Helen Lewis

Finally, a Democrat Who Could Shine on Joe Rogan’s Show Hunter Biden is unrepentant.

“Maybe clips of a president’s son defending habeas corpus and mentioning a crack dealer named Bicycles is what the attention economy demands,” writes @helenlewis.bsky.social, suggesting Democrats should find a candidate like Hunter Biden, but without the baggage.

JOINT STATEMENT ON GAZA FROM AFP, AP, BBC NEWS AND REUTERS “We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families. For many months, these independent journalists have been the world’s eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza. They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering. “Journalists endure many deprivations and hardships in warzones. We are deeply alarmed that the threat of starvation is now one of them. “We once again urge the Israeli authorities to allow journalists in and out of Gaza. It is essential that adequate food supplies reach the people there.”

BBC NEWS / AFP / BBC NEWS / REUTERS JOINT STATEMENT:

“We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families.

"They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering. "

Are Private Eye jokes now... criminal?

PALESTINE Solidarity campaigner Jon Farley was arrested during a silent march in Leeds last weekend. What egregious act had prompted the police to act? He was, er, carrying a Private Eye joke piece as a placard!

(1/2)

Thank you!

‘Just Asking Questions’ Got No Answers About Epstein Right-wing internet personalities have a lot to learn from the mainstream media that they decry.

this @helenlewis.bsky.social lede: “Defending mainstream journalism these days is about as appealing as doing PR for syphilis. Nonetheless, here I am.”

The full #StrongMessageHere is resting but for the next ten weeks on #BBCSounds @helenlewis.bsky.social and I will be discussing our recommendations on what to watch, listen to, read or sniff over the summer. First up, the fantastic movie #TheBalladOfWallisIsland. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...

BBC Radio 4 - Strong Message Here, We Haven't Always Told Our Story as Well as We Should A look at the language of the first year of the Labour government.

It's the last Strong Message Here before the show regenerates into Strong Recommends for the summer: "We haven't always told our story as well as we should."

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

I'm afraid I don't commission articles for the Atlantic. Also the magazine would never publish anything unedited and not fact checked. That's what social media is for.

Elon Musk Is Playing God The tech billionaire wants to shape humanity’s future. Not everyone has a place there.

This @cwarzel.bsky.social piece is right: it's very telling that, at the same time Elon Musk was fretting about birth rates and having a "legion" of kids, he was entirely indifferent to his USAID cuts killing thousands of children in Sudan and elsewhere: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

In the comments, someone asked if a scientist who argues it's ok for a "genius" to bend the rules could exist today. I was delighted to report that Francesca Gino, the honesty researcher fired for data fraud, wrote a 2018 book called Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life.

The Flawed Genius of the People's Psychologist An exclusive extract from The Genius Myth

Open science nerds might find this interesting, on the retracted research of Hans Eysenck, the "people's psychologist."

helenlewis.substack.com/p/the-flawed...

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

Today’s bad idea is ‘genius’, the label that's enabled all sorts of terrible behaviour through the ages. Writer & broadcaster @helenlewis.bsky.social‬ explains how and why the idea of genius gets misapplied to people and things that just aren’t.

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

The U.S. Needs a Polite Way to Usher Politicians Out If parties won’t nudge unfit politicians into retirement, what can?

"People worry about seeming heartless, or disrespectful, when they note the inevitable effect of time on senior politicians, particularly those who were trailblazers in their youth," @helenlewis.bsky.social writes.

Should great art excuse monstrous artists? Orwell didn't think so...

Over on our newsletter, the brilliant @helenlewis.bsky.social digs into one of George Orwell's most incendiary essays.

Read on - then join us live in London next week!

orwellfoundation.substack.com/p/should-gre...

Helen and Armando on stage at Conway Hall

Celebrated the UK launch of The Genius Myth by talking about Milton, Mahler & Musk with @aiannucci.bsky.social - probably the best set of audience Qs I've ever had, too. (My rule when picking a book topic is "what will be interesting to talk about for weeks on end?")

uk.bookshop.org/a/6497/97817...

Tesla DOGE-d Itself The future of the struggling car company rests on Elon Musk more than ever before.

Whether through layoffs or resignations, Tesla has lost many of the employees that helped build the world's most valuable car company. Without them, Elon Musk is about to face his biggest challenge yet:

It literally was the bisexual flag the Conservatives complained about, not the Pride flag. Do some research before being a self-righteous pillock on the internet next time. Here's the press release:

William Langewiesche, the ‘Steve McQueen of Journalism,’ Dies at 70

An absolute master and legend

I think it's an unintentionally amusing demonstration of the book's thesis: people take criticism of their favourite geniuses very personally, because there's usually another argument going on underneath.

It was SO far away from what I actually wrote I went back and looked at the text to check my Tyler Durden-esque alter ego hadn't secretly slipped in a bit about Shakespeare being shit and also not Shakespeare.

The Long Goodbye Time, at last, to write about Agnes.

It'll be two years, this Monday night. Time, at last, to write about Agnes.

How Democratic Disagreement Helped Elect Donald Trump One democratic candidate, two presidential campaigns.

NEW: Future Foward, the super PAC backing Kamala Harris, thought her campaign made strategic errors that may have cost her victory. Harris strategists felt the same about Future Forward. Inside the breakdown w/
@ashleyrparker.bsky.social

GIFT LINK: www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

The Settlers With Their Sights on Gaza A hard-line Israeli movement, featured in a new BBC documentary, expects to benefit from the current war—and meets no resistance from the U.S.

Wrote this before the Iran strikes but it still applies. "Netanyahu is taking advantage of the Trump presidency to prolong the Gaza conflict, keeping his extremist coalition partners in the fold and himself in power."

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Elon and the Genius Trap The best explanation for what went wrong

What makes one man merely accomplished and another a genius? And which descriptor makes a man more likely to engage in an ego-crushing battle with the president?

On “Radio Atlantic,” Hana Rosin talks with Helen Lewis, the author of “The Genius Myth.”

Strong Message Here - I Regret Some of My Posts (with Sara Pascoe) - BBC Sounds Bromances, breaking up, and making up. With Sara Pascoe.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Here is a tiny sample of the response I got this week for writing an article arguing that the Trump administration's trans policies were cruel. Go look under the post if you want the full experience.

Sorry to break it to you, but neither is this platform. You just don't see the threats of violence because you don't cross any of the tripwires.

The para about how each query "only" uses a fifteenth of a teaspoon of water had the opposite effect to the one intended. I now feel quite guilty about all the joke images I generated when I was pissing about with various AI tools.

Clearly AI is useful for a load of stuff (transcription, translation, basic coding) but I think the LLMs have a real Human Centipede problem. They are flooding the internet with crap which they will then be trained on.