Quillette

Ten Years of Ideas.
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[Quillette @Quillette]

Virginia Giuffre became the face of the Epstein scandal.

But her dates shifted, she withdrew her claim against Alan Dershowitz, and DOJ investigators called parts of her story problematic.

Few journalists checked the record. @Jay_Beecher does 👇

https://t.co/MzzPxTjxZk

[Quillette @Quillette]

American Doctor, a documentary following three US physicians who volunteered in Gaza, has drawn near-unanimous praise from critics.

In Quillette, Gary Geipel makes the case that the film's acclaim masks a problem of method. The film gives almost no dates, circumstances or verifiable detail for the deaths and injuries it shows, while still asking audiences to accept a charge of genocide.

https://t.co/aJE2rvWuJ1

[Andy Ngo @MrAndyNgo]

.@Quillette has published a review of my new book, The Zizians: Inside a Trans Death Cult.

“Details such as these lend a tragicomic quality to Ngo’s accounts. On one hand, Ziz and his followers come off as overgrown middle schoolers engaged in an extended (and often farcical) act of fan-convention cosplay. On the other hand, it’s absolutely clear that Ziz is a true sociopath. And during its short life, his cult was connected to the deaths of at least eight individuals.”

My thoughts: It may not be such a short cult life after all. The cult’s second-in-command is out there completely free, and he promises to continue the group’s agenda. Another arrested Zizian was released, and his felony case was suspended. He’s been trying to help Ziz behind the scenes. https://t.co/fLD8R2DapZ

[Jonathan Kay @jonkay]

my latest for @Quillette focuses on @MrAndyNgo’s great new book about the murderous “Zizian” cult, which emerged in the 2010s from fringes of trans activism & Bay Area “rationalist” AI doomerism. I also discuss Christopher Clark’s fine historical book, “A Scandal in Köningsberg”

[Quillette @Quillette]

What does a 19th-century Prussian sect have in common with a California cult obsessed with AI doom?

More than you'd think. @jonkay reviews @MrAndyNgo’s new book on the Zizians, a tiny group linked to eight deaths, alongside Christopher Clark's history of a Königsberg scandal.

https://t.co/CFuTeWWN1w

[Ζoë @zoecabina]

"Public shaming has a place in any morally upstanding society, but it is also a dangerous weapon, not only because of the price paid by the condemned but because shaming mobs often turn participants into monsters themselves. This is just as true in online cancel-culture campaigns in Western democracies as it was in Marxist struggle-sessions in Maoist China and public hangings and beheadings in Iran and Saudi Arabia. On some level, we all know this. In Game of Thrones, the loathsome Queen Cersei Lannister is forced to walk naked through a howling mob that’s throwing rotten fruit and shit at her, but even she elicits sympathy from us in that scene despite being one of the story’s chief villains."

https://t.co/tnwfXLkgSo

[Quillette @Quillette]

Exorcist II: The Heretic was called "the stupidest major movie ever made," and at one preview the studio executives had to flee the theatre.

A new documentary, Boorman and the Devil, revisits the fiasco, and @TomDohertyfilm’s essay looks at the whole genre of books and films that dissect Hollywood's greatest flops.

https://t.co/L1V6x5dASS

[Quillette @Quillette]

.@simonmontefiore's The Cauldron attempts something few historians would risk: a single-volume history of the Middle East from Morocco to Iran, from 1900 to the present. Reviewing it for Quillette, Benny Morris finds it a remarkable achievement, vivid on the region's coups, dynasties and atrocities. He is also blunt about its slips on the Arab–Israeli wars.

https://t.co/lAhaWUa5Dy

[Quillette @Quillette]

Frank Capra, the man who made It’s a Wonderful Life was once the biggest director in Hollywood. A decade later, he was making educational films for a phone company. What went wrong?

https://t.co/kW9bRZi3iH

[Quillette @Quillette]

"So today is a great age of crisis. We are alive to see the dismembering of the liberal ethic in America to the cheering of one hundred million of its citizens, at the same time as society waits to learn whether what may prove one of the most consequential technologies in human history thrusts us into paradise, or the opposite"

https://t.co/D1c3sjQrbQ

[Quillette @Quillette]

Democracy, liberalism, the postwar order: everything is said to be ending. Medieval Christians felt the same about the world itself.

Harry Seavey on why every age thinks it stands at history's turning point.

https://t.co/WceIXtzU0p

[Quillette @Quillette]

Three years ago, Robert King argued that Russell Brand was “the sort of man your mother warned you about.” In the 18th century, King suggests, a man like that would have been challenged to a duel. Today we have courts instead.

https://t.co/YFwM0wVsL8

[Quillette @Quillette]

Trump won't be able to hand his cult of personality to the next guy any more than Stalin, Mao or Perón could.

Michael J. Totten on why the midterm rout ends Trumpism: https://t.co/9LGJGOHqP3

[Quillette @Quillette]

"This is the problem with interfaith politics. Aside from the platitudes, the niceties, the tea and biscuits (or samosas, when a token Hindu or Sikh is included), there’s been a consistent failure to acknowledge or confront intolerant and extreme ideas embedded in foundational scriptures."
- @Singhtwo2

[Sean Welsh @SeanGWelsh]

A cracker from @Quillette
"Trumpism is finished aside from its brief upcoming zombie stage."
https://t.co/BX3K3Bbus7

[Quillette @Quillette]

Populist rhetoric is exceptionally effective for pursuing and gaining power, but it provides no program for the complexities of actual governance.

✍️ @KardumTomislav

https://t.co/aQFowQeDxl

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

If ‘Woke’ Puritanism Is the Disease, Trump’s Amoral Populism Isn’t the Cure by Eric Kaufmann https://t.co/W5oIBNCpLy

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

If ‘Woke’ Puritanism Is the Disease, Trump’s Amoral Populism Isn’t the Cure https://t.co/W5oIBNCpLy

[Quillette @Quillette]

Watch more here: https://t.co/4KphM6mBRf

[Quillette @Quillette]

"This is the problem with interfaith politics. Aside from the platitudes, the niceties, the tea and biscuits (or samosas, when a token Hindu or Sikh is included), there’s been a consistent failure to acknowledge or confront intolerant and extreme ideas embedded in foundational scriptures."
- @Singhtwo2