What a breeze of fresh air to read Sam's comments on the Charlie Kirk assassination. That's the voice of reason society needs so much, but which is tuned out by the frenzy on social media...I will memorize his last four sentences: "Get off social media. Read good books and real journalism. Find your friends. And enjoy your life." What great advise. And please stay safe and well out there, Sam.
I can’t help but see some irony here: praising Sam’s advice to “get off social media” while doing so… on Sam’s Substack, which is social media. The difference, it seems, is that Sam’s followers wait for him to signal which platforms are acceptable and which aren’t. That’s not wisdom—it’s elitist gatekeeping dressed up as virtue.
Substack is not social media, certainly no more than the New York Times is social media.
I do however think what Sam is talking about can be generalized as "algorithmic" media - where in YOU are not the customer but the product for advertisers. Substack breaks this poor incentive structure. However I would caution against the use of substack's discovery feature.
With a new injection of $100 million, the inevitability of advertising on Substack feels more certain, and with it the creeping enshittification of the platform. The glossy new video features, algorithm-driven trending topics that funnel me toward look-alike writers, and the way my newsletters are pushed to a homogenized audience all reinforce that decline.
I come here primarily to write and to read and be informed by the likes of Mr. Harris. Yet some of my favourite writers are slowly leaving...perhaps not the big names or those with significant subscriber bases, but certainly voices that add to the diversity of dialogue and critical thinking here.
In the end we can never rely on the platform or any institution, we must rely on ourselves to demand better. Naive perhaps, but it's the only way forward.
Too bad it had to be explained to this guy. He’s just a trained monkey who, after boatloads of bananas, has been successfully taught that only the MAGA definition of the term “elite” applies.
It's a world of social media. We can't get around that. Limiting it is likely a wise recommendation. We are all adults that can find good information from multiple perspectives. It takes effort but can be done.
Bill, you seem to try very hard to read something into my comments which just is not there. For one, I don't think Substack in this context falls under the "social media" rubric - it is a publishing platform for authors, and it's just how I follow Sam's writing in the first place. Second, one can have a presence on social media and nevertheless think that it is healthy to reduce it as much as possible, and strive toward that goal. In my case, I still use X and Instagram for passive consumption only, but I am on a good way to replace it with reading great fiction, practicing a musical instrument and listening to excellent podcasts. So Sam's advise already has benefited me. Not sure what this makes it "elitist gatekeeping dressed up as virtue" (though I have to smile about the carefully crafted phrasing😉)....
I'm not convinced, however, that pointing to irony is equal to "trying hard to read something into your comment." That said, I think I can take your point—assuming I understand it—that an initial Substack post "may not" fall under the “social media” rubric.
The comment section, is a very different matter and seems very like social media. I don’t really use X or Instagram much. I have accounts on both, but I barely know how to navigate them. When I go on X, for example, I just search for people I know, read a post or two, and glance at a few associated comments. I’m unaware of the vitriol Sam continually speaks about. (Not that I have any doubt that it is there somewhere). Instagram is even simpler: my wife mostly sends me short video clips she thinks I’d find interesting—mostly GSP’s.
Anyway, I wanted to reply to your comment out of courtesy. I don’t have much more to add to this thread, but I just posted a comment that should start a new thread. If it interests you, I’d appreciate your feedback on it.
Bill, still not clear why my comments constitute "elitist gatekeeping dressed up as virtue". I was just expressing that Sam's advise to stay off social media is very helpful for me personally. And you seem to follow it also. So - all good, no?
It'd have been helpful if you'd made all of those enquiries back when we started our interaction. It would have been clearer to me. I'm no spring chicken.
Although, I'm pretty sure I can still figure it out.
Are you unclear to whom "elitist gatekeeping dressed up as virtue" is directed. I'm quite certain that I intended that as a description of Sam and not you. Although, I guess I can see how it might have been interpreted as you. But gatekeeping? You seem to be poorly positioned to effect that. Sam on the other hand? Should I go through every word of "elitist gatekeeping dressed up as virtue"? Can you make sense of none of that when seen as directed toward Sam.
There is no doubt he is a wordsmith. But that can be a curse (for us) as well as a gift to him. It often let's sophistry pass as wisdom. Take his, "And most ominously, he implied that the full power of the federal government would soon be turned against them." I don't know where you are from, but here in Canada if often see sign such as, "Shoplifters will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." Are we to give a pass to arsonist (assassins in this case) as we did in the summer of 2020?
You go on, "And you seem to follow it also." Follow what? I'm here.
"His murder was an especially terrible crime for several reasons— "
"The fact that some of the most deranging and divisive content is being created (or amplified) by foreign adversaries—and that we have literally built and monetized their capacity to do this—beggars belief."
Imagine thinking that Sam is a virtue signaling elitist gatekeeper, despite thousands of instances where he has done the exact opposite. I can’t imagine what your values are if you think that nothing you partake in carries the same irony you’re so intelligently pointing out.
Charlie Kirk had a lot of hateful, harmful things to say that hurt innocent people and directly lead to more pain and civil destruction in this country than damn near any figure in its history. Should he have been murdered? No. Is it ok to be relieved he no longer will have the chance to further spread dangerous lies, up to and including advocating for the stoning of gays, the murder of trans “like they did it in the 60s” and government enforced school prayer? That’s up for each individual to choose.
He did not advocate for stoning gays. This is false information. Stephen King spread it and later retracted it and apologized. Charlie tweeted "gay people should be welcome in the conservative movement. As Christians we are called to love everyone. I will always stand against people who wish to establish their personal values as a reason to kick others out of our movement."
Stephen King's own retraction and apology: "I apologize for saying Charlie Kirk advocated stoning gays. What he actually demonstrated was how some people cherry-pick Biblical passages."
This was from his Wiki - I think this was removed in the last couple days:
On June 8, 2024, while criticizing YouTuber Ms. Rachel for quoting Leviticus 19:18 ("Love your neighbor as yourself"), Kirk responded by citing Leviticus 20:13 ("If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them"), which he described as "God's perfect law when it comes to sexual matters".
So can someone explain what he meant if it wasn't what it sounded like?
I saw Stephen King retracted it and said it was misinformation but I'm not seeing how it was misinformation if he really called it god’s perfect law.
And yes sure he said gays should be allowed in the conservative moment but that doesn't negate praising that passage.
The person quoting the Bible was claiming that homosexuality is not a sin in christianity and Charlie finished the quote to say that it is a sin in christianity. Stephen King when he retracted his statement said exactly that, that Charlie was making a point about cherry-picking bible quotes. Hope that clears it up.
What was his point about cherry-picking Bible verses?
From what you’ve said, it does indeed sound like he advocated exactly what he was accused of advocating and his defenders are trying to split hairs over saying it directly (which, admittedly, he didn’t do) vs endorsing a Bible passage that advocated it. It’s a bit like if I endorsed Mein Kampf but cried “straw man” when people accused me of being antisemitic.
- In christian theology, the new testament directly changes the approach of the old testament, e.g. turning the other cheek vs an eye for an eye. The old testament is still part of the religious history of christians.
- He very clearly and directly said he has love for gay people, so you don't have to guess meaning or intent.
- Quoting the bible is not like quoting Mein Kampf. Unlike actual nazis, there are many christians who are peaceful. In fact nearly one third of the world is.
Or do you believe every christian and jewish and muslim person wants to murder gay people?
Firstly, Jesus said in Matthew 5:18 that the law hadn’t changed.
Secondly, and more importantly, I don’t say Charlie Kirk advocated stoning gays merely because he was a Christian. However, he specifically referred to the precise Bible passage that advocated it and called it “God’s perfect law.”
Not all Christians believe all the bad parts of the Bible because moderate Christians are, for better or worse, intellectually dishonest. But Charlie Kirk clearly *did* believe this part.
Really? Evangelicals love gays? How do they show their love? By opposing gays with the force of law and their religious opinions that it's an abomination (setting aside the stoning part, which they don't advocate (yet)?
In all honesty I have not watched the full video because I'm lazy. I've seen so many cases of things he said taken out of context to smear him that I'm suspicious of that thing too though. Can't believe anything these days there's so much dishonesty.
Kirk was a milquetoast Republican who was kind and polite to his political adversaries. The fact that you're deranged enough to think he caused harm means you're part of the problem.
He helped get Trump elected, for one thing, which is causing harm around the world. And he said a lot of hateful things. And he lied with a frequency that it was clear that he was doing it intentionally. He dressed it in honey maybe, but he was not harmless.
Over half the country that voted for Trump is "causing harm." Got it. There's no way that some nutjob would hear you say that and do something violent.
There is a difference between promoting Trump, spreading propaganda on the one hand and casting a ballot based on misinformation. And he won less than half of the votes and 38% of eligible voters didn’t vote. So no.
LOL. Kirk is "far right" in many of his opinions. He's "kindness" was a pose. The purpose of his "kindness" was to put up to ridicule those naive enough to think they could convince him of anything, time and time again. To quote a song,
You just distorted his views so that you could see a reason to hate him. He called for dialogue and no violence. He treated gays respectfully. Where are you getting your information? Use only primary sources if you are looking to get a clearer picture
Again, Kirk was interested holding his interlocutors up to ridicule through his opinions, which were usually informed either by Biblical nonsense or MAGA talking points. "Prove Me Wrong" was a scam. He wasn't there to be proved wrong. He should have called his little game, "Prove Me Right." The people who came to oppose him were thrown to the lions - his minions -- with Kirk as gladiator.
I find this harmful and hateful what you wrote. Is this how it works? I didn’t even like some of his most important views on abortion and gays. I am not even Christian. I respect that he understood that all we have is dialogue to deal with differences. If you shut this down then the only thing left is violence. As polls indicate now that 1/3 of college students believe that violence is justified to speech you hate or disagree with. How awful and illiberal
Well said, Michael. It’s amazing how quickly folks start hitting the “justification” angle as if his views are even relevant. Of course no one agreed with 100% of what he said. But what’s missing in all of this - Sam’s view included - is that the information war can’t be won when we ignore what true fascism really is - Shutting down opposing voices with violence. Charlie was respectful, courteous, and polite even in the face of screaming opponents challenging him to physical alterations.
So anyone who thought he spreads hate is either willfully ignorant or has a vile agenda.
I’m open minded to hear alternative possibilities, but it feels like gaslighting to suggest he was anything near a hate spreader.
It can both be true that Kirk was respectful, courteous and welcoming of debate from the other side, while also playing an instrumental part in dividing our country and fostering a political environment of violence. Kirk was smart of enough to articulate his quite radical in a way that wasn't overtly radical - but that doesn't mean he wasn't a radical. I don't see how you can talk about Kirk's death without talking about the man he was - a person with substantial influence. I find the lionizing him of him, ultimately a right wing influencer who profited off of dividing our country, after his death as if he was MLK Jr. equally deranged.
I would respectfully challenge you to do more research of uncut videos. This man would’ve been considered center left just 8 years ago. He was sympathetic to Trans people even though he didn’t agree with their lifestyle. He was friends with LGBs and employed them. They spoke at his events. He was anti-DEI but for promoting and helping the black community. He gave out nearly countless black scholarships. His views have been cut, edited, taken out of context, and propagandized to a population eager to hate him in support of their own bias.
I truly wish I could sit with you and show you the receipts. But this too is a form of social media and we are limited to artificial discourse.
I don't doubt that there have been many clips posted him of him taken out of context in order to make him seem more radical than he was - and I haven't watched any of his long form debates but my general sense is that he sanitized his message over the last several years. That being said, I would be shocked if he "would've been considered center left just 8 years ago." After all, this is a guy who founded a right wing organization at like 18 years old.
I'm open to being wrong, but I find the attempts to paint this guy as anything other than political radical as perplexing. He was practically best friends with Candace Owens!
He was very close to Candice, indeed. He did found his org at 18. I’m sure you have as diverse a friend group as me - I wouldn’t throw a party and invite everyone as I have (had) friends that celebrated his death as I do have friends that think we need another crusade. Thats not a valid metric.
Did he “sanitize” his views or did they evolve? I challenge you do find the video (culture war campaign) where he challenges a MAGA supporter on their homophobia. Accepting Gays as part of Turning Point would never havr happened in a Republican sphere before Charlie. Thats center left philosophy. I also wish I could share the loving interaction at a campus with a Trans person. There is no hate in his heart, sir.
He was deeply homophobic. He called the civil rights act a mistake and MLK an evil man.
He said a "patriot" should bail out Paul Pelosi's attacker. He doxxed professors he disagreed with and inflamed his followers so that they received death threats en masse, among many other offensive, cruel, and intolerant acts and statements.
He was a showman and MAGA propagandist, not an honest interlocutor, and he took sadistic pleasure in humiliating his opponents.
Political violence is evil, full stop. That doesn't mean we have pretend he was a saint.
Have you listened to much material from Sam? Did you watch him engage with Rory Stewart? Memorable to me way Sam’s quote (possibly originating with Hitch) “The concept of Islamophobia has been designed to obfuscate this. You know, someone once said on the internet that Islamophobia, is a word invented by fascists and used by cowards to manipulate morons. And I honestly think that's not far from the truth.”
You seem to use the word “homophobic” in this very sense.
Here is a video showing both the extent of Charlie’s homophobia and his coddling of those you’d at least be more accurate affixing that label to.
Brian - I agree with you that shutting down opposing voices with violence is wrong, but it's not "what true fascism really is." We're seeing what true fascism is. Comedians being cancelled due to government action (threats by Trump, threats by Brendan Carr); a President using his power to limit what the news media can support (Hegseth is doing this now); a President deciding he can murder people he "suspects" of being "terrorists." This is just the beginning.
People advocating theocracy, regardless of how polite they are, have a purpose. They are not being polite as an end in itself, They're being polite as the means to achieve that purpose.
Being clear-eyed about who Kirk -- another (very important) MAGA who advocated for theocracy -- requires a real look at his call for "dialogue to deal with differences." Someone who advocates theocracy does not "dialogue" to deal with differences. He dialogues to bring more into his tent and cast out unbelievers. Please see my other comments above before responding to this one. Or better, "prove me wrong" and show me five instances where Kirk admits that he was proven wrong.
When there are differences that run this deep, dealing with differences is a matter of maintaining respect. Abhorring Kirk's death is about the personal tragedy that he and his family have suffered. That's real, and we should all take it heart. I have a number of friends, clients, and acquaintances who are evangelicals and/or MAGA. I respect them, meaning I leave them to their opinions, and recognize their humanity.
I’m surprised and dismayed at just how many people on “our side” have beliefs that inch us closer to a world where violence is an ordinary, if not default political tool. The ethical side of that is obvious and much discussed here. But there’s also a practical side that makes no sense. “Our side” is full of thinkers and weekend athletes who own lots of Patagonia. Where on our side are the people with the training and stomach and nerves for political violence? We don’t have any more anarchist terrorists or union toughs. Contrary to public perception, antifa types are few and aging. The fbi and police are mostly owned by the other side. In other words, if we help usher in a world of political violence, we will lose in that world, horribly.
I think everyone should know as an aside that when asked what Kirk would do if he had a hypothetical 10 year old daughter who was raped and got pregnant, he said he would force her to have the baby. NO he should not have been killed, but I've seen many conservatives saying he was a good man. I don't think anyone who would inflict such horrific child abuse can be called a good person.
This is a dangerous take. I don't agree with Kirk's hypothetical answer here. But to claim 100 million people are not "good" because they have particular religious views (which again as an atheist I don't share) is to fall into the trap of demonizing people you don't agree with. I am quite sure by comparison that average pro-lifers are good people in most every way that matters. Theirs was a view that was nearly universal 75 years ago. The view can be wrong and may have caused harm, but doesn't by itself make the holder of these views not good people in the colloquial sense. Sure, you can get into a philosophical argument about what a "good person" means, but when you say it casually it has a different and dangerous connotation.
We can say a person is bad (more specifically, immoral) for holding a belief regardless of whether the belief is associated with religion.
Do you think people who believe there should be a death penalty for gay people because that's what their religious text says are bad people? I would say so. They are equally at fault.
This is a dangerous take. I don't agree with Kirk's hypothetical answer here. But to claim 100 million people are not "good" because they have particular religious views (which again as an atheist I don't share) is to fall into the trap of demonizing people you don't agree with. I am quite sure by comparison that average pro-lifers are good people in most every way that matters. Theirs was a view that was nearly universal 75 years ago. The view can be wrong and may have caused harm, but doesn't by itself make the holder of these views not good people in the colloquial sense. Sure, you can get into a philosophical argument about what a "good person" means, but when you say it casually it has a different and dangerous connotation.
The idea that martyring Kirk will somehow lessen the spread of his ideas is a bit laughable. Feel relief if you like, but I thought "fuck, that guy 's videos will reach more people than ever now"
Words like, ‘my Christianity tells me that I cannot condone gay marriage’
‘I think affirmative action is an insult to Black people’
‘I want trans people to find a way to accept themselves as they were born through psychological help rather than body surgery’. ??
I agree with you. Words are not violence. They can hurt, of course. But These words, are his opinion. More nuanced - not the hatred that most seem to need to assign to him to control the narrative.
We must think for ourselves.. and not join the lemmings who seem to need to ridicule and shame when all we really need is to talk more, share thoughts and ideas and maybe even come away with more nuanced opinion.
He said no such things you hateful scumbag. You really believe he caused more pain and suffering ‘than damn near any figure in it’s history’ says more about your limited grasp on history than anything Charlie Kirk said. You can’t even show your real name. Coward.
I would encourage you to reconsider the phrase "directly lead to...". How does anyone (especially a person without governmental or legal powers) through their words alone, lead DIRECTLY to real-world actions that others carry out? Kirk may have influenced others to a set of beliefs and inspired others to act -- but those actions were indirectly, not directly, caused by his words. I'm drilling down on this semantic point only to highlight that the invalid concept "words are violence" has -- dangerously -- evolved to be a rationalization for disproportionate and even violent responses.
Without reading all the replying comments, you didn’t hear his entire speech at ALL. You are the very example of what is wrong. Go an listen to the entire thing before responding to clickbait. He mentioned what the Bible said but that that was not done today. I am so sick of reading this BS about CK. If you take a little bit of time to ACTUALLY listen to what he said, you would see he had to issues with people who were Gay. He had issues with identity politics. You can understand that from a sound bite. I finally realized this BS when I listened to the full speech Trump gave after Charlottesville. For years I believed he excused the neo Nazis. He DIDNT. But CNN didn’t play you that part. And before the election, the speech where the Left media claimed he said, if he doesn’t win, it will be because of the Jews, also a line completely taken out of context. This is such a sloppy opinion. Please for all our sakes, and for the 4xx people who liked your ignorant response, get your entire picture before you write. It’s honestly just negligent.
I would say it’s negligent trying to pretend a hate monger wasn’t a hate monger merely because he was the victim of political violence. I fully encourage you to read a book all the way through perhaps and try and develop some critical thinking skills
Were Kirk alive I’d say it to his face. Since he’s now dead I either type it here or yell it into the air. Call me an idiot if you want pal, I’m not the one that has to look in the mirror every morning and recognize I live a shattered life
Just days before the Kirk killing, I logged onto IG for the first time in half a year. I was feeling very grounded after a long, analog summer with my family. And when I saw what was happening in response—people whom I LOVE saying totally opposite, yet equally reactionary and blameful things—I felt not only stunned, but almost blind. I can only describe it as being hit with a tidal wave…where’s up, how will I breathe? I’m the mother of four sons. The eldest is eleven, nearly twelve. They have no social media access or devices, though they did occasionally watch sports clips on YouTube. Until I realized that, one step later, it was Mr. Beast. And then they were telling me about Elon, describing him with awe and wonder, as if he were a contemporary Bruce Wayne. How are they supposed to learn critical thinking and discernment in this environment? One doesn’t learn to swim in a tsunami. Radicalization is right there for them, anytime they open the Internet. My husband and I are very tech-strict, but can’t control what they see forever. I’ve had to spend an inordinate amount of effort myself to avoid seeing the video of Kirk’s shooting, which, I am told, pops up first thing to anyone who opens TikTok. God save us. And if not God, Alan Watts.
I wanted to share some thoughts on Charlie Kirk. Although I wasn't very familiar with his work previously, I've recently watched some of his college tour debates on YouTube. I found him to be both fair and humorous in those discussions. While there were some points I completely disagreed with, I also felt that on other topics, he was uniquely courageous in vocalizing opinions that many people hold but are hesitant to express publicly. I cried when I found out he was murdered and I can't explain the sadness I feel. My husband and daughter don't get me right now. I'm very sad.
'No morally sane person, Left or Right, supports political assassination—or feels anything but horror over it' sounds reasonable and correct. it was quite the shock to see leading academics, professionals, government employees, content creators, tv personalities and Stephen King, Ilhan Omar and others reveled to not fit this criteria. and while I agree with much of Sam's article, this was a wake up call that's hard to close your eyes to - never mind the zoomer babies dancing and singing, but the proliferation of adults in well respected positions who openly celebrated and unashamedly announced it to the world? this is a major radicalizing event even for people who aren't addicted to social media. it reminds me a lot of October 7th - the most shocking part wasn't the terrible, awful action - but the wide scale celebration.
So yes, call for de-escalation - but also please acknowledge and respond as to how we make sure that such celebrations either don't occur, or are in some way explainable as something else then what they seem. ignoring them and talking about Trump and Elon, however deplorable they might be as is usual, leaves a sting of partisan blame dodging that's doing nothing to lower the flames
Absolutely spot on. Pivoting to social media as the problem isn’t even shooting the messenger - it’s shooting the horse. The problem still exists no matter how you hear about it. Maybe one ironic positive from social media is now employers can terminate the celebrators over ethics clause violations. I’d call that a win.
I partially agree, but Sam is not wrong at all in his analysis, nor is it a pivot in my eyes - its factually correct. So is criticizing Elon and Trump - they are pouring gasoline on this fire and that's deplorable. But I do think that there is also a real problem here in terms of ever widening horrific celebrations of things we should not be ok with celebrating, and i'm genuinely interested if there is anything to be done about this - because as long as there are thousands of celebrants for every terrible thing that happens, the radicalization problem will just continue to grow.
We seem to have lost our ability as a society to think critically. We simply accept every 7-second clip as true. Example - even Obama in this past election stated the “Trump said good people were on both sides” mean Nazis. That was never true. Yet it propagated. Think of the intellectual dishonesty you have to have to still state something so easily proved wrong from 8(?) years prior. Elon, Trump, Obama, Kamala…. Let’s not one-side this issue.
I agree that the problem exists even without social media due to the very nature of human. But getting off social media is not killing the messenger nor the horse. In my view it’s more like destroying the roads on which the horse runs. So in that sense i agree with Sam and I think social media has no benefit for society anymore. I would be all for banning it if it was possible at all.
You’ve completely missed the point. Social media gives you a false sense of the prevalence of extreme thinking. It amplifies the most inflammatory voices. Even if one million people in America cheered his death, that’s less than .3% of the country. That’s not a real problem, and if you weren’t spending your time on toxic social media sites, you likely wouldn’t even know anyone thought that way.
If you think every post you see is from a real person, you are falling for the propaganda. Did some people make horrible posts? Sure. Were many, perhaps most of them left of center politically? Yup. Were many of them actually to the right of Kirk politically— indubitably. Where was your concern for the gross flood of celebrating when Pelosi was attacked brutally or when actual elected officials in Minnesota were attacked? Ask yourself that.
re-read my comment friend, my concern was there for all of these events. and I do no think that these are deep fake commentators on BBC, MSNBC or mimicking Ilhan and Mehdi Hasan. This is a real problem and if we lock ourselves into politically segregated echo chambers of denial it'd go away. I truly think this is a radicalizing phenomenon, existing on all sides, that is a large part of the vortex of radicalization the entire Western civilization seems to be locked in. I don't care about any disavowal or distancing either - i'm truly asking what can be done about this, because the current trajectory seems untenable and I fear will lead to actual major harm to every country in the West
If you think Mehdi Hassan was celebrating Charlie Kirk’s murder, I’m not sure where we go either. No, Mehdi Hasan did not celebrate Charlie Kirk’s murder. In fact, he explicitly condemned political violence, stating, “None of us should celebrate political violence, because it’s a threat to all of us” A B.
While Hasan and Rep. Ilhan Omar were sharply critical of Kirk’s political legacy in a segment aired shortly after his death, both expressed horror at the assassination itself C. Their comments focused on resisting what they saw as a “whitewashing” of Kirk’s record and critiquing how figures on the political right were using his death to attack the left C A.
His tone was critical of Kirk but he explicitly called out the dangers of politicizing tragedy and condemned the murder and stressed empathy for Kirk’s loved ones. Do you really interpret that as celebration?
Our entire culture is being gaslit by Big Data, which will soon reach even more monstrous proportions abetted by AI. We are, predictably, going insane.
Every major tragedy is followed by purportedly serious people with careers and families and decent stations in life spending hours on social media trying to meme or tweet themselves into algorithmic relevancy.
To be clear, these people are exploiting in real time the suffering of other human beings to satisfy their narcissism and dopamine addiction.
When people behave like this anywhere other than the internet, the behavior is immediately identified for what it is: psychopathy.
But social media, for whatever reason, tends to launder and even encourage such behavior. It is abhorrent, and yet it continues because the digital hellscape rewards it.
A sizable portion of the population simply cannot handle the internet.
Having unlimited access to information is useful if you’re capable of filtering it to arrive at reasonable conclusions.
But many folks, through no fault of their own, simply cannot do this. They do not have the faculties to thoughtfully consider things like source, evidence, or countless other credibility heuristics that other people pick up on intuitively.
The irony is that here in Norway, our state broadcaster NRK (the Norwegian equivalent of the BBC) became part of exactly the dynamic he warns against. Its top debate host admitted he didn’t even know who Charlie Kirk was, yet went on Instagram and portrayed him with what he called "extreme" statements, while also admitting they were taken out of context.
Among the quotes highlighted was: "it is acceptable for people to be killed by firearms in order to preserve the right to bear arms." This point has also been made by Harris himself, who has argued that we accept traffic deaths as the price of mobility. Another, even more absurd, was "there are only two genders." Yes, according to Norway’s state broadcaster, saying there are only two genders qualifies as "extreme." This is what passes for "real journalism."
In another NRK debate program, Norway’s state broadcaster gave a platform to an academic who compared Kirk, the victim of assassination, to Anders Breivik, the far-right terrorist who massacred 77 people, mostly teenagers, in Norway in 2011. She explicitly claimed that Kirk’s rhetoric "overlapped quite a lot with what Anders Breivik used about the dangers of cultural Marxism." In other words, just one day after he was murdered, NRK was already broadcasting a comparison between the victim of a political assassination and Norway’s most infamous mass-murderer.
Harris warns against social media, but when mainstream outlets spread distorted narratives of this kind, it is hardly surprising that people turn to social media to correct the record.
I agree with your criticisms of social media and your calls to deescalate, but I think you’re underestimating how many people on the left are openly celebrating his death and how widespread the belief is among young people that violence is an acceptable response to speech.
Did you do some actual research, or are you drawing conclusions from what you see and read? Not a great way to form and confirm opinions. How many is many?
What FIRE studies. If you look on YouGov, this claim about millions upon millions supporting political violence or reveling in death (and Kirk's death specifically) are completely overblown. YouGov says (and has a table with statistics that should clear the air here:
Part of the discourse after Kirk's death has concerned comments on social media from some left-leaning figures celebrating Kirk's death. Others, especially on the right, have called such rhetoric unacceptable, and have made varying claims about how prevalent such feelings are on the left.
YouGov's polling shows that Americans overall are far more likely to say it's always or usually unacceptable to be happy about the death of a public figure they oppose, than they are to say this is acceptable (77% vs. 8%).
It is true that liberal Americans are more likely than conservatives to defend feeling joy about the deaths of political opponents. 16% of liberals say this is usually or always acceptable, including 24% of those who say their ideology is very liberal and 10% who say they are liberal but not very liberal. That compares to 4% of conservatives and 7% of moderates.
But even among the very liberal, the share who say it's unacceptable to feel joy about the deaths of political opponents outnumbers those who say it's acceptable by a ratio of more than 2 to 1 (56% vs. 24%).
Another question tells a similar story: whether Americans think political violence can ever be justified. Overall, most Americans say violence to achieve political goals is never justified (72%), while just 11% say it can be.
Younger and more liberal Americans are more likely than older or more conservative Americans to say political violence can sometimes be justified, but this remains a minority opinion among these groups. Among the very liberal, 25% say political violence can sometimes be justified and 55% say it can't; among adults under 30, 19% say it can be justified and 51% say it can't.
[same source as above]
All: please stop using your experience on social media to inform you of anything.
FIRE published something on its website on sept 12th, 2025 “student acceptance of violence in response to speech hits record high”. by Ryne Weiss and Chapin Lenthal-Cleary.
Please provide a link. I searched FIRE's website for "Student acceptance of violence," Ryne Weiss, and Chapin Lenthal-Cleary, but found nothing. I did find a polling from Stanford in 2024, that has a questionably methodology (including failing to define "physical violence"), but that was also talking about a minority of students at an elite university. College students overall constitute only about 40% of youth in the same age cohort, which should put the claims of huge numbers in further perspective. I would welcome taking a look at the survey or polling you cited. When you poll and ask someone whether they "support" violence, you might also ask about their own propensity to commit violence. It appears to me that a lot of people "support" it rhetorically, but there are few incidences of actual violence. Indeed, as The Economist recently pointed out, violence is far more common coming from the right than the left.
"Seeing another person (or what appears to be another person) gleefully dance on a slain man’s grave, it is easy to conclude that they represent some significant faction of American society—and to feel the outrage appropriate to such a terrible discovery."
"Social media amplifies extreme views as though they were representative of most Americans, and many of us are losing our sense of what other people are really like. "
His argument is that social media is making the right perceive the left to be gleeful about the death of Charlie Kirk, when in fact they are not. I think this is incorrect.
You're extending his argument and reading into it a bit.
He's highlighting that the problem is exacerbated and distorted by social media and perceptions of social media, which is true. In the essay he's not taking much of a position on how quantitatively widespread the left "openly celebrating [his] death" is. Neither are you for that matter, unless you would claim that > half of society has 'extreme' views on this issue (which I don't suspect you would).
I think you're sort of assuming that Sam doesn't think the murder-glee is widespread. But he's making a different point that however widespread it may be, social media makes the whole situation drastically worse and also makes it hard to find any grounded understanding of how widespread it actually is in the real world.
___
EDIT: To clarify why I think this matters... Even if we would somehow as a society move toward virtually zero murder-glee and fanatical support of political violence, the distorting effects of social media would still be present and at even the rarest events of violence heap gasoline on the issue to re-inflame calls for retaliatory violence. I personally do see people engaging in disgusting celebration or apologia for this murder, but the wider point about distorting effects of social media feeds and amplification will remain relevant for every single instance of violence we ever see.
I don’t think I’m projecting. Sam is explicitly arguing that the perception of celebration is an illusion created by social media amplification, not a reflection of reality. But the evidence suggests it’s more than just distortion. When posts celebrating Kirk’s murder rack up millions of likes, and when surveys show nearly half of college students believe violence is justified to stop speech, it’s not merely a perception problem.
I agree with you that social media worsens every incident by amplifying the worst voices, but the baseline reality, that a disturbingly large minority does openly endorse violence—is worth recognizing alongside Harris’ broader point.
I'd go along with much of the spirit of this in acknowledging that as a very real problem alongside Sam's broader point. I do not think he argues the celebration is primarily an illusion however. Maybe he'll speak on it in a future post or podcast
Carl Jung said collective psychosis was a major risk to humanity. Now we can see how real a risk it is and America is at the forefront. With Trump in charge no recognition of the need to introduce controls will occur. Reading comments after Charlie’s death was revealing. Christians against Christians, supporters of Charlie (I knew little of his views ) being called out on his views, threats of war to a very unspecified them. Left v right. A lack of compassion, hate and gloating. I asked my daughter (16) if she heard of him. She had seen him debate. Suffice to say she wasn’t a fan, but the fact she knew and had a view surprised me (we live in Australia). At a time when we need credible balanced leadership to call this risk out, and heaven forbid change the algorithms to help avoid Armageddon, one feels the profit/attention grabbing primary aim that started years ago isn’t changing anytime soon. I hope enough of us wake up to this real risk, that has already been realised for potentially millions already, in time. Musk’s comments show how one of the owners of these platforms wants to light the fuse and see what happens next. We are in a sick society. May common decency, genuine friendship, love and compassion see us through🙏
Indeed I really hope enough people turn away from the hate, anger and division sown and amplified by algorithms. I have had some experiences that suggest we will come through but it feels almost 50/50 at present which is sad and hopefully my own delusion getting the better of me🍻
People, please stop speculating his motives and his political ideology into what suits the narrative of “not one of us” to defend your political tribe and scapegoat the other.
While you’re at it, I’d suggest liberating yourself from having a political tribe. It’s not necessary. It’s actually quite refreshing to be able to wrestle with an issue without needing to shoehorn your analysis into whatever you perceive your tribe’s ideology requires.
Thank you for saying what our society desperately needs to do. Just being on social media gives it the power; so let’s take away that power. How sad that just posting this makes me a little nervous to upset someone who may disagree and then take that as permission to hurt me/us. Thank you, Sam, for being brave and reminding us to maintain moral clarity.
What a breeze of fresh air to read Sam's comments on the Charlie Kirk assassination. That's the voice of reason society needs so much, but which is tuned out by the frenzy on social media...I will memorize his last four sentences: "Get off social media. Read good books and real journalism. Find your friends. And enjoy your life." What great advise. And please stay safe and well out there, Sam.
I can’t help but see some irony here: praising Sam’s advice to “get off social media” while doing so… on Sam’s Substack, which is social media. The difference, it seems, is that Sam’s followers wait for him to signal which platforms are acceptable and which aren’t. That’s not wisdom—it’s elitist gatekeeping dressed up as virtue.
Substack is not social media, certainly no more than the New York Times is social media.
I do however think what Sam is talking about can be generalized as "algorithmic" media - where in YOU are not the customer but the product for advertisers. Substack breaks this poor incentive structure. However I would caution against the use of substack's discovery feature.
Furthermore, Sam’s team monitors the comments here and will eject people who are just being hateful.
Quite different than X and etc.
With a new injection of $100 million, the inevitability of advertising on Substack feels more certain, and with it the creeping enshittification of the platform. The glossy new video features, algorithm-driven trending topics that funnel me toward look-alike writers, and the way my newsletters are pushed to a homogenized audience all reinforce that decline.
I come here primarily to write and to read and be informed by the likes of Mr. Harris. Yet some of my favourite writers are slowly leaving...perhaps not the big names or those with significant subscriber bases, but certainly voices that add to the diversity of dialogue and critical thinking here.
In the end we can never rely on the platform or any institution, we must rely on ourselves to demand better. Naive perhaps, but it's the only way forward.
Could not agree more!
Too bad it had to be explained to this guy. He’s just a trained monkey who, after boatloads of bananas, has been successfully taught that only the MAGA definition of the term “elite” applies.
Gatekeeping is controlling access to something Bill. This isn’t that. It’s giving advice. Very different things.
It's a world of social media. We can't get around that. Limiting it is likely a wise recommendation. We are all adults that can find good information from multiple perspectives. It takes effort but can be done.
Sigh. Can we please just read and not take sides, or engage in gotcha-isms?
Actually I think it's fine to take advice from people you trust. I do it all the time.
You have to meet people where they are, not where you want them to be.
Bill, you seem to try very hard to read something into my comments which just is not there. For one, I don't think Substack in this context falls under the "social media" rubric - it is a publishing platform for authors, and it's just how I follow Sam's writing in the first place. Second, one can have a presence on social media and nevertheless think that it is healthy to reduce it as much as possible, and strive toward that goal. In my case, I still use X and Instagram for passive consumption only, but I am on a good way to replace it with reading great fiction, practicing a musical instrument and listening to excellent podcasts. So Sam's advise already has benefited me. Not sure what this makes it "elitist gatekeeping dressed up as virtue" (though I have to smile about the carefully crafted phrasing😉)....
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
I'm not convinced, however, that pointing to irony is equal to "trying hard to read something into your comment." That said, I think I can take your point—assuming I understand it—that an initial Substack post "may not" fall under the “social media” rubric.
The comment section, is a very different matter and seems very like social media. I don’t really use X or Instagram much. I have accounts on both, but I barely know how to navigate them. When I go on X, for example, I just search for people I know, read a post or two, and glance at a few associated comments. I’m unaware of the vitriol Sam continually speaks about. (Not that I have any doubt that it is there somewhere). Instagram is even simpler: my wife mostly sends me short video clips she thinks I’d find interesting—mostly GSP’s.
Anyway, I wanted to reply to your comment out of courtesy. I don’t have much more to add to this thread, but I just posted a comment that should start a new thread. If it interests you, I’d appreciate your feedback on it.
Bill, still not clear why my comments constitute "elitist gatekeeping dressed up as virtue". I was just expressing that Sam's advise to stay off social media is very helpful for me personally. And you seem to follow it also. So - all good, no?
You say, "Bill, still not clear ..."
It'd have been helpful if you'd made all of those enquiries back when we started our interaction. It would have been clearer to me. I'm no spring chicken.
Although, I'm pretty sure I can still figure it out.
Are you unclear to whom "elitist gatekeeping dressed up as virtue" is directed. I'm quite certain that I intended that as a description of Sam and not you. Although, I guess I can see how it might have been interpreted as you. But gatekeeping? You seem to be poorly positioned to effect that. Sam on the other hand? Should I go through every word of "elitist gatekeeping dressed up as virtue"? Can you make sense of none of that when seen as directed toward Sam.
There is no doubt he is a wordsmith. But that can be a curse (for us) as well as a gift to him. It often let's sophistry pass as wisdom. Take his, "And most ominously, he implied that the full power of the federal government would soon be turned against them." I don't know where you are from, but here in Canada if often see sign such as, "Shoplifters will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." Are we to give a pass to arsonist (assassins in this case) as we did in the summer of 2020?
You go on, "And you seem to follow it also." Follow what? I'm here.
And finally, "So - all good, no?"
Between you and me? Certainly.
I don't want to elevate bad takes, but here I am doing that
Bill seems like he’s a lot of fun at parties. Touch grass boo, we’re all good.
"Bill seems like he’s a lot of fun at parties."
OUCH!!
"Touch grass boo, we’re all good."
"His murder was an especially terrible crime for several reasons— "
"The fact that some of the most deranging and divisive content is being created (or amplified) by foreign adversaries—and that we have literally built and monetized their capacity to do this—beggars belief."
"Get off social media."
"... we’re all good."
Rigorously supported thesis.
Oh please
Imagine thinking that Sam is a virtue signaling elitist gatekeeper, despite thousands of instances where he has done the exact opposite. I can’t imagine what your values are if you think that nothing you partake in carries the same irony you’re so intelligently pointing out.
It's embarrassing that you used AI to make such a shallow point.
If social media functioned like Sam's substack -- people reading and discussing intellectually honest writing -- it wouldn't be a problem.
You are missing the point. There are harmful social media platforms with engines to make you miss the joy of life and worse hate it.
Meh...
Charlie Kirk had a lot of hateful, harmful things to say that hurt innocent people and directly lead to more pain and civil destruction in this country than damn near any figure in its history. Should he have been murdered? No. Is it ok to be relieved he no longer will have the chance to further spread dangerous lies, up to and including advocating for the stoning of gays, the murder of trans “like they did it in the 60s” and government enforced school prayer? That’s up for each individual to choose.
He did not advocate for stoning gays. This is false information. Stephen King spread it and later retracted it and apologized. Charlie tweeted "gay people should be welcome in the conservative movement. As Christians we are called to love everyone. I will always stand against people who wish to establish their personal values as a reason to kick others out of our movement."
My lying ears didn’t deceive me; Charlie said it. If you wanna claim it’s out of context, be my guest, but he gets no such leeway from me.
Stephen King's own retraction and apology: "I apologize for saying Charlie Kirk advocated stoning gays. What he actually demonstrated was how some people cherry-pick Biblical passages."
Quoting something is not advocating for it.
I think King shouldn’t have apologized here
He also did not advocate for the murder of trans. I think you've lost the information war with yourself.
His quote, paraphrased, was we should “deal with trans men like we did in the 60s.” Make of that as you will
Jeffrey provide a reference to show you are right or have the decency to apologize like King did.
Can you post the video or where you see this
https://youtu.be/4wFf75NKNc4?si=wHjQ87aUP2jWc7KK
This was from his Wiki - I think this was removed in the last couple days:
On June 8, 2024, while criticizing YouTuber Ms. Rachel for quoting Leviticus 19:18 ("Love your neighbor as yourself"), Kirk responded by citing Leviticus 20:13 ("If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them"), which he described as "God's perfect law when it comes to sexual matters".
So can someone explain what he meant if it wasn't what it sounded like?
I saw Stephen King retracted it and said it was misinformation but I'm not seeing how it was misinformation if he really called it god’s perfect law.
And yes sure he said gays should be allowed in the conservative moment but that doesn't negate praising that passage.
The person quoting the Bible was claiming that homosexuality is not a sin in christianity and Charlie finished the quote to say that it is a sin in christianity. Stephen King when he retracted his statement said exactly that, that Charlie was making a point about cherry-picking bible quotes. Hope that clears it up.
What was his point about cherry-picking Bible verses?
From what you’ve said, it does indeed sound like he advocated exactly what he was accused of advocating and his defenders are trying to split hairs over saying it directly (which, admittedly, he didn’t do) vs endorsing a Bible passage that advocated it. It’s a bit like if I endorsed Mein Kampf but cried “straw man” when people accused me of being antisemitic.
There are several issues with your understanding.
- In christian theology, the new testament directly changes the approach of the old testament, e.g. turning the other cheek vs an eye for an eye. The old testament is still part of the religious history of christians.
- He very clearly and directly said he has love for gay people, so you don't have to guess meaning or intent.
- Quoting the bible is not like quoting Mein Kampf. Unlike actual nazis, there are many christians who are peaceful. In fact nearly one third of the world is.
Or do you believe every christian and jewish and muslim person wants to murder gay people?
Firstly, Jesus said in Matthew 5:18 that the law hadn’t changed.
Secondly, and more importantly, I don’t say Charlie Kirk advocated stoning gays merely because he was a Christian. However, he specifically referred to the precise Bible passage that advocated it and called it “God’s perfect law.”
Not all Christians believe all the bad parts of the Bible because moderate Christians are, for better or worse, intellectually dishonest. But Charlie Kirk clearly *did* believe this part.
Really? Evangelicals love gays? How do they show their love? By opposing gays with the force of law and their religious opinions that it's an abomination (setting aside the stoning part, which they don't advocate (yet)?
Give it a break, Nancy.
Absolutely not. She’s right. She didn’t lose the information war. Too many have been propagandized into false information and hateful rhetoric.
There’s video of all this stuff Nancy. Including that one..
In all honesty I have not watched the full video because I'm lazy. I've seen so many cases of things he said taken out of context to smear him that I'm suspicious of that thing too though. Can't believe anything these days there's so much dishonesty.
Kirk was a milquetoast Republican who was kind and polite to his political adversaries. The fact that you're deranged enough to think he caused harm means you're part of the problem.
He helped get Trump elected, for one thing, which is causing harm around the world. And he said a lot of hateful things. And he lied with a frequency that it was clear that he was doing it intentionally. He dressed it in honey maybe, but he was not harmless.
Over half the country that voted for Trump is "causing harm." Got it. There's no way that some nutjob would hear you say that and do something violent.
There is a difference between promoting Trump, spreading propaganda on the one hand and casting a ballot based on misinformation. And he won less than half of the votes and 38% of eligible voters didn’t vote. So no.
Kirk was a kind, polite milquetoast Republican like Diddy was a kind, polite message therapist!
Well he recommended people not get the Covid vaccine and take horse dewormer
Ivermectin is a legitimate drug use for many illnesses in humans. Calling it "horse dewormer" is like calling water "car washing fluid."
Unless Covid is caused by worms I don’t see it being an effective treatment
If Kirk was a "milquetoast Republican" that says a lot about how radicalized the Republican Party has become in the last decade.
LOL. Kirk is "far right" in many of his opinions. He's "kindness" was a pose. The purpose of his "kindness" was to put up to ridicule those naive enough to think they could convince him of anything, time and time again. To quote a song,
We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers
We will train our blue-eyed men
To be young believers
You just distorted his views so that you could see a reason to hate him. He called for dialogue and no violence. He treated gays respectfully. Where are you getting your information? Use only primary sources if you are looking to get a clearer picture
Don’t need to distort his views. They were vile and hate filled on their face.
Again, Kirk was interested holding his interlocutors up to ridicule through his opinions, which were usually informed either by Biblical nonsense or MAGA talking points. "Prove Me Wrong" was a scam. He wasn't there to be proved wrong. He should have called his little game, "Prove Me Right." The people who came to oppose him were thrown to the lions - his minions -- with Kirk as gladiator.
He shouldn’t have been killed BUT …
I find this harmful and hateful what you wrote. Is this how it works? I didn’t even like some of his most important views on abortion and gays. I am not even Christian. I respect that he understood that all we have is dialogue to deal with differences. If you shut this down then the only thing left is violence. As polls indicate now that 1/3 of college students believe that violence is justified to speech you hate or disagree with. How awful and illiberal
Well said, Michael. It’s amazing how quickly folks start hitting the “justification” angle as if his views are even relevant. Of course no one agreed with 100% of what he said. But what’s missing in all of this - Sam’s view included - is that the information war can’t be won when we ignore what true fascism really is - Shutting down opposing voices with violence. Charlie was respectful, courteous, and polite even in the face of screaming opponents challenging him to physical alterations.
So anyone who thought he spreads hate is either willfully ignorant or has a vile agenda.
I’m open minded to hear alternative possibilities, but it feels like gaslighting to suggest he was anything near a hate spreader.
It can both be true that Kirk was respectful, courteous and welcoming of debate from the other side, while also playing an instrumental part in dividing our country and fostering a political environment of violence. Kirk was smart of enough to articulate his quite radical in a way that wasn't overtly radical - but that doesn't mean he wasn't a radical. I don't see how you can talk about Kirk's death without talking about the man he was - a person with substantial influence. I find the lionizing him of him, ultimately a right wing influencer who profited off of dividing our country, after his death as if he was MLK Jr. equally deranged.
I would respectfully challenge you to do more research of uncut videos. This man would’ve been considered center left just 8 years ago. He was sympathetic to Trans people even though he didn’t agree with their lifestyle. He was friends with LGBs and employed them. They spoke at his events. He was anti-DEI but for promoting and helping the black community. He gave out nearly countless black scholarships. His views have been cut, edited, taken out of context, and propagandized to a population eager to hate him in support of their own bias.
I truly wish I could sit with you and show you the receipts. But this too is a form of social media and we are limited to artificial discourse.
I don't doubt that there have been many clips posted him of him taken out of context in order to make him seem more radical than he was - and I haven't watched any of his long form debates but my general sense is that he sanitized his message over the last several years. That being said, I would be shocked if he "would've been considered center left just 8 years ago." After all, this is a guy who founded a right wing organization at like 18 years old.
I'm open to being wrong, but I find the attempts to paint this guy as anything other than political radical as perplexing. He was practically best friends with Candace Owens!
He was very close to Candice, indeed. He did found his org at 18. I’m sure you have as diverse a friend group as me - I wouldn’t throw a party and invite everyone as I have (had) friends that celebrated his death as I do have friends that think we need another crusade. Thats not a valid metric.
Did he “sanitize” his views or did they evolve? I challenge you do find the video (culture war campaign) where he challenges a MAGA supporter on their homophobia. Accepting Gays as part of Turning Point would never havr happened in a Republican sphere before Charlie. Thats center left philosophy. I also wish I could share the loving interaction at a campus with a Trans person. There is no hate in his heart, sir.
Welcome to the merry go round.
Hear and see what your side advocates.
The world on a forum.
He was deeply homophobic. He called the civil rights act a mistake and MLK an evil man.
He said a "patriot" should bail out Paul Pelosi's attacker. He doxxed professors he disagreed with and inflamed his followers so that they received death threats en masse, among many other offensive, cruel, and intolerant acts and statements.
He was a showman and MAGA propagandist, not an honest interlocutor, and he took sadistic pleasure in humiliating his opponents.
Political violence is evil, full stop. That doesn't mean we have pretend he was a saint.
You said, “He was deeply homophobic.”
Have you listened to much material from Sam? Did you watch him engage with Rory Stewart? Memorable to me way Sam’s quote (possibly originating with Hitch) “The concept of Islamophobia has been designed to obfuscate this. You know, someone once said on the internet that Islamophobia, is a word invented by fascists and used by cowards to manipulate morons. And I honestly think that's not far from the truth.”
You seem to use the word “homophobic” in this very sense.
Here is a video showing both the extent of Charlie’s homophobia and his coddling of those you’d at least be more accurate affixing that label to.
"Charlie Kirk “HATEFUL & HOMOPHOBIC”?"
( youtu.be/4CdOKIxK0GQ?si=1QzMuZoyJhwve5FA )
Brian - I agree with you that shutting down opposing voices with violence is wrong, but it's not "what true fascism really is." We're seeing what true fascism is. Comedians being cancelled due to government action (threats by Trump, threats by Brendan Carr); a President using his power to limit what the news media can support (Hegseth is doing this now); a President deciding he can murder people he "suspects" of being "terrorists." This is just the beginning.
My wife sent me an article the other day from the Times in 1939, about Goebbels cancelling actors whose opinions the Nazis didn't like. The Colbert and Kimmel cancellations are only a little more indirect, but the result is the same. https://www.nytimes.com/1939/02/04/archives/goebbels-ends-careers-of-five-aryan-actors-who-made-witticisms.html?unlocked_article_code=1.m08.0RXo.JjU6aMxyfngx&smid=url-share&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
People advocating theocracy, regardless of how polite they are, have a purpose. They are not being polite as an end in itself, They're being polite as the means to achieve that purpose.
Being clear-eyed about who Kirk -- another (very important) MAGA who advocated for theocracy -- requires a real look at his call for "dialogue to deal with differences." Someone who advocates theocracy does not "dialogue" to deal with differences. He dialogues to bring more into his tent and cast out unbelievers. Please see my other comments above before responding to this one. Or better, "prove me wrong" and show me five instances where Kirk admits that he was proven wrong.
When there are differences that run this deep, dealing with differences is a matter of maintaining respect. Abhorring Kirk's death is about the personal tragedy that he and his family have suffered. That's real, and we should all take it heart. I have a number of friends, clients, and acquaintances who are evangelicals and/or MAGA. I respect them, meaning I leave them to their opinions, and recognize their humanity.
I’m surprised and dismayed at just how many people on “our side” have beliefs that inch us closer to a world where violence is an ordinary, if not default political tool. The ethical side of that is obvious and much discussed here. But there’s also a practical side that makes no sense. “Our side” is full of thinkers and weekend athletes who own lots of Patagonia. Where on our side are the people with the training and stomach and nerves for political violence? We don’t have any more anarchist terrorists or union toughs. Contrary to public perception, antifa types are few and aging. The fbi and police are mostly owned by the other side. In other words, if we help usher in a world of political violence, we will lose in that world, horribly.
Were did you get that? He had his views, very religious views, that i don't agree with, but he wasn't violent or had violent retoric.
https://youtu.be/4wFf75NKNc4?si=wHjQ87aUP2jWc7KK
That’s not a “choice” that anybody should be making. It’s a manufactured “conversation” engineered by algorithms. Don’t fall for it.
I think everyone should know as an aside that when asked what Kirk would do if he had a hypothetical 10 year old daughter who was raped and got pregnant, he said he would force her to have the baby. NO he should not have been killed, but I've seen many conservatives saying he was a good man. I don't think anyone who would inflict such horrific child abuse can be called a good person.
This is a dangerous take. I don't agree with Kirk's hypothetical answer here. But to claim 100 million people are not "good" because they have particular religious views (which again as an atheist I don't share) is to fall into the trap of demonizing people you don't agree with. I am quite sure by comparison that average pro-lifers are good people in most every way that matters. Theirs was a view that was nearly universal 75 years ago. The view can be wrong and may have caused harm, but doesn't by itself make the holder of these views not good people in the colloquial sense. Sure, you can get into a philosophical argument about what a "good person" means, but when you say it casually it has a different and dangerous connotation.
Religion is not an acceptable justification.
We can say a person is bad (more specifically, immoral) for holding a belief regardless of whether the belief is associated with religion.
Do you think people who believe there should be a death penalty for gay people because that's what their religious text says are bad people? I would say so. They are equally at fault.
This is a dangerous take. I don't agree with Kirk's hypothetical answer here. But to claim 100 million people are not "good" because they have particular religious views (which again as an atheist I don't share) is to fall into the trap of demonizing people you don't agree with. I am quite sure by comparison that average pro-lifers are good people in most every way that matters. Theirs was a view that was nearly universal 75 years ago. The view can be wrong and may have caused harm, but doesn't by itself make the holder of these views not good people in the colloquial sense. Sure, you can get into a philosophical argument about what a "good person" means, but when you say it casually it has a different and dangerous connotation.
1000%
We shouldn’t even be having a conversation like that
The idea that martyring Kirk will somehow lessen the spread of his ideas is a bit laughable. Feel relief if you like, but I thought "fuck, that guy 's videos will reach more people than ever now"
Words don't hurt people.
Words like, ‘my Christianity tells me that I cannot condone gay marriage’
‘I think affirmative action is an insult to Black people’
‘I want trans people to find a way to accept themselves as they were born through psychological help rather than body surgery’. ??
I agree with you. Words are not violence. They can hurt, of course. But These words, are his opinion. More nuanced - not the hatred that most seem to need to assign to him to control the narrative.
We must think for ourselves.. and not join the lemmings who seem to need to ridicule and shame when all we really need is to talk more, share thoughts and ideas and maybe even come away with more nuanced opinion.
Find out the context. Dig a little deeper.
He said no such things you hateful scumbag. You really believe he caused more pain and suffering ‘than damn near any figure in it’s history’ says more about your limited grasp on history than anything Charlie Kirk said. You can’t even show your real name. Coward.
I seriously cannot believe this is the second most liked comment. What has Sam’s audience become? I used to learn SO much from this audience.
I am unsubscribing and I wish all of you and Sam a wonderful life of freedom and happiness :)
I agree. His audience has filled with conservative meme lords.
I would encourage you to reconsider the phrase "directly lead to...". How does anyone (especially a person without governmental or legal powers) through their words alone, lead DIRECTLY to real-world actions that others carry out? Kirk may have influenced others to a set of beliefs and inspired others to act -- but those actions were indirectly, not directly, caused by his words. I'm drilling down on this semantic point only to highlight that the invalid concept "words are violence" has -- dangerously -- evolved to be a rationalization for disproportionate and even violent responses.
Without reading all the replying comments, you didn’t hear his entire speech at ALL. You are the very example of what is wrong. Go an listen to the entire thing before responding to clickbait. He mentioned what the Bible said but that that was not done today. I am so sick of reading this BS about CK. If you take a little bit of time to ACTUALLY listen to what he said, you would see he had to issues with people who were Gay. He had issues with identity politics. You can understand that from a sound bite. I finally realized this BS when I listened to the full speech Trump gave after Charlottesville. For years I believed he excused the neo Nazis. He DIDNT. But CNN didn’t play you that part. And before the election, the speech where the Left media claimed he said, if he doesn’t win, it will be because of the Jews, also a line completely taken out of context. This is such a sloppy opinion. Please for all our sakes, and for the 4xx people who liked your ignorant response, get your entire picture before you write. It’s honestly just negligent.
I would say it’s negligent trying to pretend a hate monger wasn’t a hate monger merely because he was the victim of political violence. I fully encourage you to read a book all the way through perhaps and try and develop some critical thinking skills
Ph
Were Kirk alive I’d say it to his face. Since he’s now dead I either type it here or yell it into the air. Call me an idiot if you want pal, I’m not the one that has to look in the mirror every morning and recognize I live a shattered life
Just days before the Kirk killing, I logged onto IG for the first time in half a year. I was feeling very grounded after a long, analog summer with my family. And when I saw what was happening in response—people whom I LOVE saying totally opposite, yet equally reactionary and blameful things—I felt not only stunned, but almost blind. I can only describe it as being hit with a tidal wave…where’s up, how will I breathe? I’m the mother of four sons. The eldest is eleven, nearly twelve. They have no social media access or devices, though they did occasionally watch sports clips on YouTube. Until I realized that, one step later, it was Mr. Beast. And then they were telling me about Elon, describing him with awe and wonder, as if he were a contemporary Bruce Wayne. How are they supposed to learn critical thinking and discernment in this environment? One doesn’t learn to swim in a tsunami. Radicalization is right there for them, anytime they open the Internet. My husband and I are very tech-strict, but can’t control what they see forever. I’ve had to spend an inordinate amount of effort myself to avoid seeing the video of Kirk’s shooting, which, I am told, pops up first thing to anyone who opens TikTok. God save us. And if not God, Alan Watts.
Amen sister
Wow, even the comments here are a cesspool of the corrosiveness Sam speak of.
It’s so sad. Thank you Sam for all you do to try and lift us up out of this, as hard and as hopeless as it feels right now.
I wanted to share some thoughts on Charlie Kirk. Although I wasn't very familiar with his work previously, I've recently watched some of his college tour debates on YouTube. I found him to be both fair and humorous in those discussions. While there were some points I completely disagreed with, I also felt that on other topics, he was uniquely courageous in vocalizing opinions that many people hold but are hesitant to express publicly. I cried when I found out he was murdered and I can't explain the sadness I feel. My husband and daughter don't get me right now. I'm very sad.
I can easily explain this: you are a genuinely decent person. :) :) Don't change! :) :)
'No morally sane person, Left or Right, supports political assassination—or feels anything but horror over it' sounds reasonable and correct. it was quite the shock to see leading academics, professionals, government employees, content creators, tv personalities and Stephen King, Ilhan Omar and others reveled to not fit this criteria. and while I agree with much of Sam's article, this was a wake up call that's hard to close your eyes to - never mind the zoomer babies dancing and singing, but the proliferation of adults in well respected positions who openly celebrated and unashamedly announced it to the world? this is a major radicalizing event even for people who aren't addicted to social media. it reminds me a lot of October 7th - the most shocking part wasn't the terrible, awful action - but the wide scale celebration.
So yes, call for de-escalation - but also please acknowledge and respond as to how we make sure that such celebrations either don't occur, or are in some way explainable as something else then what they seem. ignoring them and talking about Trump and Elon, however deplorable they might be as is usual, leaves a sting of partisan blame dodging that's doing nothing to lower the flames
Absolutely spot on. Pivoting to social media as the problem isn’t even shooting the messenger - it’s shooting the horse. The problem still exists no matter how you hear about it. Maybe one ironic positive from social media is now employers can terminate the celebrators over ethics clause violations. I’d call that a win.
I partially agree, but Sam is not wrong at all in his analysis, nor is it a pivot in my eyes - its factually correct. So is criticizing Elon and Trump - they are pouring gasoline on this fire and that's deplorable. But I do think that there is also a real problem here in terms of ever widening horrific celebrations of things we should not be ok with celebrating, and i'm genuinely interested if there is anything to be done about this - because as long as there are thousands of celebrants for every terrible thing that happens, the radicalization problem will just continue to grow.
We seem to have lost our ability as a society to think critically. We simply accept every 7-second clip as true. Example - even Obama in this past election stated the “Trump said good people were on both sides” mean Nazis. That was never true. Yet it propagated. Think of the intellectual dishonesty you have to have to still state something so easily proved wrong from 8(?) years prior. Elon, Trump, Obama, Kamala…. Let’s not one-side this issue.
I agree that the problem exists even without social media due to the very nature of human. But getting off social media is not killing the messenger nor the horse. In my view it’s more like destroying the roads on which the horse runs. So in that sense i agree with Sam and I think social media has no benefit for society anymore. I would be all for banning it if it was possible at all.
You’ve completely missed the point. Social media gives you a false sense of the prevalence of extreme thinking. It amplifies the most inflammatory voices. Even if one million people in America cheered his death, that’s less than .3% of the country. That’s not a real problem, and if you weren’t spending your time on toxic social media sites, you likely wouldn’t even know anyone thought that way.
If you think every post you see is from a real person, you are falling for the propaganda. Did some people make horrible posts? Sure. Were many, perhaps most of them left of center politically? Yup. Were many of them actually to the right of Kirk politically— indubitably. Where was your concern for the gross flood of celebrating when Pelosi was attacked brutally or when actual elected officials in Minnesota were attacked? Ask yourself that.
re-read my comment friend, my concern was there for all of these events. and I do no think that these are deep fake commentators on BBC, MSNBC or mimicking Ilhan and Mehdi Hasan. This is a real problem and if we lock ourselves into politically segregated echo chambers of denial it'd go away. I truly think this is a radicalizing phenomenon, existing on all sides, that is a large part of the vortex of radicalization the entire Western civilization seems to be locked in. I don't care about any disavowal or distancing either - i'm truly asking what can be done about this, because the current trajectory seems untenable and I fear will lead to actual major harm to every country in the West
If you think Mehdi Hassan was celebrating Charlie Kirk’s murder, I’m not sure where we go either. No, Mehdi Hasan did not celebrate Charlie Kirk’s murder. In fact, he explicitly condemned political violence, stating, “None of us should celebrate political violence, because it’s a threat to all of us” A B.
While Hasan and Rep. Ilhan Omar were sharply critical of Kirk’s political legacy in a segment aired shortly after his death, both expressed horror at the assassination itself C. Their comments focused on resisting what they saw as a “whitewashing” of Kirk’s record and critiquing how figures on the political right were using his death to attack the left C A.
His tone was critical of Kirk but he explicitly called out the dangers of politicizing tragedy and condemned the murder and stressed empathy for Kirk’s loved ones. Do you really interpret that as celebration?
Our entire culture is being gaslit by Big Data, which will soon reach even more monstrous proportions abetted by AI. We are, predictably, going insane.
Yes, GET OFF SOCIAL MEDIA
Every major tragedy is followed by purportedly serious people with careers and families and decent stations in life spending hours on social media trying to meme or tweet themselves into algorithmic relevancy.
To be clear, these people are exploiting in real time the suffering of other human beings to satisfy their narcissism and dopamine addiction.
When people behave like this anywhere other than the internet, the behavior is immediately identified for what it is: psychopathy.
But social media, for whatever reason, tends to launder and even encourage such behavior. It is abhorrent, and yet it continues because the digital hellscape rewards it.
A sizable portion of the population simply cannot handle the internet.
Having unlimited access to information is useful if you’re capable of filtering it to arrive at reasonable conclusions.
But many folks, through no fault of their own, simply cannot do this. They do not have the faculties to thoughtfully consider things like source, evidence, or countless other credibility heuristics that other people pick up on intuitively.
I couldn't agree more, Khalen. I've just been saying, simply, "We cannot handle this as a people." The proof has been all around us for years.
Thanks Sam. Wise as an owl. Please be careful and maybe have one of those clear bulletproof plexiglass things in front of you when at your talks.
Sam Harris says we should read "real journalism."
The irony is that here in Norway, our state broadcaster NRK (the Norwegian equivalent of the BBC) became part of exactly the dynamic he warns against. Its top debate host admitted he didn’t even know who Charlie Kirk was, yet went on Instagram and portrayed him with what he called "extreme" statements, while also admitting they were taken out of context.
Among the quotes highlighted was: "it is acceptable for people to be killed by firearms in order to preserve the right to bear arms." This point has also been made by Harris himself, who has argued that we accept traffic deaths as the price of mobility. Another, even more absurd, was "there are only two genders." Yes, according to Norway’s state broadcaster, saying there are only two genders qualifies as "extreme." This is what passes for "real journalism."
In another NRK debate program, Norway’s state broadcaster gave a platform to an academic who compared Kirk, the victim of assassination, to Anders Breivik, the far-right terrorist who massacred 77 people, mostly teenagers, in Norway in 2011. She explicitly claimed that Kirk’s rhetoric "overlapped quite a lot with what Anders Breivik used about the dangers of cultural Marxism." In other words, just one day after he was murdered, NRK was already broadcasting a comparison between the victim of a political assassination and Norway’s most infamous mass-murderer.
Harris warns against social media, but when mainstream outlets spread distorted narratives of this kind, it is hardly surprising that people turn to social media to correct the record.
I agree with your criticisms of social media and your calls to deescalate, but I think you’re underestimating how many people on the left are openly celebrating his death and how widespread the belief is among young people that violence is an acceptable response to speech.
Well said, Jacob. Social media is just the tool. The mind is still poisoned.
Did you do some actual research, or are you drawing conclusions from what you see and read? Not a great way to form and confirm opinions. How many is many?
There are posts on TikTok and X gloating about his death garnering millions of likes. Perhaps they’re all bots but it doesn’t seem like it.
In this survey 45% of college students stated that violence can be justified to prevent speech, if it’s “hateful”
https://buckleyinstitute.com/buckley-institute-releases-ninth-annual-national-college-student-survey/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
The FIRE studies of campus opinion are credible, and the numbers are pretty disturbing.
What FIRE studies. If you look on YouGov, this claim about millions upon millions supporting political violence or reveling in death (and Kirk's death specifically) are completely overblown. YouGov says (and has a table with statistics that should clear the air here:
Part of the discourse after Kirk's death has concerned comments on social media from some left-leaning figures celebrating Kirk's death. Others, especially on the right, have called such rhetoric unacceptable, and have made varying claims about how prevalent such feelings are on the left.
YouGov's polling shows that Americans overall are far more likely to say it's always or usually unacceptable to be happy about the death of a public figure they oppose, than they are to say this is acceptable (77% vs. 8%).
It is true that liberal Americans are more likely than conservatives to defend feeling joy about the deaths of political opponents. 16% of liberals say this is usually or always acceptable, including 24% of those who say their ideology is very liberal and 10% who say they are liberal but not very liberal. That compares to 4% of conservatives and 7% of moderates.
But even among the very liberal, the share who say it's unacceptable to feel joy about the deaths of political opponents outnumbers those who say it's acceptable by a ratio of more than 2 to 1 (56% vs. 24%).
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/52960-charlie-kirk-americans-political-violence-poll
Another question tells a similar story: whether Americans think political violence can ever be justified. Overall, most Americans say violence to achieve political goals is never justified (72%), while just 11% say it can be.
Younger and more liberal Americans are more likely than older or more conservative Americans to say political violence can sometimes be justified, but this remains a minority opinion among these groups. Among the very liberal, 25% say political violence can sometimes be justified and 55% say it can't; among adults under 30, 19% say it can be justified and 51% say it can't.
[same source as above]
All: please stop using your experience on social media to inform you of anything.
FIRE published something on its website on sept 12th, 2025 “student acceptance of violence in response to speech hits record high”. by Ryne Weiss and Chapin Lenthal-Cleary.
Please provide a link. I searched FIRE's website for "Student acceptance of violence," Ryne Weiss, and Chapin Lenthal-Cleary, but found nothing. I did find a polling from Stanford in 2024, that has a questionably methodology (including failing to define "physical violence"), but that was also talking about a minority of students at an elite university. College students overall constitute only about 40% of youth in the same age cohort, which should put the claims of huge numbers in further perspective. I would welcome taking a look at the survey or polling you cited. When you poll and ask someone whether they "support" violence, you might also ask about their own propensity to commit violence. It appears to me that a lot of people "support" it rhetorically, but there are few incidences of actual violence. Indeed, as The Economist recently pointed out, violence is far more common coming from the right than the left.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2025/09/12/is-radical-left-violence-really-on-the-rise-in-america
https://www.thefire.org/news/student-acceptance-violence-response-speech-hits-record-high
https://www.thefire.org/news/2026-college-free-speech-rankings-americas-colleges-get-f-poor-free-speech-climate
Sam made no claim about the magnitude of the celebrations of death on the left -- you might be projecting on that point.
If anything, paragraph 4 suggests Sam is very aware it's a problem
"Seeing another person (or what appears to be another person) gleefully dance on a slain man’s grave, it is easy to conclude that they represent some significant faction of American society—and to feel the outrage appropriate to such a terrible discovery."
"Social media amplifies extreme views as though they were representative of most Americans, and many of us are losing our sense of what other people are really like. "
His argument is that social media is making the right perceive the left to be gleeful about the death of Charlie Kirk, when in fact they are not. I think this is incorrect.
You're extending his argument and reading into it a bit.
He's highlighting that the problem is exacerbated and distorted by social media and perceptions of social media, which is true. In the essay he's not taking much of a position on how quantitatively widespread the left "openly celebrating [his] death" is. Neither are you for that matter, unless you would claim that > half of society has 'extreme' views on this issue (which I don't suspect you would).
I think you're sort of assuming that Sam doesn't think the murder-glee is widespread. But he's making a different point that however widespread it may be, social media makes the whole situation drastically worse and also makes it hard to find any grounded understanding of how widespread it actually is in the real world.
___
EDIT: To clarify why I think this matters... Even if we would somehow as a society move toward virtually zero murder-glee and fanatical support of political violence, the distorting effects of social media would still be present and at even the rarest events of violence heap gasoline on the issue to re-inflame calls for retaliatory violence. I personally do see people engaging in disgusting celebration or apologia for this murder, but the wider point about distorting effects of social media feeds and amplification will remain relevant for every single instance of violence we ever see.
I don’t think I’m projecting. Sam is explicitly arguing that the perception of celebration is an illusion created by social media amplification, not a reflection of reality. But the evidence suggests it’s more than just distortion. When posts celebrating Kirk’s murder rack up millions of likes, and when surveys show nearly half of college students believe violence is justified to stop speech, it’s not merely a perception problem.
I agree with you that social media worsens every incident by amplifying the worst voices, but the baseline reality, that a disturbingly large minority does openly endorse violence—is worth recognizing alongside Harris’ broader point.
I'd go along with much of the spirit of this in acknowledging that as a very real problem alongside Sam's broader point. I do not think he argues the celebration is primarily an illusion however. Maybe he'll speak on it in a future post or podcast
Carl Jung said collective psychosis was a major risk to humanity. Now we can see how real a risk it is and America is at the forefront. With Trump in charge no recognition of the need to introduce controls will occur. Reading comments after Charlie’s death was revealing. Christians against Christians, supporters of Charlie (I knew little of his views ) being called out on his views, threats of war to a very unspecified them. Left v right. A lack of compassion, hate and gloating. I asked my daughter (16) if she heard of him. She had seen him debate. Suffice to say she wasn’t a fan, but the fact she knew and had a view surprised me (we live in Australia). At a time when we need credible balanced leadership to call this risk out, and heaven forbid change the algorithms to help avoid Armageddon, one feels the profit/attention grabbing primary aim that started years ago isn’t changing anytime soon. I hope enough of us wake up to this real risk, that has already been realised for potentially millions already, in time. Musk’s comments show how one of the owners of these platforms wants to light the fuse and see what happens next. We are in a sick society. May common decency, genuine friendship, love and compassion see us through🙏
And Jung couldn't have even conceived of anonymized social media.
Indeed I really hope enough people turn away from the hate, anger and division sown and amplified by algorithms. I have had some experiences that suggest we will come through but it feels almost 50/50 at present which is sad and hopefully my own delusion getting the better of me🍻
He was though extremely wary of large groups and the way they could easily turn into,essentially, a mob
I've been waiting for Sam's comments. As ever, spot on.
Finally some sanity. Thank you as always Sam 👏😊
People, please stop speculating his motives and his political ideology into what suits the narrative of “not one of us” to defend your political tribe and scapegoat the other.
While you’re at it, I’d suggest liberating yourself from having a political tribe. It’s not necessary. It’s actually quite refreshing to be able to wrestle with an issue without needing to shoehorn your analysis into whatever you perceive your tribe’s ideology requires.
Thank you for saying what our society desperately needs to do. Just being on social media gives it the power; so let’s take away that power. How sad that just posting this makes me a little nervous to upset someone who may disagree and then take that as permission to hurt me/us. Thank you, Sam, for being brave and reminding us to maintain moral clarity.