wrong for Hitler to order the Holocaust or was it right? Should he have half killed all of the Jews, or only killed half of the Jews? Quit waffling and commit to a fucking position! This isn't fucking rocket science. "People who tell you you are wrong are not automatically right-wing unless that is how you see yourself." That's not how political classifications work... Nazis do not call themselves Nazis anymore, but they are still Nazis. By this incredibly naive logic, all Nazis have to do is not make any overt racist statements and dress in nice suits and talk like academics. Oh wait... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 02:29, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

@GrammarCommie Is Catholicism Wrong? Mormonism? Presbyterianism? I rather think so myself, but I don't campaign against them as if there were some point in doing so. The enemies you seek are most often clustered in organized religion. Your ideas about Nazis are more like Cargo-cult science than anything else. This topic has nothing to do with Nazis. Godwin's Law is in effect. Nothing more can be said of any use here. If you want to talk about this come to my page.Ariel31459 (talk) 00:32, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ariel31459 Don't run off when the heat gets too high. I only took your view of approaching all situations with a per-concieved notion of a Golden Mean and showed you the ugly side of it. Religion is only one form of ignorance, and only one of its most blatant forms. As for my "ideas" on Nazis, it is yours that are horseshit. I fucking read up on this fucking subject, and yet you, who express disinterest and ignorance, even when challenged, has the gall to dismiss me as if I was some nitwit? Do you understand anything? Do you know the common themes of right-wing political thought? Its roots and origins? How about left-wing political thought? Or is the extent of your knowledge simply "USSR happened and it was scary"? Hmm? But hey, if you have the political knowledge of a five year old, maybe do run off. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 01:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@GrammarCommie It seems we disagree about the importance of Nazis. I don't really know what you think you know about Nazism. In my opinion many people on the left regard Nazism as a proxy for the devil. You may be an atheist but you seem a little like a scholastic humanist with your ideas about Nazis. It is as if the idea of fighting Nazis were a real thing in modern political life, rather than a form of wishful or even magical thinking. Let me tell you this: you don't argue with Nazis. Your expressions have no effect upon them or their continued existence. Neither does all of your talk against Nazis prevent the advance of terrible ideas. People who allow you the courtesy to express your moral or religious opinions are the least like Nazis among us in modern society. I don't consider you to be unintelligent. You are simply not correct in this matter. I would offer you some of the arguments from Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration but since I assume you have read it, I won't try your patience. Ariel31459 (talk) 03:09, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ariel31459 You didn't use any of my cited sources. You asked for sources and provided them and you didn't even watch them. We have nothing further to discuss I will consider all further conversations on this topic to be in bad faith. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:24, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I am sorry to have ignored the three videos you suggested. In my defense they are long, I don't know who made them, and Rubin is just an MC (which I have already mentioned). It is best to end it here.Ariel31459 (talk) 03:55, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ariel31459 Understanding Jordan Peterson's statements and worldview is long and complicated, but I've done it. So much so that I've ended up defending him (somewhat) from other Lefties. If you don't have time now, that is understandable, but I feel like it would be important to watch them when you do have the time if you genuinely want to understand my worldview to any degree. Same with the video on White Fascism I linked to you on my talkepage. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 04:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Where do I sign up?

Some really smart, rational, compassionate, articulate and daring people in this IDW thing. Is there a membership application? Count me in! --User:Let Them Eat Cake

You can't just 'sign up', this is an exclusive group. Although requirements have been relaxed for the newer inductees, the core membership consists of people who had obtained post-graduate degrees and sought teaching positions at post-secondary institutions, which at that time were looking for 'diverse voices', and at that time that meant white men who had 'unorthodox' opinions or methods. They eventually demonstrated that 'unorthodox' invariably means bat-shit crazy or rabidly racist, misogynistic, or homophobic. This caused them to be fired from their positions, and the various blogs and journals that they used to publish in or provide interviews for no longer wanted to host their material, making them some of the first martyrs of the right-wing 'cancel culture' fabrication.

The newer inductees are people in charge of curating various media properties that began courting their articles, interviews, and appearances after all the reputable media properties that used to promote them had abandoned them. So they do reward their enablers with membership, which means you've got two ways of joining: either become one of them, or become a person who facillitates them. Either path will require considerable time, effort, and expense.

Becoming one of them will be much more difficult than it was for them, because academic institutions no longer consider bat-shit crazy or racist to qualify as a 'diverse voice' in their hiring mandates. Even presenting yourself as a mild-mannered christian, like Peterson did, doesn't hold any of the cachet it did when he applied for positions at colleges and universities. So at all times you'd have to pretend to not be deranged, as any deviation would no longer be perceived as a harmless 'quirk', and administrators are unlikely to give anyone the 'benefit of the doubt' like they used to. They're not as willing to help sweep their employees transgressions under the rug like they used to, after being burned by multi-million dollar legal settlements they've had to pay out to former students who endured abuse.

The other path to membership, becoming one of their enablers, would certainly be easier, but the field is over-saturated. There are tens of thousands of YouTube channels and Facebook groups run by average nut-jobs, and most of them never gain any traction. People who have the ear and platform of Joe Rogan at their disposal are not going to throw you and your 2000-view rant vids any exclusive content.

So as you can see, your chances of being invited into the fold are slim to none. ^{— Unsigned, by: FairDinkum / talk / contribs}

Bret Weinstein

The article currently says, "Bret WeinsteinWikipedia (Eric's brother), American biologist and the sole progressive of the group." If it's not controversial I think it's past the time for being charitable and believing what he says he is, and time to remove the part about him being progressive which was obviously a lie. (Evidence forthcoming.)

Bret supported unity2020, a dumb idea that we could have bipartisan unity by bringing together a Democrat and a Republican on the same ticket and then flip a coin to choose who gets to be president. His choices? Tulsi Gabbard and Dan Crenshaw. No, he didn't do any work to create a third party or anything, so this was all just intellectual masturbation, but you can't say those two candidates are equally acceptable to Democrats and Republicans if you have any connection to progressive politics! Tulsi is a frequent guest on Fox News where she attacks the left, has advocated staying in Afghanistan and continuing the drone strikes after the US left, and told Fox that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan are in the Axis of Evil. It's laughable.

And of course he pretty much exclusively attacks the left these days, wrote a crank book about how we should be eating the same stuff as we did when we were cavemen (stop eating food from other continents your ancestors weren't from), thought Pence should have pardoned everyone involved in the January 6th, 2021 fascist coup attempt, said he supported Bernie Sanders in 2016, but stopped supporting Bernie Sanders in 2020 because he could be a dictator ( a dumb line of attack you'd expect from a conservative), and thinks you should can take a horse drug instead of getting vaccinated.

I don't know how to distil all of that to a sentence and don't even think it's necessary, but I hope you don't mind removing the comedy bit about him being a progressive.

--47.145.125.78 (talk) 06:34, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Current Affairs cartoon

Current Affairs magazine had a scandal recently and is probably going to be defunct. I don't know how copyright and fair use work, but would it be possible for us to use this cartoon on this article? It's equally good at ridiculing its targets while teaching about what they say underneath the dog-whistles.

--QuestionAffairs (talk) 09:46, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

In this case, I think it would be best to ask Chelsea Saunders for permission first. Bongolian (talk) 16:43, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Debra Soh is a TERF?

So, I searched 'Debra Soh' on the website, and saw she was listed on this article as a TERF. I haven't come across anything so far on my own to indicate she has those sentiments and the article doesn't list any footnotes by her bullet point proving as much either. Additionally, clicking on the link to her wikipedia page, again I failed to see anything that would indicate she harbored those sentiments, so I'm wondering what the reasoning was behind labeling her a TERF? Cumulus ^{Precipitation} 22:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I removed that as per your doubt. It was added by a drive-by BoN.[1] Bongolian (talk) 00:58, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

She is transphobic I think, but TERF is a more narrow category. I think she wrote a whole book on the topic. I don't know if she's feminist. A description of her book says: "Soh tackles a wide range of issues, such as gender-neutral parenting, gender dysphoric children, and the neuroscience of being transgender. She debates today’s accepted notion that gender is a social construct and a spectrum, and challenges the idea that there is no difference between how male and female brains operate." It would be quite funny if her position was there are pink/blue brains but that trans women don't have pink and trans men don't have blue. My position is a little more nuanced, something in line with Julia Serano's crowd I think, that it's the part of the brain about "body-mapping" that matters and all the rest I'm agnostic to. Chillpilled (talk) 01:06, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

So, I have bought her book 'The End of Gender'. On page 67 (of the amazon kindle version, not the physical book version), she says, and I quote, "There are only two genders. There. I said it. Not three, not seventy-one, and certainly not an infinite number. Gender is not a spectrum, a continuum, a kaleidoscope, a prism, or any other majestic-sounded metaphor that gender activism has dreamed up. ... [sic] ... No. There are two: female and male. There is zero scientific evidence to suggest that any other genders exist." She also says in the same chapter not a few pages later quite explicitly how she feels about non-binary folk on page 72, quote, "From what I gather, being nonbinary is a way to experiment with self-expression, the way that everyone did as teenagers." If necessary, I can provide screenshots to an image-hosting website. So from what I can tell, she is atleast non-binary-phobic, considering she believes that they don't exist. But she does believe that the trans experience is real. This is evidenced when she writes on page 74, "And to be clear, saying that gender is binary is not the same thing as saying that prejudice against gender-nonconforming individuals is acceptable or that we should impose gender conformity on them. We can acknowledge that some people are gender-nonconforming or gender-diverse, and encourage them to be who they are, without rewriting science to facilitate this acceptance." So from what I can gather, Dr. Soh is likely transphobic since she thinks non-binary folks are pretending to be non-binary for social acceptance, and non-binaries fall under the trans umbrella; however at the same time, she isn't completely writing off the trans experience as invalid and encourages acceptance of trans people who aren't non-binary. So I wouldn't be comfortable calling her a TERF, just transphobic, because the definition of TERF means to exclude trans people, and she isn't excluding ALL of them, just the enbies from a biological understanding of what gender is. Cumulus ^{Precipitation} 02:59, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Departures and splits

There should be something about the IDW's internal ructions and departures, given how the COVID pandemic exposed its more tinfoil-hatty elements.

• Anthony L. Fisher (2023-01-19). "The Intellectual Dark Web’s Descent Into Paranoia and Trumpism". Daily Beast. 
• Anthony Wakeling (2021-06-13). "What Happened to the Intellectual Dark Web?". Substack. 
• Émile P. Torres (2021-06-05). "Godless grifters: How the New Atheists merged with the far right". Salon. 

Kumararepublic (talk) 02:18, 2 October 2024 (UTC)