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The Myth of Debating Hate

“Free speech” is the hot topic for modern social media. It has been for a while but never with so much emphasis and fury as since Elon Musk’s hostile acquisition of Twitter to force it to stop moderating content. Substack has similarly come out to announce that they will

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Crypto is Capitalism's Dumbest Inevitability

I still don’t understand an awful lot about crypto. This is starting to become difficult to admit, because I’m beginning to feel like my late grandmother, God rest her soul, who could not figure out how the TV remote control worked and was eventually left completely lost when

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It's Time to Prepare Ourselves For the Alex Jones Presidency

I’m only half kidding. Maybe not even half. Ten years ago I wrote and self-published a book about the etymology of conspiracy theories and related culture. You can still buy it, if you like. There’s three reviews and only one of them says it’s shit. Back

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The Hard Problem of Social Media: Why Free Speech Platforms Ultimately Fail

Recently Substack, the platform that hosts my newsletter, was in the news again for, unfortunately, the same reason it’s usually in the news: The Nazi problem. More specifically, it hosts, and consequently profits from, an alarmingly high number of outright (or should I say altright, womp womp) white supremacists,

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I'm Going to the Supermarket to Buy Some Groceries

The most important rule of newsletters – make sure your readers know what to expect, every time. Be consistent. Don’t go off doing something completely left field and different. You will alienate readers and confuse your subscribers. – every newsletter advice guide I'm going to the supermarket to buy

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We Weren't Built to Absorb This Much Propaganda

Here’s the most important thing you need to know about any geopolitical or internal business conflict, anywhere in the world: Absolutely nobody involved has any incentive whatsoever to tell you the truth about what’s going on. Zero. That’s the quick answer to why your guys say everything—

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Technology is Ruining Christmas

I still remember the magic of Christmas Day as a child—waking up to a glittering tree towering over piles of colourful boxes. The tree was plastic and it got shit everywhere, the fronds broke off and stuck in the carpet, the cheap glittery baubles rubbed off on everything, but

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What Does it Mean to be Altruistic?

Poor old Mr Beast can never catch a break, can he? All he wants to do is help people and he just keeps getting cancelled for it. Whatever the hell that means. As an aside, you can see from my screenshot that I’m a member of Community Notes, the

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Arise! Zombie Writer

Dear reader, Thank you for choosing Plato Was a Dick – the S Peter Davis newsletter. We realise you have a choice in who gets to slide into your inbox every week to natter at you about whatever the fuck happens to be on our mind and we, by which I

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We Need to Kill Art Before AI Does

I have a confession to make – I’ve been using AI. Just a little bit. Hardly at all. I got Adobe’s new Firefly software and I’ve been toying around with it with all the gentle caution of a cat prodding a tarantula. Anyone who’s been following my

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The Whole Internet Is Just Weird Fetish Stuff Now

I can’t count the number of times this year I’ve been listening to a podcast or watching a video or something and the hosts have tried to push something called Skibidi Toilet on me. It’s hard to tell at times whether they’re doing at earnestly. A

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How Elon Musk Ruined the News

As a commentator on current affairs, there’s one topic this week that people are going to be expecting me to talk about. And, as a comedy writer, that’s going to be a real tough order, chief. Thankfully, I have this big wheel that contains all of my regular