Sources in the Decentralized Media
There's never one place you can go to find the truth.
A few weeks ago, we wrote about making the media great again. As a follow-up to that, I want to go through at least 12 voices that make up this new, decentralized web of sense-making.
Another way I’d describe this list of people is that if you aren’t listening to any of these people, then you are almost certainly being misled about reality in one or more important ways. So if you want to understand reality a bit better and you should then it is definitely worth checking out each of these people and getting a sense of the stories that they are sharing.
These are roughly grouped, but I’ll share a brief blurb about each. It should go without saying: I don’t agree with everything any of these people say. Honestly, it’d be a one-in-a-billion shot if I did! Further, there is probably not any one single topic on which all of these people would agree. They are all fairly orthogonal thinkers: unlikely to be caught swimming mindlessly with a big herd.
So treat this only as an endorsement that it’s worth hearing their perspective. You also don’t have to agree with everything (or anything) they say!
The Entrepreneurs:
Balaji Srinivasan (1729.com | Twitter) - Balaji is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist who has done work both in Biotech and in Crypto. He is generally “ahead of the curve” and has a record of sharing insights early that turn out to be prophetic.
Peter Thiel (Thiel Capital) - Thiel is a well-known billionaire who helped found PayPal before moving on to many other ventures in Tech. Now a Venture Capitalist, Thiel is also one of the most prominent supporters of Donald Trump in the 2016 election (I believe the only one on this list of 12). But Thiel is also one of the world’s foremost contrarian thinkers, and it is well worth listening to a few of his (rare) interviews to get a sense of how he sees the world.
Eric Weinstein (Twitter) - Weinstein is Peter Thiel’s number two at Thiel Capital, and a worthy sparring partner for Thiel. Despite Thiel’s support for Trump, Weinstein was a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2016, so it should be quite clear that they are coming at things from different angles.
The (Rouge) Journalists:
Bari Weiss (Substack | Twitter) - Bari is an incredible journalist who, after stints at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, has carved her own path on Substack. She provides some of the most clear, nuanced, and fearless interviews and stories that you can find anywhere. Her podcast is one of the few that I consider a “must listen” and will listen to it almost every week even if I’m not all that interested in the subject.
Joe Rogan (Podcast | Twitter) - calling Joe Rogan a journalist is a stretch, but he is the most prominent interviewer on the planet right now. Each of his episodes gets 10 million users on average, dwarfing the audiences of pretty much any other show out there. Joe does 2-3 hour interviews with a wide-ranging cast of characters. Many of the people on this list have appeared on his show along with many other prominent people of interest both within the political/cultural field as well as comedians, high achievers, and some people Joe just finds interesting.
Alex Berenson (Substack) - Like those above him on this list, Berenson too has attracted the scorn of mainstream sources. Of note, an article in the Atlantic called him “The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man.” Which is funny because, well, he’s been right about things the whole way just a bit earlier than everyone else. Berenson was a reporter at the New York Times, who now makes enough selling mystery novels that he has gone independent. His Substack is a must-read for Covid-related updates.
Andrew Sullivan (Substack | Twitter) - Andrew has also been a writer in legacy media, most recently at the Atlantic. But like many of the best voices, he’s moved on to his own Substack. In a saner age, Sullivan would be classified as a Conservative Democrat. Nowadays, well, he just counts as a sane person. As with many on this list, his opinions will neither satisfy nor offend anyone 100% of the time.
The Academic Heretics:
Jordan Peterson (Podcast | Twitter) - Peterson is a Canadian psychology professor who rose to fame at first by speaking out against a law in Canada that would compel individuals to use one’s preferred pronouns under threat of fines and legal action. As Peterson notes, he’s fine with using one’s preferred pronouns, but takes issue with the government applying laws to legislate and compel that. He’s expanded beyond that, and has a large podcast of his own and writing several books.
Martin Gurri (Blog | Twitter) - Martin Gurri is a former CIA Analyst and author of “The Revolt of the Public.” Gurri wrote this in 2014 based on what he had seen emerging in the digital world, and the book has been shown to be prophetic in terms of the divisiveness and chaos that we are seeing in society today. He’s ahead of the game in assessing how this will all play out.
Glenn Loury (Substack)- Glenn Loury is an Economics professor at Brown University. Glenn is a true unicorn: a black conservative Ivy League professor! Glenn’s podcast and Substack cover topics of economics and race. Particularly interesting is his running series of episodes with John McWhorter, a fellow Ivy League professor. Their long-running series has been described as “the slow and gentle red-pilling of a friend.”
Heather MacDonald (Articles | Twitter) - MacDonald is a Stanford Law graduate and now attorney/public intellectual with the Manhattan Institute. MacDonald is relentlessly unafraid of providing her perspective and backing it, meticulously, with data. She’s also been particularly active on the topics of policing, welfare, and education. Not surprisingly, she’s done a number of recorded discussions with the aforementioned Glenn Loury over the past four years which are well worth a listen.
The Activists:
Christopher Rufo (Substack | Twitter)- unlike many journalists out there who pretend to be unbiased but are actually activists, Rufo doesn’t hide that his work is advocacy. In particular, Rufo has been essential in exposing the incursions of radical social justice theory into schools and corporations. He’s exposed many hair-raising situations. His recent piece gives some perspective into how he came to see identity-based politics as the danger that they are.
El Gato Malo - (Substack) not much is known about The Bad Cat, but he/she writes a prolific Substack after being banned on Twitter for heresies about the ‘roni. Naturally, many of these heresies have since been proven true. His (or her) articles are largely data-driven insights with snarky social commentary and, of course, cat memes.
All of these voices are heretical to the mainstream narratives in some way. And thus, they are demonized. Obviously, that does not make them true. But I will bring up a useful Thielian theory here:
“I have this short-cut suspicion that things, we always need more surface area for debate, but if you're not allowed to say something, I have a suspicion, not only that you should be allowed to say it, but that it's simply true.” - Peter Thiel on 12/17/2021
This is, to be sure, a contrarian take. But it does follow logically: there is a strong negative cost to speaking out against the mainstream. Those that do it then are either crazy, or they are doing so because they strongly believe that there is a large positive benefit that could offset that cost. Put more simply: the system incentivizes compliance - those who speak out likely have good reason for doing so.
Regardless of whether or not you agree with these voices, exposure to them is critical as a method of building up and maintaining your ability to question and think critically. Without that, you are just flotsam being carried by forces you cannot understand toward an unknown destination.
Do you know someone who should be added to this list (there are many more I’d like to add), leave a comment and let us know!