Silicon Valley spent years replacing real world human communities and interactions with poor digital facsimiles of them. Now, they are marketing AI friends to alleviate the loneliness epidemic that their products continue to cause. I wrote about why this is destined to fail. Gift link:

At this point, if you do not see what is going on here, you are dumber than a Nazi

Silicon Valley spent years replacing real world human communities and interactions with poor digital facsimiles of them. Now, they are marketing AI friends to alleviate the loneliness epidemic that their products continue to cause. I wrote about why this is destined to fail. Gift link:

With the news as dark as it is, I appreciate the writers providing this small comic relief storyline

This longread by @elishakelman.bsky.social on Yoram Hazony, the National Conservatives, and the Jews, does an excellent job untangling all the contradictions and perils at work in this moment:

We're now offering free digital subscriptions to @theatlantic.com to all U.S. public high schools! If that's you, you can sign up here: accounts.theatlantic.com/products/fre... More info here: www.theatlantic.com/press-releas...

This is a generous thread about what "antisemitism" means. But sadly, most people who say "antisemitism doesn't just refer to Jews so it's not just about Jews / X person can't be an antisemite" do not care about antisemitism. They just want to deflect and divert any discussion of antisemitism.

I wrote about why Trump's Abraham Accords might collapse, an outcome that is more likely than you'd know from the public discourse:

I wrote about how Netanyahu's government is threatening to undo what Trump considers to be his greatest international achievement, the Abraham Accords. Will he let them? I game out the players and the possibilities. Gift link:

I wrote about why Trump's Abraham Accords might collapse, an outcome that is more likely than you'd know from the public discourse:

Important piece by my colleague Gisela Salim-Peyer www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

This is transparently false: It never takes the worst people on the internet 24 hours to blame a horrific tragedy on a Jewish culprit. More like 24 minutes.

I wrote about Charlie Kirk’s death, mourning and conflict, Shabbat and shiva www.vox.com/politics/461... (gift link)

I wrote about how Netanyahu's government is threatening to undo what Trump considers to be his greatest international achievement, the Abraham Accords. Will he let them? I game out the players and the possibilities. Gift link:

Political violence is antithetical to the precious, fragile blessing of American democracy. If we do not already understand this from our history, we risk being forced to learn it again from experience.

demonstrating my patriotism by steadfastly refusing to cede puns to the Nazis (also this whole piece is, of course, very good)

this is true www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

As Orwell wrote, “who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

I had no idea that Goebbels tried to use puns in service of Nazi propaganda. It did not go well. From @petridishes.bsky.social's retrospective on puns: www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

Need a data/business journalist to come up with a way to quantify how much productivity dropped today after Silksong was released.

"Progressives" like this, responding to articles by Americans Jews about American antisemitism like this, are the funhouse mirror allies of Tucker Carlson and his Hitler apologists:

"The country learned hard lessons from the Nazi Holocaust about the catastrophic consequences of conspiratorial prejudice. Today, a growing constituency on the right wants the nation to unlearn them." Why Tucker Carlson and his fellow travelers are rehabilitating Hitler:

Prominent far-right influencers have been attempting to rehabilitate Hitler's reputation. That's not an exaggeration; it's easily documented. I wrote about why they are doing this, what they hope to gain, and what it means for America.

This is a very important article to read and share.

"One could make the argument we should have sided with Hitler," a guest told Tucker Carlson's podcast last month. Yair Rosenberg writes about the MAGA influencers who want to rehabilitate the Nazi leader—and what they hope to gain by doing so.

“Late last year, David Shor, one of the Democratic Party’s top data scientists, surveyed some 130,000 voters about whether they had a “favorable” or “unfavorable” opinion of Jewish people. Hardly anyone over the age of 70 said their view was unfavorable. More than a quarter of those under 25 did.”

Prominent far-right influencers have been attempting to rehabilitate Hitler's reputation. That's not an exaggeration; it's easily documented. I wrote about why they are doing this, what they hope to gain, and what it means for America.

I subverted the question somewhat in my answer here, but I also second my colleague who said "the movie the person near you is watching." Makes a lot of inane movies way better when you end up imagining better dialogue for yourself.

AI is being used to fabricate quotes and attribute them to real people, @yair-rosenberg.bsky.social reports. Here's what he did when it happened to him:

I wrote about how AI chatbots are pumping out fake quotes, attributed to real people, at scale, and polluting our public disourse with potemkin pontification and made-up appeals to authority. And the AIs are not just misquoting famous people—it happened to me and it could happen to you. Gift link:

“Meretricious material from chatbots is polluting our public discourse with Potemkin pontification, derailing debates with made-up appeals to authority and precedent, and in some cases, defaming living people by attributing things to them that they never said and do not agree with.”

Recently a member of the Swedish government shared a “quote” from a journalist that was an AI fabrication. Their excuse, translated into English: "This is a completely new situation for us that we get a direct source that turns out not to be true.” www.sydsvenskan.se/artikel/ebba...

A must-read (and an incredibly depressing one)

all of these quotes, allegedly from a "riveting novel" i wrote, are fake. www.bookey.app/quote-book/l...

AI is being used to fabricate quotes and attribute them to real people, Yair Rosenberg reports. Here's what he did when it happened to him:

I wrote about how AI chatbots are pumping out fake quotes, attributed to real people, at scale, and polluting our public disourse with potemkin pontification and made-up appeals to authority. And the AIs are not just misquoting famous people—it happened to me and it could happen to you. Gift link:

As I wrote last month, "'Trumpism' is not 'anti-war' or 'pro-worker,' 'neoconservative' or 'neo-isolationist,' or any other ideologically coherent category; it is whatever Trump says it is." Looking to Tucker, Bannon, Vance, or whoever to understand Trump's base misreads the map.

...what exactly does she think happened during the Spanish Inquisition

In The Atlantic Daily, @isabelfattal.bsky.social speaks with @yair-rosenberg.bsky.social about the hard-line Israeli faction that has long sought to resettle Gaza:

Most Israelis oppose annexing or resettling Gaza. But that may not matter, because Netanyahu is not accountable to most Israelis, but rather to the hard-right factions who keep him in power. www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

More than a third of the lawmakers in Netanyahu's government now support resettling Gaza. Right-wing Israeli media is now promoting the idea with trial balloons and push polls. www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

In 2023, I wrote about the campaign on the Israeli settler right to expel Palestinians and resettle Gaza, and why it was more likely to happen than many credited. My latest is about how that campaign is closer than ever to succeeding. Gift link:

When Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, and other 1970s music legends needed an instrument—or a friend—my dad, Fred Walecki, was there. My love song to him in @theatlantic.com September issue: bit.ly/45eZIfa

In 2023, I wrote about the campaign on the Israeli settler right to expel Palestinians and resettle Gaza, and why it was more likely to happen than many credited. My latest is about how that campaign is closer than ever to succeeding. Gift link:

Blaming Israel for both World Wars, which occurred before the state was created, is not "anti-Israel." It's just old-school antisemitism with "Jews" replaced by "Israel" for deniability. Some of this stuff is hard, but this isn't. Journalism should call something by its name.

"After October 7, Israel’s partners may have thought they were interfacing with a typical—if deeply conservative—Israeli government. Now they actually seem to be dealing with a Smotrich/Ben-Gvir government in a Netanyahu-shaped trench coat."

There were once multiple sources of pressure, both in Israel and outside it, restraining Netanyahu on humanitarian aid and forced displacement of Gazans. They are all gone—and Trump is on the other side. www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

Israel's far right wants to conquer and settle Gaza, expelling any Palestinians in the way. Benjamin Netanyahu wants to stay in power. I wrote about the corrupt political bargain that is prolonging Gaza's war and driving its hunger crisis, and all the decisions that led here. Gift link:

My body of work, in seven words