Jamie Metzl

Founder • Futurist • Superconvergence HackingDarwin AITenCommandments author • @AtlanticCouncil • Fmr NSC, State, UN, @WHO adv committee

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

I fully supported Barack Obama from the beginning because I loved what he represented: the best of us. I strongly oppose @AbdulElSayed because his message of hate and intolerance is antithetical to our democracy.

I always believed Barack Obama was electable and supported him from the start, even though, as a former Clinton administration official, I faced considerable pressure from Clinton insiders—including my late mentor Richard Holbrooke, then co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy team—to support her.

I believe Abdul El-Sayed is completely unelectable and that his nomination is a pure gift to President Trump. This is not merely my opinion. I have already received countless messages from loyal, lifelong Democrats telling me they will not support El-Sayed or other DSA or DSA-affiliated candidates.

The sooner the Democratic Party distances itself from these anti-American bigots, the better.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

America is ultimately a centrist nation. The vast majority of us do not want to be represented by people who were celebrating on September 11, January 6, or October 7.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

A remarkable new Science paper: Stanford and Arc Institute researchers trained an AI model on biological sequences, then used it to generate entirely new viral genomes. Sixteen of those AI-designed viruses proved viable in the lab.

The work is both exciting and sobering. It points toward powerful new tools for medicine while underscoring how AI is reshaping biotechnology in ways that could also increase biosecurity risks.

This is the central argument of my book Superconvergence: revolutionary technologies are neither inherently good nor bad. Whether they become humanity’s greatest tools or greatest threats depends on the governance we build now—not just government regulation, but the norms, institutions, incentives, and international cooperation that shape how these technologies develop.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

I’m a lifelong Democrat. I believe the Trump administration poses a growing threat to our democracy. I also believe the DSA poses a fundamental threat to both the Democratic Party and America.

If Democrats want to be seen as the party of patriotic Americans committed to building a better future for everyone, they must unequivocally condemn and distance themselves from the DSA’s anti-American bigotry.

We Democrats rightly condemned the Republican Party’s accommodation of the January 6 insurrectionists. We should hold ourselves to the same standard by unequivocally rejecting candidates, including DSA candidates running on Democratic ballot lines, who advocate dismantling core constitutional institutions and democratic norms.

[Ambassador Mike Huckabee @GovMikeHuckabee]

This is awkward for Israel haters. When a UN (no friend of Israel) organization (UNESCO) debunks the lie that Israel was "starving kids" it's worth a read. Israel genocidal? They botched it again!

United Nations study shatters Gaza starvation narrative https://t.co/fBF9v2ql2K

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

The Democratic Party faces a binary choice:

Either it can acquiesce to the DSA’s anti-American bigotry or it can unequivocally separate itself from the DSA.

If the Democratic Party accommodates the DSA, it will become the DSA.

[S Sebag Montefiore @simonmontefiore]

So often the complex multi ethnic multi sect reality of the Middle East defies the parochial, simplistic ideologies that Westerners try to impose on the Middle East.

The Mayor of Haifa Yona Yahav @theTimes Writes:
"Last week, the Green leadership of the London borough of Hackney announced its intention to end its twinning agreement with Haifa, bringing to a close a partnership that has lasted nearly six decades. The announcement was accompanied by a series of grave accusations against the state of Israel and portrayed Haifa as a city that no longer reflects the values Hackney seeks to uphold.
At a time when facts are so easily replaced by slogans, and complexity reduced to political soundbites, it is important to pause and consider the reality. Haifa is an exceptional model of coexistence in the Middle East. For more than a century, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and Bahá’ís have lived alongside one another here, not as an abstract ideal but as a way of life.

They study in the same schools and universities. They care for one another in our hospitals, work side by side, establish businesses together, meet in the same cafés and restaurants, and co-operate in local government and community life. This is the everyday reality of my city."

https://t.co/3iXjcFkc9y

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

Is the Democratic Party’s position really that it must support anyone who wins a Democratic primary no matter how extreme? If a KKK candidate won a Democratic primary, would the party back them? If not, then clearly there are moral red lines and the only question is where they are.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

The Democratic Party must clearly define what we stand for and what we stand against.

We stand for a patriotic, optimistic vision of America that expands opportunity, strengthens our democracy, and helps every individual and our nation reach their full potential.

We stand against terrorism, bigotry, hatred, and intolerance.

That means there should be no place in our party for anyone who celebrates or excuses September 11, January 6, or October 7, or who seeks to abolish our constitutional system of checks and balances, the police, prisons, or Western civilization.

The Democratic Party is a big-tent party, but if you let skunks into the tent, they’ll ruin the party.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

I’m a lifelong Democrat, but it would be extraordinarily difficult to support a Democratic Party that fails to unequivocally reject the DSA’s bigotry and anti-Americanism. Abdul El-Sayed now has an opportunity to make his own views unmistakably clear: unequivocally condemn Hamas and all terrorism, affirm support for policing, the rule of law, prisons, and our market-based economy, and clearly distance himself from the DSA and its leadership where they advocate positions inconsistent with American values.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

If the Democratic Party wants voters to believe it loves America and rejects terrorism, it must unequivocally repudiate any candidate—including those running on the Democratic ballot line—who refuses to unequivocally condemn U.S.-designated terrorist organizations or seeks to undermine our constitutional democracy.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

Every candidate for U.S. public office should be asked one simple question:

Can you unequivocally and without reservation condemn every U.S.-designated terrorist organization?

If the answer isn’t an unqualified yes, that candidate should be condemned by their own party and by everyone else. I fear too many on the far left of my own Democratic Party would fail that test.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

I’m a Democrat who served on President Clinton’s National Security Council and later ran for Congress in my home state of Missouri, so let me be clear:

A vote for the DSA in a Democratic primary is ultimately a vote for Donald Trump’s Republican Party in the general election.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

@swersey

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

The DSA's toxic, bigoted, and deeply anti-American agenda—abolishing police, prisons, constitutional government, and even Western civilization, seizing the means of production, and "globalizing the intifada"—is a threat to the Democratic Party and a spectacular political gift to Donald Trump. No one wants @AbdulElSayed to win the Michigan Democratic primary more than MAGA Republicans.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

@ramez I do not agree that a preponderance of the evidence suggests a zoonotic origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is my considered view that a comprehensive analysis of all of the available evidence leans heavily toward a research-related incident origin. https://t.co/Plsgab9JRi

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

There is a lot of unnecessary confusion about the peer-reviewed literature re COVID-19 origins.

Anyone who has actually read these papers knows they do not conclusively prove how the pandemic began. Not one peer-reviewed study claims to have established the origin of SARS-CoV-2 with certainty. Not one.

Yet some authors of these papers have publicly and deliberately overstated what their own research demonstrates, sowing misinformation and creating widespread confusion about the state of the evidence.

Because the origin of COVID-19 remains unproven, we must follow the evidence relentlessly, regardless of the politics and wherever it leads.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

I agree on one and two, but not on three and four. The scientific debate on COVID-19 origins is in no way settled, even though a small group of scientists has made that claim without sufficient evidentiary support. If, hypothetically, we knew for certain that COVID-19 stems from a research related accident, that would supercharge our efforts in biosafety and biosecurity in a manner that has not happened. There is a reason we investigate plane crashes rather than just announce generically after a crash that we will re-double safety efforts.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

When I first began publicly raising the possibility of a laboratory origin for COVID-19 in early 2020, I received private messages from a number of extremely prominent scientists and physicians telling me they believed I was on the right track. When I asked why they weren’t saying so publicly, many gave the same answer: the politics had become so toxic that speaking up would be professional suicide.

That was a profound failure of the scientific process.

Six and a half years later, it’s not too late. We still need the open, evidence-based public and scientific dialogue this question has always deserved and we should follow the evidence wherever it leads.

[Jamie Metzl @JamieMetzl]

@SteveGeiger77 That is not correct. There has never been a single peer reviewed scientific paper that has conclusively determined the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anybody suggesting otherwise is not being truthful.