Not even the most advanced form of artificial intelligence can ever replace man. Because there is something in human beings that is irreducible to machine knowledge: self-awareness, free will, doubt, feelings.* Federico Faggin, Tiscali notizie interview, May 2024This week, Yevgeny Simkin and I explore the limits of human and artificial intelligence. It’s a conversation about brains, machines, and the fragile thread of freedom that connects them.Simkin is a Soviet refugee, contributor at The Bulwark, former guest on The Radicalist, founder of the social platform Sez Us, and co-founder of Samizdat Online, which keeps the world’s banned news sites alive in places such as Russia, China, and Iran.The Radicalist is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
This debate came about after I wrote an essay, “Trans Women Are Trans Women,” in response to Matthew Adelstein’s essay, “Why I Think Trans Women Are Women.” I wanted to have the conversation for two reasons.First, I’m a student of philosophy and former university lecturer of logic, debate, writing, and public speaking — basically, how to think and express those thoughts — so for me, civil discourse is a personal discipline much like chess or martial arts, two of my favorite pastimes. But it’s also a benefit to society because if more of us openly engaged in civil discourse over contentious issues by playing the game rugby-rough but, like all good ruggers, able to grab beers after — we’d be better off.Second, because this slogan represents the most extremist form of woke ideology, alongside “math is racist,” and as I wrote, it’s profoundly dangerous:Orwell had a word for the process of distorting basic truths in order to further some political agenda or enforce ideological conformity. He called it doublespeak. I often call it ontological gaslighting, like the scene in the book in which the Party finally gets Winston to accept that two plus two is five. This is how the book ends, because this is the final and greatest defeat of the human soul by an authoritarian regime. Namely, getting someone to deny an objective fact. As Winston writes in his diary early in the novel, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” To put that the other way around, slavery is the impulse to say that two plus two makes five. If that is accepted, all else follows.Two plus two is five. Silence is violence. Math is racist. Men are women. Adelstein claims long hair or painted nails makes one more of a woman, and having enough feminine traits actually makes one a woman. But divorced from the female, such traits are no longer feminine and cannot confer womanhood. Samurai had long hair and Babylonian men painted their nails before battle.He also defines “woman” socially but treats the phrase “A trans woman is a woman” in a vacuum. Yet trans writer Alyssa Ferguson, trans athlete Veronic Ivy, trans biologist Julia Serano, and trans philosophers Sophie Chappell and Talia Betcher claim trans women are female. Adelstein makes abstract assertions about a political slogan, like saying Sieg Heil simply means “Hail victory” or jihad just means “struggle,” but we all know that if we’d decided to call adult human females “apples” instead of “women,” we’d be here debating whether trans women are apples.That’s because what trans women identify as only has meaning for them insofar as it denotes female. As I explain in the debate, trans women don’t identify as men who think they’re women. They identify as women who are women. Even Adelstein’s own definition of “woman” is fundamentally grounded in the female, as you’ll see. That’s why I said if we agree trans women are not females, as he and I do up front, the rest is definitional word play, which is where the debate immediately goes after that. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
David Volodzko talks to former guest Kevin Ray about a disturbing experience he recently had on the New York subway, the pathology of woke activism, its influence in the arts and why things are getting worse rather than better, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian novel We, his experience with compelled speech, and the effort to turn educators into activist therapists.Kevin Ray is a New York City theater director with over 20 years of experience as an arts educator. He produced and directed “Unearthly Visitants,” based on ghost stories by Edith Wharton, “The Machine Stops,” from EM Forster’s short story, and “We,” from Russian dissident Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian science-fiction novel. You can find more on his website or find him on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.The Radicalist is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
David Volodzko speaks with Mia Hughes about the different waves of the trans movement, the DSM-V and gender dysmorphic disorder, how the trans movement operates as a cult, legal support for trans activism in U.S. states, prevalence rates, indicators of social contagion, the WPATH scam, how the Biden administration inserted itself into medical standards, autogynephilia, definitional creep of the term “trans,” politically Trans identity, and the science-based treatment for trans identity.Mia Hughes is senior fellow at MacDonald-Laurier Institute, director of Genspect Canada, co-host of Beyond Gender, author of the WPATH Files, and former researcher on gender issues at Michael Shellenberger’s nonprofit Civilization Works. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
David Volodzko speaks with Ross Benes about his upcoming book 1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times. They discuss the political legacy of Jerry Springer and reality TV, what Beanie Babies and Pokemon can teach us about financial markets, the rise of WWE kayfabe in corporate culture, the dialectic of high and low culture, how porn drove tech adoption on VHS and streaming, Insane Clown Posse and the outsider effect from woke to MAGA, how media deregulation led to the dominance of trash culture writ large but notably in our politics, 1999 as a cultural inflection point, and the shape of moral panics from Mortal Kombat and Stone Cold Steve Austin to TikTok and ChatGPT.Benes (X, website) is a journalist and market research analyst whose writing has appeared in Esquire, The Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian Magazine, and Entertainment Weekly. He is regularly cited by The Los Angeles Times, NPR, and Bloomberg. His previous books include Rural Rebellion: How Nebraska Became a Republican Stronghold and Turned On: A Mind-Blowing Investigation into How Sex Has Shaped Our World. Raised in Nebraska, he now lives with his family in Hudson Valley, New York.The Radicalist is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
After President Trump announced “Liberation Day” on April 2, the Dow sank 350 points and the S&P 500 recorded a historic three-day loss.But never mind the regional security risks, or the fact that this should’ve been done through negotiation with our allies rather than unilateral action, what’s perhaps most remarkable about this event is the way it has been received by the MAGA faithful. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
David Josef Volodzko speaks with Ilya Shapiro about constitutional originalism, Supreme Court reform, political bias on the bench, DEI in our courts, Shapiro’s scandal at Georgetown Law, free speech on campus, the illiberal takeover of legal education — which is the subject of his new book Lawless — and much more.Shapiro is a constitutional scholar and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute whose work focuses on free speech, higher education, and the justice system. He is also formerly the executive director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, vice president of the Cato Institute, and director of its Center for Constitutional Studies. He writes the newsletter Shapiro’s Gavel, his work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, National Review, and is the author of Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court. His new book, Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites, came out in January.The Radicalist is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
David Volodzko speaks with Katherine Brodsky about her book No Apologies: How to Find and Free Your Voice in the Age of Outrage—Lessons for the Silenced Majority.Brodsky is a former guest on the pod, when she appeared to discuss civility and open discourse. She is also the author of the newsletter Random Minds and a columnist at Michael Shermer’s newsletter Skeptic. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
In response to escalating Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes, President Trump ordered large-scale airstrikes this week, targeting Houthi military infrastructure in the capital city of Sanaa. These strikes are intended to protect international maritime commerce as well as send a warning shot over the bow to Iran for supporting these pirates, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio called them yesterday. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
David Volodzko speaks with Allin Kimbrough, who grew up in the Quiverfull movement and its famous branch the Duggar family cult, a group of independent Baptist fundamentalists whose lifestyle was celebrated on The Learning Channel show 19 Kids and Counting and who later became the topic of the grim 2023 Amazon documentary Shiny Happy People, involving the story of how their eldest son molested his own sisters as well as his child pornography conviction.David and Allin also discuss the cult’s ties to Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, Mike Pence, and Russia, as well as the day-to-day routine of growing up in a crazy Christian cult. For more, see David’s interview with cult expert Steven Hasan. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
The White House press secretary recently called New York Times reporter Peter Baker a “left-wing stenographer” after he questioned Trump’s decision to bar AP for not using the term “Gulf of America.” But just how biased is the NewYork Times, and in what ways? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
This week, David Volodzko discusses nonpartisanship and the Oval Office ambush involving President Trump, Vice President Vance, and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
David Volodzko speaks with Sarah-Jane Murray about how medieval politics changed the way people at the time told stories, how politics influence narrative structure generally, theoretical frameworks in medieval narratives, the ethics of interpretation, postmodern hermeneutics, storytelling as the foundation of civilization, the universality of story design, and more.Murray is a professor at Baylor University and an expert in medieval literature who translated the Ovide Moralisé and is the author of From Plato to Lancelot: A Preface to Chrétien de Troyes, Basics of Story Design: 20 Steps to an Insanely Great Screenplay, and the children’s book Ralph’s Christmas Quest. She is also an Emmy-nominated filmmaker whose films—such as Primary Concern, a documentary about America’s looming healthcare crisis—have appeared on PBS and Netflix. In 2023, she founded The Greats Story Lab at the intersection of film, education, and emerging technologies. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
David Volodzko speaks with Alexander von Sternberg about the concept of velvet jihad, which he coined—inspired by French historian David Todd’s A Velvet Empire: French Informal Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century—to describe Islamic cultural imperialism. They also discuss the recent pogrom in Amsterdam, the influence of rhetoric on behavior, Sharia law, the myth of media-induced violence, and more.Alexander von Sternberg is the host of the podcast History Impossible, a graduate student of history, and a former guest on The Radicalist. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
Ashley Rindsberg is senior editor at Pirate Wires and author of the books Tel Aviv Stories and The Gray Lady Winked: How The New York Times’s Misreporting, Distortions & Fabrications Radically Alter History, which he was inspired to write after reading how the paper’s reported that Poland invaded Nazi Germany and not the other way around.In this conversation, we discuss Israel, our current media environment and public mistrust of news outlets today, why the news needs to be more like Spotify, where Pirate Wires sits in the media landscape, AI-generated news, free speech on Wikipedia, the woke ecosystem, and more. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
Katherine Brodsky is the author of the newsletter Random Minds and has been a correspondent for Variety for over a decade. She has also contributed to publications such as The Washington Post, WIRED, The Guardian, Esquire, Newsweek, Playboy Magazine, New York Magazine's Vulture, USA Today, and many others. As a journalist, she has mostly covered film, TV, culture, business, travel, tech—and espionage. She has interviewed figures ranging from the Dalai Lama to Elon Musk. She is also the author of the 2024 book No Apologies: How to Find and Free Your Voice in the Age of Outrage―Lessons for the Silenced Majority. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
Part II:The debate:Notice he @’s FIRE, where I work, with claims of slander (never mind slander is spoken while libel is written), as if trying to get me in trouble or fired. This is precisely the disgusting kind of tactics we’ve all come to expect from woke activists.Respectfully brother, it only seems more clear to me now that I did not misunderstand you. But let’s break this down just in case. You said X will happen. Namely, if people who oppose identity politics support Zionism, “we will lose” because the woke left will “smell this hypocrisy a mile away.” I replied, who cares what the woke left thinks?You then claimed I misunderstood you because if X happens, Y will result. Namely, the woke left will ‘point out the hypocrisy and make it clear to all watching.’ Pointing out this hypocrisy will become the woke left’s “greatest weapon,” you added, “and they will win.” So I was correct, you did in fact say X will happen, and then proved it by explaining that your main concern here is the result of X happening. But we needn’t go back-and-forth on this. If you want to put the focus on Y, I am happy to oblige, and in fact I agree that’s a better place to put it, so thanks for the redirection. But my view remains unchanged. Yes, you are right that the woke left will allege hypocrisy, fill the comments below with accusations to that effect, third-party viewers will see them, and some will be persuaded. I will give you all of that. But again I say, who cares what these people think? The woke left supports a litany of malevolent causes, most of which I noted above, and Americans have become so sick of it that even many liberals ended up voting for the very person they had spent years hate-posting about. That’s how much they despise this stuff. And the electoral college now has a not-insignificant Republican bias that will seriously bruise Democratic chances at the White House for the next decade or so, as data scientist David Shor has noted. Another point Shor makes, though everyone has noticed it by. now, is that despite Republican rhetoric on racial conflict, nonwhite voters did not go blue in higher numbers, as one might have expected. In fact, it appears the reverse happened. And given Democrats’ post-election lamentations about how this merely proves that Americans are super racist, I see zero signs of lessons being learned, so we can reasonably expect Republican power to grow further still. In conclusion, the idea that we ought to fear a mob of psychopathic narcissists because they will accuse Zionists of hypocrisy and convince enough people to “win” is not a persuasive argument when their influence is dying faster than DEI. Not only am I not at all concerned about third-party viewers hearing what the woke left says, but it may surprise you to learn that I think not enough people have heard the gospel. If I had my way, I would broadcast their remarks as far and wide as humanly possible because I think the greatest weapon against the woke left is to hand the woke left a giant microphone so that they can tell everyone precisely what they think about white people, men, women, Jews, Christians, Israel, America, the West, police, soldiers, CEOs, and so on. But if I may, in the name of civil discourse, let me offer this steelman: If you can find a way to make this argument about liberals instead of progressives, i.e. about the moderate left instead of the woke left, then you'll have me up at night—and then your argument will inspire the kind of bone-chill I think you were going for—except I don’t see any way this can be applied to the moderate left, and the idea that we might lose the woke left is like telling a moderate Republican they might lose the racist right. Boo hoo.Now let’s see if he engages with any of my points above. Spoiler: nope!I stand corrected, though in my defense, I did make clear at the very top in multiple posts that I read anti-Zionist white identitarian as woke left, and you said you meant both, so thank you for clarifying, and since I’ve given you my thoughts on one, here are my thoughts on the other—everything I said about the woke left is only more true of the woke right, and for the same reasons. Perhaps you can explain what you mean by woke right, but I see it as essentially a fascist movement, minus the altruistic window dressing that the woke left used to capture so many hearts, and therefore minus any of the cultural influence, particularly as the woke right is already being excommunicated to a degree. Additionally, and more directly to your point, I fail to see the hypocrisy in being a Jewish nationalist while also opposing fascist and antisemitic movements, whether they be of the left or right. It seems like you’re saying these are all identity politics, which is of course true, so if you’re in favor of Jewish IP but not Nazi IP, you’re a hypocrite. And I disagree.You’re punching at wind with some assumptions about my understanding of identitarianism, political socialization, and anti-IP, not to mention that to say the woke left has been “more specific than just opposing fascism or antisemitism” is a bit unfair because it is fact both those those things and I never suggested there was nothing more to the story. But again, can you explain this hypocrisy? Is it as I assumed, that if you support Jewish IP but not right-wing or left-wing IP, then you only support IP when it suits you and therefore you are a hypocrite, or something like that?So support of a Jewish state but not a Nazi state is hypocrisy? That’s like saying that because I oppose Nazi politics but not Danish politics, I’m a hypocrite.Okay, I’m sorry. I did skip over “If one claims to oppose identity politics.” Not because I was being obtuse but because I find the technicality unserious, particularly since none of the people you listed above oppose identity politics in the way that you claim, and I think you know already know this. Specifically, none of them have ever said anything that should make you think they oppose identity politics so broadly as to include Zionism, the Civil Rights movement, women’s suffrage, or disability rights. They are not using the term is the strict literal sense that you are when you examine their remarks, so it makes no sense to talk about hypocrisy in the context of opposing literally all identity politics. Yes, some folks say things like, “identity politics are bad,” and then we can do some bad faith interpretation and try to catch them on a trumped-up procedural victory by arguing in ackshually rhetoric that they’re hypocrites because this techincally includes things they support, but that would very obviously be a straw man. I wonder, what would happen if you steel-manned or star-manned their positions? If I say in 2023 that I hate wokeness, this means the far-left, and if it is later pointed out that the right can be woke too, you cannot use this to go back and pick apart what I said unless you're willing to discard the spirit of my message in favor of the letter, which is a great way to, as you say, deliberately misunderstand people. So until you can provide evidence that Kisin, Weiss, or whoever else may be on your list actually meant the kind of perfectly totalizing definition you have in mind, I am not sure what to add here. But let's park that and go back to your main point. A bunch of neo-Nazi fascists are going to accuse classical liberals of hypocrisy because they support the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, and because these people hate Jews. So when liberals express their support for Israel, particularly liberals of Jewish ancestry like Kisin, Weiss, or myself, they will be targeted by racist buffoons and labeled hypocrites, as well as sundry other names I care not to list. And this is supposedly concerning because if we do not capitulate to these Nazis and surrender our principles and our belief in civil liberties, liberal democracy, and Enlightenment values—then “they will win.” I understand you do not believe Israel represents the things I just listed, but I am not debating facts here, just the position that you are critiquing. And while I share your fear at the prospect, I laugh at the probability. But let me end with where we agree, and correct me if I miss a step. We are both free speech liberals, we both love democracy and peace, we both want happiness and security for the children on both sides of this horrific conflict in the Middle East, we both despise bigotry in any manifestation, we both oppose all the malicious forms of identity politics, and we both support the form that we personally consider to be healthy, though our own tallies there may differ. And yet when I hear folks say they oppose identity politics, I am generally not confused by what they mean, and I presume that if pressed by even the strictest definition, they could probably navigate the denotation without having to sacrifice the connotation.Now I have made painfully clear that you cannot quote people saying, “identity politics is bad” and then argue that they meant every conceivable form unless that’s what they said or meant. Otherwise, you’re a total bad actor. But hilariously, here is his reply.But wait, he’s not done dishonestly quoting people.Jake, did you just decide to not read anything I wrote in my last post? Please go back and read it, or if you like, I can repeat below or even expand. No hard feelings, after all, you showed me the same patience. But this “gotcha” that you think you have is an illusion rooted in a simple logical fallacy.And the name of that fallacy is equivocation. Once, no harm no foul. But pressed, it’s total bad faith. We don’t have Kisin and Weiss present but you have me, and are claiming I’m the perfect example of what you mean, so in the name of good faith, park the gotcha tactics and attempt to understand what I mean, as I did for you.He never does. In other words, I am telling him he’s completely missing my point, and even though he spent pages harping on me
David Volodzko speaks with terrorism expert Jonathan Schanzer about terrorism funding, the efficacy of sanctions, the Iranian regime and Hamas funding, the Israel-Hamas War, the Russo-Ukraine War, China’s potential invasion of Taiwan, and more.Jonathan Schanzer (website, X) is senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and host of the FDD Morning Brief, where he covers the latest news from the Middle East.Schanzer is also a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he froze the funding of Hamas and Al-Qaeda, and has worked as a researcher at think tanks including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Middle East Forum.Schanzer has written hundreds of articles on the Middle East and U.S. national security and several books including State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State, Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine, and Al-Qaeda’s Armies: Middle East Affiliate Groups and the Next Generation of Terror.His most recent book is Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe
David Volodzko talks with Alexander von Sternberg about Amin al-Husseini, the Nazi godfather of Palestinian nationalism, his early life, his embrace of Nazism, his efforts to send Jewish children to death camps, his legacy since then, and his place in the Palestinian movement today.Von Sternberg is the host of the historical podcast History Impossible. He’s also a writer whose essays and reviews have been published in a number of publications including Queer Majority, Quillette, Merion West, and Areo Magazine.For more on this subject, see von Sternberg’s six-hour podcast episode on al-Husseini, The Muslim Nazis: The German Voice of Islam.You can also listen to Volodzko as a guest on History Impossible here. Finally, here is a list of some of the books mentioned in this week’s episode: Palestine 1936, The Arabs and the Holocaust, Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World, Islam and Nazi Germany’s War, The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis: The Berlin Years, and Through the Eyes of the Mufti. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theradicalist.com/subscribe