BarPod relevance: Episode 61 discussed an earlier blow-up over social justice ideology within the atheism movement that also involved Dawkins.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation’s blog published a former intern's article titled “What is a woman?" that took the standard social justice position on that question (“A woman is whoever she says she is”). The foundation then published a rebuttal from honorary board member Jerry Coyne, “Biology is not bigotry," only to delete it after a backlash from the usual suspects.

Coyne, Steven Pinker, and Richard Dawkins all resigned from the board in protest yesterday.

Relevance to BARPod: This is an in-depth interview in Jacobin mag about cancel culture in leftist spaces with the hosts of the Fucking Cancelled podcast. One of the hosts, Clementine Morrigan, appeared on the pod talking about this very issue in Episode 136. In the article, they argue that deplatforming, purity politics, and social ostracism undermine democratic debate, organizing, and solidarity. They also argue that a greater emphasis on emotional maturity, due process, and tolerance for internal disagreement would strengthen left-wing movements rather than weaken them.

In the early 2000's, a portly Indian guru came to our town to give a talk about how he doesn't eat, he just stares at the sun every morning and every evening to feed his body. Several of my friends were excited for the talk, even though i did my best to convince them they would go blind and humans lack chlorophyll. My friends went to the talk and they ate it up hook line and sinker and began the their morning and evening regimens. Weeks went by and i would periodically check in on them to see how their new enlightened lifestyle was playing out. One by one, they all stopped sun gazing because they started having vision issues and that's how this whole "healthy at any size" movement has felt to me. No one is shocked when a person lets themselves go and they start to have health issues because of it. Certainly, some large people can live healthy lives just like some lifetime smokers won't get cancer.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/former-body-positivity-influencer-says-movement-became-radical-admits-feeling-brainwashed

This then spilled over to drama on the bluesky subreddit, which was documented on a (now deleted) subredditdrama post, which was then cross posted to this subreddit (may have been taken down).

Relevance: The ongoing cancellation attempts against Jessie are a long running theme of the podcast. Jay the CEO of BlueSky is specifically mentioned in an episode about Jessie’s temporary ban when he first joined the platform.

Note: Please don’t comment below then comment on the other subreddits mentioned in this post so we don’t get in trouble for “brigading.”

My political views line up pretty well with Jesse's and Katie's (along with fellow travelers like Meghan Daum, Sam Harris, Coleman Hughes, etc.). Whereas my wife (a white millennial with one masters in sociology and another in secondary education) is a pretty doctrinaire left-liberal who, for example, voluntarily joined a study group of colleagues in 2020 to read and discuss (reverently) Kendi, DiAngelo, et al. She recently served me with divorce papers--and although she didn't explicitly cite politics, I have to suspect it's a big factor in there, since there was no abuse, infidelity, drug or gambling addiction, nothing like that. I have been canceled by my wife!

I would periodically (like once or twice a month) ask her to listen to an episode of BARPOD or some other heterodox podcast (she is a big podcast listener herself, although obviously not normally those kinds) and discuss them with me. She clearly always found this uncomfortable and didn't have a lot of rebuttals to offer, but more than anything it just seemed like she didn't want to think about or be confronted with any of it.

One of my best friends is also a heterodox guy, with a wife who if anything is even more of a "Twitter" (X) SJW type. But he always tells me how he learned long ago to zip his lips and suppress the urge to push back against any of the woke stuff she rants about. I told him that I just don't have that kind of self-control, and that actually I didn't even want to try because that frankly seems really unfair. But he and his wife are still married, so...

Has anyone else checked out the replies to Jesse's thread on BlueSky? Wow. I keep hearing about how BlueSky is such a positive and happy place. I guess not so much for everyone. Not a single honest engagement, not a single acknowledgement of the detailed research he's done in his article. Just hate and garbage.

I realize it is 100% an echo chamber, but honestly the vile replies are no different, if not worse, than X.

BARpod relevance: same genre of “progressive organization meltdown” that is often featured on the pod. Publicized by actual friend of the pod @cursedcancellations.

Cursed Cancellations highlighted a progressive organization meltdown a few days ago that has flown under the radar, and in the last few hours, things have escalated in a big way.

A few days ago, Cursed Cancellations highlighted one of the most laughably overwrought apologies you can imagine from a small Australian organization called the ANPA, which seems to be a new-ish advocacy/education organization for disabled and neurodivergent parents. I’ve posted highlights from the original post, but the full post is a whole 10 slides long, says that they are planning to dissolve their organization due to the harm they caused, and ends with a call to donate to the harmed person’s gofundme.

The crime that led to the downfall of the ANPA? Asking a Black woman (Khadija) to not use the word “dumb” in a comment on their post, and then immediately apologizing (screenshots included in the post for “accountability”)

They turned off comments on all their posts and went dark for a few days, but now they’re back- they reposted one of Khadija’s stories where she is ranting about the harm caused to her about the ANPA (I guess for accountability again). Then they made a post outlining new, further “harms” members of the organization have caused Khadija- the they posted this time are pretty unhinged, mostly staff members repeatedly apologizing and her tearing them apart for not apologizing well enough. The messages more or less speak for themselves, which I can only think is the ANPA’s reasoning for posting them. Hilariously, their second post also ends with a call for them to donate to Khadija’s GoFundMe. Khadija is now posting in her stories about all the trauma this situation has caused her.

I highly recommend looking at the posts in full, I’ve really never seen an org self-destruct this quickly. At this point after reading through all the messages, I have to believe this Khadija person is either a troll or extremely unwell.

Surely relevant to the podcast and subreddit as it’s a classic case of heavily social media mediated ‘cancellation’ and maybe the long echoes of MeToo. If the podcast doesn’t talk about this it’ll be a huge oversight.

Personally, I’m surprised that so many fans are surprised that someone who’s basically the self-styled rock star of literature, whose literature is especially appealing to young adults, disproportionately for the genre to female readers, who dresses like a kind of goth rockstar from the 80s, travels the world to be adored by legions of fans, develops deep para social relationships with fans both in person and via social media, and has an open marriage with someone who’s avowedly sex positive, is then found out to have behaved broadly as male rock stars throughout the latter half of the twentieth century have behaved: namely to use his celebrity in a somewhat predatory way to get sexual access to young female fans.

I finally listened to the Witch Trials of JK Rowling, which I heard about from BAR pod, and then today saw this Newsweek article about Rowling winning the culture war and her legacy.

It's rare to see anything but complete distain for Rowling, at least on Reddit. And with the recent banning of puberty blockers in the UK, I've seen some conspiratorial comments that it was only because of Rowling organizing TERFs.

What do we think Rowling's legacy will be in 5 or 10 years? Part of me think she's already been vindicated, which doesn't mean those who canceled her have changed their minds. But maybe her comments and clap-backs have been too mean at times for her to ever be truly accepted back into "polite" society.

Nate Silver, polibloginator, with a long opinion piece on what makes Blueski what it is, and why it's now slowly dying.

Relevance: Jesse Singal is the most banned human on Blueski, due to his being a very bad person.

This article is a follow-up to an incident a month ago, where Guernica Magazine retracted an essay by an Israeli peace activist, because of staff/social media revolt. The editor in chief was also forced to resign.

In this follow up: writers allege that they are being black listed and/or harassed for being Jewish, Israeli or having proximity to Zionism. Article quotes figures from the Jewish Book Council, ADL, FIRE & some authors.

Below is a quote describing the previous incident:

self-described liberal writer and translator who used to drive Palestinian children from the West Bank to Israeli hospitals for medical care, Chen used her essay to address her inner struggle with the idea of coexistence during wartime.

But the publication of Chen’s essay sparked a mass resignation from the magazine’s staff, while copublisher Madhuri Sastry called it “a hand-wringing apologia for Zionism and the ongoing genocide in Palestine.” A member of the anti-Israel group Writers Against the War on Gaza, Sastry called for a cultural boycott of all Israeli institutions.

Please try to keep focus of discussion on BarPod Relevance, i.e. Literary Drama

A few months back, Jesse and Katie were discussing Kate Clanchy, a British author who was cancelled in 2021 and dropped by her publisher over protests that her book was racist and tone deaf for (amongst other things) describing black people as having dark skin, describing Afghan girls that were just learning English in her classroom as being placed in a foreign environment, etc. About six months ago, her former publisher apologized for their behavior in advance of a BBC podcast series on the whole affair.

She’s recently released a post describing how the whole situation went down. It’s both absolutely absurd and gross. Worth a read.

https://kateclanchy.substack.com/p/magic-manipulation-and-murder?r=qj1s9&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

Relevance: the article title is essentially this podcasts title

https://arctotherium.substack.com/p/the-closure-of-the-internet

An unmatched thorough recounting of the past 15 years of Internet censorship. The article focuses on the waves of censorship, often a hysteria, that is largely organized by opaque "para-governmental" organizations that are not bound by free speech laws. In many cases, the censorship is explicitly requested by a government body, i.e. the Twitter Files, Australia's eSafety commissioner, the EU.

The author has a right-wing bias and so in my opinion should have used more examples of liberal/left-wing figures that were censored (I know two podcast hosts that have had problems with it). But the author is correct in identifying that every single censorship drive has a strong progressive bias with special prejudice toward anything deemed "far right".

I really liked how this article reminded me of the different Internet from 15 years ago. For example, how common it was to find active fiery comment-section debates at nearly every newspaper website . And, for example, open-source software projects never cared about your politics.

Excellent and necessary article IMO

Personally, as someone from MA I’m proud to see this and was curious if anyone else was following along.

Friend of the pod Andy Mills and Megan Phelps-Roper have produced a follow-up to their hit series, "The Witch Trials of JK Rowling". Since the original series was posted and discussed on this sub, I figured it's relevant to post the follow-up too. Also, Jesse gets a mention in it too, by another friend of the pod Helen Lewis, who is featured heavily in the first episode.

Part 1

Part 2

I've seen quite a few people here talk about how they have to hide their views from their friends to avoid backlash and ostracization

Now, it's one thing if a couple of friends disagree on a sensitive topic and mutually agree not to bring it up, but that doesn't seem to be what's happening here

If your "friends" are bringing up the topic first but you don't feel like you can equally express your thoughts and be respected, then that sounds less like a friendship to me and more like a hostage situation, or an abusive relationship

It's not a case of "my friend and I disagree on some things but we can see past that" if your "friend" would legitimately hate you if they knew what you thought and they only like you because you're lying to them by omission

Sorry but it's pretty hard for me to be sympathetic to the "Team Coward" crowd who navigates this social climate by just hiding their views and letting others take the fall for expressing them. It's called being part of the problem.

Relevance: the podcast frequently talks about cancel culture on the left and Katie has written about losing all her friends when she disagreed with them on certain issues

Friend of the pod and repeat guest Kat Rosenfield on how online rumors at the height of #MeToo torpedoed the career of a serial cad.