Too Hot to Handle: The New Social Engineers

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

In this four minute YouTube video on the subject of gender, race and identity, Douglas Murray has a word to the wise about Google, Facebook and Twitter: Big Social is actively trying to change how you think about these issues through a variety of means, including the results you see when you use a search engine online. Spoiler alert: corporations do not have your best interests at heart.

Tom: It’s rarely an effective strategy to announce to your audience, “Here’s a big plateful of tedious propaganda. Chow down.” Our would-be societal engineers are a little smarter than that, aren’t they, IC?

Nothing New Under the Sun

If the shifting political and social narratives of the last several years have not convinced you that the vast majority of the general public are being lied to deliberately and repeatedly, then probably nothing will.

For myself, I am convinced that no matter the subject, just about the only story that isn’t accurate in any given news cycle is the one being told to us by politicians, corporations and media; the one which is said to be most popularly acceptable, and the one its authors are at greatest pains to preserve by censoring any contradictory information or expression of opinion that might make it less persuasive.

Too Hot to Handle: The New Social Engineers

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: The Best Men Can Be?

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Hey, the new Gillette commercial is being talked about everywhere else. Why not here?

“Bullying. The #MeToo movement against sexual harassment. Toxic Masculinity.”

[Shots of pensive men of various types reflected in shaving mirrors.]

A serious voice intones, “Is this the best a man can get? IS IT?”

[Shot of a woman kissing a man on his shaved cheek from an old Gillette commercial.]

“We can’t hide from it. It’s been going on far too long. We can’t laugh it off, making the same old excuses: ‘Boys will be boys.’ ”