The “Intellectual Dark Web” is a group of largely right-wing, conservative, and reactionary thinkers. They are almost all cishet white men; their main qualifying factor is being willing to “Speak hard truths” (T/N: constantly JAQ off about questions solved ages ago at an embarrassingly low intellectual level) that “violate PC taboo” (T/N: generally be dicks to women, minorities, the poor, or anyone who isn’t a rich cishet white dude) and shamelessly argue for “free speech” (T/N: the right to say anything to anyone anywhere with no consequences or blowback) and “moderate political centrism” (T/N: somewhere between Bush-Era conservatism and full-blown fascism).
Some prominent figures include:
- Sam Harris
- Jordan Peterson
- Joe Rogan
- Dave Rubin
- Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin
But in general, other, less prominent members of the same circles are welcome. Basically, right-wing reactionaries who claim to be centrists or liberals - and whose shit the media keeps fucking buying.
So let’s start the thread off right.
In recent news, Sam Harris deleted his Patreon (and Rubin and Peterson threatened to) because Patreon banned Sargon over an insane rant where he told a nazi in his comments section that he was, quote, “acting like a nigger”. He somehow thinks the context means that this is just inoffensively criticizing racists, and isn’t racist at all. In another thread (which I am creating this one as an offshoot of, with hopefully less taint from the other), another user called me out for calling Sargon a Nazi. Meanwhile, here’s Sargon, ban-dodging on Twitter, explaining how he feels about Bolsenaro murdering LGBT activists:
https://twitter.com/ToymakerHypno/status/1081173460787843072
Context:
Sargon: Bolsenaro, day 1. This is the future the left chose. People could have adapted to a “third gender” over time but you had to try and take the two existing ones away out of spite. Now the backlash is here.
Rando fan: I just cant get on board with Bolsenaro, he would rather his son be dead than gay is over the line for me, literally beating the gayness out of somebody is ridiculous.
Sargon: Yup. Brazil isn’t a friendly place. Now you’re going to get Bolsonaro helicopter memes as he murders leftists. I’m not going to shed a tear. And dumbass leftists are in my mentions pretending they don’t understand what I mean. Liars, scoundrels and cowards.
He then spent the next hundred or so tweets desperately backpedaling and explaining, “No, I’m not a sociopath, I just think the left is to blame for Bolsonaro winning so it’s their fault he’s killing gay people.” Which is just so much better. Personally, I’d blame the fascist and the people who put the fascist in power, but what do I know - I’m not a vaunted member of the “Intellectual Dark Web”.
Remember when we all used to be able to dream that the internet would lead to bad ideas dying out and good ideas triumphing? I remember. What got that thought in my head was a video called “The Internet is where religion comes to die”.
The person who made that video has now made more than 50 videos complaining about an online video game critic he doesn’t like very much. He’s made more videos dishonestly attacking a Z-list online celebrity who made a video series he doesn’t like than he ever made attacking religion. It’s not that bad ideas die on the internet. It’s that religion’s method of propagation was ill-suited to the internet. Bad ideas do just fine.
Given that this group is depressingly influential and unbelievably stupid/evil, there should be plenty of grist for this particular mill. 