Ray Hecht

Dark history of recent America

Revisado: 03-31-25

Elle Reeve is still famous for her viral 2017 Vice video about the Charlottesville white supremacist rally, nearly a decade later, which is sadly still extremely relevant.

Her new book Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics is a deep dive into all the background of that day, and its aftermath. And moreover, it’s about the background and aftermath of all that has happened to the entirety of America (and the world) in this unfortunate era.

The book starts with a surprisingly personal tale of the journalist’s childhood—of when Reeve’s childhood neighbor stalked and harassed her family. There’s a direct line, she explains, from how she learned to deal with that at a young age and to how she later made a career out of interacting with extremists.

When it gets to the modern internet era, there is an exploration of incel culture featuring interviews with Fred Brannon, the disabled programmer who founded 8kun and even had a connection to the start of the QAnon movement. Brannon disavows his earlier work, and is very open about his regrets from those wild days of the internet when they didn’t know being offensive and “ironic” online would lead to such horrific real-world repercussions. There’s also a very frank discussion of sexuality, not only about how these people felt as older virgins but also about how they felt when they first had sex and didn’t get to be a part of the incel community anymore. A fascinating and counter-intuitive perspective.

The book then continues into the culture of abject white supremacy, and it is grim. She interviews Richard Spencer and others of the alt right, getting into all their crackpot theories and hateful ideology. It gets dark. Some of the worst of it isn’t even the racism, but the sexism, because as she explains they never quite got their fascist revolution and chance to play out their racist fantasies: So therefore, they rather focused on controlling the women in their personal lives. I thought I knew a lot but I had never before heard the term “white sharia,” and just how much they hate women having any freedoms. It’s a strange thing that so many racist women joined the movement, because they thought it would benefit them, and then felt oppressed by these abusive men, which happened again and again.

Eventually, that movement seemed vindicated by the 2016 election and then comes the terrible Unite the Right rally of the following year which ended in a deadly car attack. This is when Reeve focuses on interviewing Christopher Cantwell, who incriminated himself so much in the famous Vice report and later became known as the Crying Nazi after his life fell apart. He is a very disturbed individual, with emotional and addiction problems, which feels like a sort of vindication to learn.

Reeve warns, however, that it’s not enough to think of these people as losers. Many of them are quite smart in fact, at least by some metrics. The simple truth of it is that it doesn’t matter if they are losers, many so-called losers don’t become domestic terrorists, and it doesn’t matter if they are smart as many smart people don’t become vicious extremists online. The important thing is to analyze the big picture and understand why the internet and society as a whole has driven so many people in this direction. Brennon, sadly, speaks of how wrong he was when he envisioned his website as a way for “unlimited” free speech to lead to positive ideas, and instead it turned into a nightmare of shitposting in which only the worst of humanity got the most attention…

While most of the awful characters in this book get their comeuppance, such as Richard Spencer who loses everything and faces devastating legal consequences, it’s hardly a happy ending. Yes, these figures specifically ultimately lost everything and completely failed at becoming part of the mainstream. But that’s little comfort at this point.

The book was published before the most recent election, when it seemed that January 6th, 2021 was the worst it could get. Now we are on an even darker path influenced by these people blackpilled on the internet, and while many of the outright fascists didn’t get any material benefits it sure seems like their ideas are majorly influencing this current government.

Personally, I don’t know how Elle Reeve could stand to be around them and get so much information from these people. But I’m glad she did, because it is necessary to learn in order to fight back.

No doubt she’ll have to write another book when this administration is over and America needs to do some serious soul-searching, and indeed she will be uniquely qualified to understand what the hell has happened.

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Dangerous and important warnings about AI

Revisado: 12-22-24

Yuval Harari's latest book is probably his best since Sapiens, and potentially much more important.

The popular historian has often said that history is the study of change. And it is with this view that he breaks down how important information networks have been throughout history, and then goes on to speculate how new technologies could become extremely life-altering. Specifically, the bulk of the book is a focus on the dangers of AI.

There's a fascinating history lesson in the first third, which Harari as always excels at. Taking the complex histories of various religions and then the printing press and the scientific method and more, and presenting these in ways easy for the layman reader to understand and process at a Big Picture scale.

The majority of the chapters are more about modernity and computers. In that vein, many examples are given, which are not so much future possibilities as they are records of what has already gone wrong when social media upends entire societies around the world: The genocide in Myanmar is explained at length, to highlight that these are not just hypothetical situations. We can also see how populism came about, making something coherent out of all the nationalist ideologies around the globe which do tend to be contradictory, giving the reader perhaps an overly fair assessment of why they've been so appealing to voters.

By the end of the book, what leaves the biggest impressions are warnings about the future of AI, which will most likely exacerbate all these issues. There are the obligatory positive potentials mentioned, in healthcare for example, yet we all know there is much to fear. The list of worse-case scenarios about how AI could destroy both democracies and dictatorships--and then become the worst imaginable dictatorship, these go on and on. It is indeed frightening.

Something Harari explains well is the "garbage in, garbage out" principle, about how we must be skeptical of machine learning and language models because human biases are inherent in the data they collect. Moreover, as we grow more dependent on AI, which version of human nature will win out... Will we be able to remain skeptical, or will we end up trusting these seemingly godlike technologies as infallible? So, if it's the latter, how dangerous will that become?

The overall question of the whole thesis, is whether or not democracy be able to survive the tumultuous 21st century. Harari speaks of how dictatorships tend to fall because of rigid institutions and lack of reality-based communication, and how democracy has major advantages due to self-correcting mechanisms and the ability to adapt.

With the rush of current events that have occurred since this book was published, in this year, does that seem to apply to the United States anymore?

Unfortunately, it's hard to imagine many reasons for optimism any longer.

Harari does repeatedly say that history and technology are not deterministic. That there are many paths that may appear, and there's no reason to believe there's only one way it has to be.

But is this a good thing or a bad thing? The assumption that more information will inevitably lead to more truth, is something he calls the naïve view. He's not wrong; this perspective supporting the free-for-all online doesn't seem to be working out at all. And a major example in history before was the printing press. Everyone thinks that more books inevitably led to the enlightenment and science and an eventual higher standard of living. But that wasn't necessarily destiny, in fact. One of the first best-seller books in those easy days when the technology was new, was the Hammer of Witches. A psychotic and perverted treatise pandering to sick fantasies, kind of like QAnon, which brought about an era of witch burnings in Europe. Perhaps it's only an accident of history that the printing press later seemed to have worked out better for at least some of humanity.

With that in mind, we should definitely be working much harder to create more self-correcting mechanisms to fight against AI and algorithms gone awry. Before it's too late. Very tragically, that's not something rapidly aging government officials holding on to power are interested in whatsoever, or even barely understand. The tech giants and the ultra-wealthy influencing so much seem to have the opposite view, that they should empower computers and informational chaos even more, just on the chance they might make even more money.

It feels bleak, there's no other way to put it.

Whether or not Nexus by Yuval Harari is perfect or not, it is vital that the mainstream learn about these issues one way or the other. Read more, study more, get other perspectives. If this book by a popular nonfiction author is the way to get more people thinking, then that's what it takes.

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Coates is an important writer of our tines

Revisado: 12-02-24

There is much writing about writing. As said, these are major world issues but this is still a personal memoir. He regrets putting so much faith in journalism, in expecting the institution of the Atlantic to truly make a difference. He speaks of his other books as his children, with plenty of flaws therein, and wonders if he has been true to himself all along with his mainstream writing career.

Sadly, The Message has proven to be perhaps his timeliest book. Written before October 7th of last year and the subsequent—and brutal—Gaza war, it now matters so much. Personally, I’ve found his current media tour in promoting this book and discussing its controversies to be invaluable in bringing these issues to the forefront.

Much has been already been written by others comparing the Israeli occupation of Palestine to the system of apartheid. And Coates does do his homework and researches well, speaking of Bantustans and ties to South Africa during the latter country’s oppressive past. Plenty of dates and quotes showing the history of Zionism and the development of the modern state of Israel. But what the book is truly about, is simply the people he meets and listens to. Simply the telling of their stories.

And as a Black man from America, he cannot help but liken the occupation to Jim Crow. The comparisons are valid, and inevitable.

Then, at last, Coates returns to the themes from earlier in the book. About the narratives people tell themselves to justify who they are and what they have done.

“What I saw in the city of David was so familiar to me. The search for self in the mythic past, filled with kings, and sanctified by an approximation of science.”

It’s not just about Israel. It’s about African Americans, it’s about pride and what could have been if history went another way. It’s about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ own life, and it’s about the stories that were told to oppress his people over centuries. And, it’s certainly about America.

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Although Reniere has little mind, this is a powerful and personal memoir

Revisado: 07-12-24

I'm a sucker for cult shows, and Keith Reniere inspired multiple documentary series.

Yet it still feels like such a mystery as to why so many people followed this strange and obvious fraud. One never really gets to know what drove him, how anyone could find him charismatic, and what his philosophy even coherently meant.

Perhaps there's nothing there. Just a compulsive liar getting away with as much as he could until he went so far that he finally landed in jail.

Toni Natalie's book is a helpful resource on understanding his earlier years, before the branding and abuse headline with C-list celebrities. She was his ex back in the 90s, when he was but a simple pyramid scheme con artist. She tells many personal things about herself, from her own troubled childhood to sorrid details about her relationship with this awful man, which does give the memoir heart. Even though it's apparently not possible to ever figure out anything deep that drove Reneire.

Natalie went through a terrible time of abuse and legal harassment throughout the 2000s, highlighting the cruelty of this cult and its very brainwashed followers.

I found it an excellent supplemental read if one wants to learn more. An in-depth, scholarly biography of Keith Reneire will probably never be written, because there is a limit on how much to say. He lied constantly and was a depraved sex addict, that was it. All the self-help fake genius jargon was meaninglessly complex in the end. This book does as good a job as can be by expanding on the subject, by someone with intimate knowledge. I'm glad Toni Natalie told her traumatizing tale, and it was brave to do so.

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Tig Notaro, serious

Revisado: 06-12-24

Disclaimer: Tig Notaro is an excellent comedian, but this book is not funny.

It's something else. A heartfelt account of her bad recent years, in which she got sick and her mother died and she got breast cancer. Tig really loved her mother and talks about it at length.

To be honest, I think the book got better toward the end when she expanded to talk about her complicated relationships with her stepfather and biological father which we don't get details about earlier.

Ultimately, I'm Just a Person is about family. About Tig Notaro's family that she grew up with, and about the new family she was growing at the time of the writing. Now we know she is happily married with kids, healthy, and seems totally confident all the time after the mammectomy and virally joking about the cancer. It is worth knowing how hard it was for her to get there, and how she truly felt despite all the comedy...

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Excellent overview of an interesting woman and a time in history

Revisado: 04-27-24

In 1929, socialite Bernadine Szold Fritz left America at the age of 33 to move to Shanghai. She stayed there for the better part of the following decade, until war with Japan forced so many to leave. The world Bernadine inhabited and thrived in was alien in many ways, but also surprisingly familiar to anyone who has also made the trek from the West to East Asia in the 21st century.

It was a time of great change, when Shanghai was a cosmopolitan city yet split apart by a complex network of colonial powers. It was the early days of the Republic of China, before the culmination of the second World War and when civil war would force the KMT to flee to Taiwan.

The stories and places described in the book Bernardine's Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China are told through the eyes of a remarkable person, who achieved much in a time when women in either China or America had few rights compared to today.

Susan Blumberg-Kason, the author of her own memoir Good Chinese Wife about life and marriage in 1990s Hong Kong, did extensive research when writing this biography. It is a deep character study, listing a plethora of facts and figures, but also speculating on the deeper motivations and feelings Bernadine must have felt when going through the various personal challenges of her life abroad.

Bernadine was a journalist, writing most prestigiously for the New Yorker among other outlets, but unfortunately during this era she was forced into marriage as a way to support herself and her daughter. Indeed, she originally moved to Shanghai because of a proposal and often throughout the book she is held back by her marriage to businessman Chester Fritz. (It was her fourth marriage, in fact. Bernadine lived quite the life.)

The book is very much not romantic. Her husband, and previous ex-husbands, were products of the misogyny of the time, and tried to control and limit her in many ways. Despite that, Bernadine went as far as to help found the International Arts Theatre which produced many successful plays, ballets, and operas. The Soul of the Ch'in was the largest ballet ever performed in Shanghai until then, and the adaptation Lady Precious Stream was ahead of its time by being the first English-language production to have an all Chinese cast, a positive revolutionary moment considering previous versions of the play always utilized white actors in yellowface.

Throughout her years, Bernadine met many other famous writers and artists and the book namedrops quite the list of 1930s celebrities. She was good friends with author Lin Yutang, wrote letters to Hollywood actress Anna May Wong, and even knew the politically-connected Soong sisters who had such an impact on the history of China and Taiwan, such as Soong Mei-ling—the future wife of dictator Chiang Kai-shek.

With the expat perspective, Western readers who have lived in places like modern Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Taipei as well will be struck by how similar the sentiment is today. One disgruntled quote from a visiting friend of hers describes it well: “Thirty years—sometimes more—without troubling to learn the language, and these ‘Old China Hands’ pickled in alcohol considered themselves supreme authorities on the country and the people. They prided themselves on never mixing with the ‘natives.’ Was it due to the climate? They were inveterate grumblers.” Personally, I have met of those exact kinds of people in 2024.

Another interesting aspect of the book is Bernadine’s evolving Jewish identity. Perhaps that was why she felt like an outsider in her own homeland, and was able to move so far away. She says in one discussion, “I don’t know what to think anymore. I’ve gone through all the phases of hating it, of hating all Jews, of being proud of it and hating lots of Jews, of not minding one way or the other and having a few friends who are Jews, or deciding always to take the bull by the horns and in the most obvious way possible tell people right off.” Although she was never religious, as the years went by and horrors of Nazi Germany became more apparent, she participated in Jewish causes in order to aid refugees during the war.

Politics are ever present in the background of the book, but the most fascinating sections are focused on her own private life. Sexuality within her failed marriage is explored, there’s a breast cancer scare, among other issues with her career and family. The saddest aspect of all was her relationship with her daughter Rosemary who she chose to send to boarding school thousands of miles away in America, something hard to understand today, and that story ultimately ends in tragedy.

Bernadine may not be well-known today, but she very much deserved to have a book written about her and Susan Blumberg is proven to be up to the task. Fans of history and of women’s issues will appreciate this ambitious book which gives a human angle to such a tumultuous time in the world. I certainly learned a lot, and enjoyed the read.

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Not Stephenson's best but interesting

Revisado: 03-18-24

Neal Stephenson is still a genius, and there are always so very many interesting factoids one can learn from reading a tome like Termination Point.

However, don't expect much of a plot in the conventional sense. This climate change speculative fiction has a lot of interesting things to say about the fall of America (although not as good as the first half of his previous book Fall), and of course the unique scientific take on how geo-engineering with a giant sulfur gun could be the answer to environmental disaster is a hell of a Big Idea premise. Then there's the global politics of it all, the somewhat coherent story of India going to war with Texas while China secretly manipulates, which happens to be from point of view of Netherlands royalty.

But besides whether or not one finds 700 pages of that a bit of a slug... Something feels off. Perhaps being too socially conscious these days prevents me from enjoying things, like I never minded the libertarian ethos of Cryptonomicon back in the day, but there's some awfully weird political subtext I currently can't seem to get over. It's a book about how fossil fuels have destroyed the planet, which is undeniable, and yet there are so many off lines about how it's the Greens who are the problem and won't let anyone make real progress. That the European far right going from climate denial to a pro-geoengineering stance overnight would be a good thing. And the moral of the story is basically to trust an oil billionaire to innovate out of this worldwide problem.

Don't get me wrong, it's fascinating. But it's been a long time since Stephenson wrote the excellent epic Anathem and the outstanding Americana satire Snow Crash. Perhaps he's best at tech thrillers now, not social critiques. I'm still ever curious to know any of his near-future predictions about the state of the country and the world, just can't say it quite works in this particular book.

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The great Werner Herzog's voice

Revisado: 02-02-24

Very concise and powerful short novel about Hiroo Onada the famed Japanese soldier who kept on fighting in the islands of the Philippines, decades after the end of the Pacific War, by the acclaimed Werner Herzog. A unique perspective on the hardships of life by one familiar with the abject awfulness of the jungle. Told in straightforward fashion, without over analyzing. Certainly an interesting way to learn about this bizarre and rather tragic story, and for you to make conclusions about this yourself.

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Leslie is a national treasure

Revisado: 01-20-24

Leslie Jones is a national treasure!

There are a lot of celebrity memoirs out there, and specifically a lot of audiobooks read by famous performers, and the best of them tend to be by comedians. Of those, one of the best I've ever listened to would have to be Leslie F*cking Jones, by Leslie F*cking Jones.

It's not just another short comedy book, nor a vapid shallow celebrity ghostwritten book only out there for the attention and sales. This is a lengthy, thoughtful book by a writer with tremendous experiences that are worth sharing. She goes through her life in stunning detail with wisdom, and of course a lot of humor. (And, also, a lot of cursing.)

The older comedian has had a long history since before she became famous on SNL. Although that may be the spine of the book, what brings readers in--and her take on that world is extremely interesting--she has a lot more to say about her earlier life and many years of doing standup in California and New York.

After a forward by Chris Rock, and prologue about yes SNL, she goes back back to her childhood as an army brat and school years. There was trauma early on, her family struggles moving to Los Angeles, and then she continues into her college years with a focus on basketball. Eventually, she got into comedy and realizes that's what she wanted all along. Then, Jamie Foxx recommends that she take a break in her early 20s so that she can live life, and she talks about her various jobs. There are a few other namedrops from the comedy the earlier chapters, but overall in the first half of the book her stories are very relatable as an average woman with a dream who was just trying to get by.

There's a lot of analysis of standup, and in the broader sense analyzing the creative process itself, as she develops her craft and learns how to focus these talents into a career. Comedy nerds will get a lot of out of her takes. She moves to New York, learns more, makes a living on the stage, 9/11 happens, more family tragedy and deaths as well as dealing with racism and sexism, and she tells it with so much honesty and emotion.

In the read-aloud audio edition, it feels like hanging out with her. Apparently, she deviates from the book and hence its 16 hours long. It works great. It's like having a coffee with Leslie, more like listening to a live unscripted podcast albeit organized around a proper book. She lets it all out, and cries more than once when talking about love and loss. She criticizes herself, she stands up for herself, and she also screams in her signature style and you'll laugh out loud many times.

Towards the end, we get to hear all the behind-the-scenes juice about the Saturday Night Live audition process and Lorne Michaels and the cast members she worked with. For example, she really did have a crush on Colin Jost! She particularly loves music, and gushes over meeting the musical guests as much as the movie stars.

Some of the most interesting and harshest parts are about her harassment during the Ghostbusters debacle. Beyond merely the legal drama she had to go through, even getting the FBI involved, she has poignant things to say about the nature of bigoted online troll culture which was so vicious to her. However, throughout that all, she was no victim and came out the other side stronger. That might be the essence of Leslie F*cking Jones.

Finally, there was her falling out at SNL followed by other showbusiness projects. She ends on some notes with thoughts on politics and social issues, like when she guest-hosted the Daily Show. It feels like a real arc through an epic saga. A real journey. She grows so much, only making it big relatively late in life, and is a real inspiration. What a great experience in both human empathy and in just plain comedy. Very recommended.

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Klein is still among the most important thinker of our times

Revisado: 12-08-23

The Shock Doctrine, from back in 2007, was such a crucial book in understanding the misery of the post-9/11 neoconservative world at the time. I read it as a young man, and it explained so much to me about how capitalism upends systems around the globe, giving me the vocabulary to make sense of it all.

I’ll forever be grateful to Naomi Klein for being one of my favorite political and social writers. I hadn’t read No Logo, but the urgency of the lessons learned from Shock Doctrine and the leftover hellscape of the whining-down Bush era did make it seem back then that the tools were starting to be formed so we could begin forming a better system.

Since then, the world has somehow gotten even worse. It’s incredibly frustrating, because every one of us should know better. Yet something has happened to humanity since then–spoiler: it’s cell phones and social media–and while there have been some gains, on the whole it seems harder than ever to get people to be on the same page and make sense of it all.

For the post-2015 world, the post-2020 world (that is, the post-COVID world), Naomi Klein has at last written another brilliant book to capture the current zeitgeist. At the same time, it’s quite the personal memoir, which turns out to be the perfect way to explain what the hell is happening. Utilizing the metaphor of the Doppelganger, used as a way to interpret various novels and films, then critiquing subjects from parenthood to personal branding and racism and most of all our online selves, the thesis begins with the absurdity of how Naomi Klein constantly gets confused with Naomi Wolf.

‘Other Naomi’, as Klein puts it. Naomi Wolf is of course the 1990s author of The Beauty Myth, who was always pretty bad at research and liked to make bombastic over-the-top statements over the years, has now become something of an internet joke. Look up the rhyme, if you don’t know. Wolf, the feminist who has since abandoned everything she seemingly once believed in to pal around with the far right (who have been very blatant about taking away women’s rights in recent years if you haven’t noticed), is fully within the right-wing misinformation internet land. This phenomenon specifically is what the bulk of the book Doppelganger analyzes.

Naomi Klein has been a consistent leftist, who strives to critique the system and is frankly too smart to be that much of an internet personality. Wolf is an altogether different sort of character. Since embarrassing herself and getting kicked out of the so-called mainstream, she has become a frequent guest on Tucker and Bannon. It was particularly COVID-19 which broke the brain of not only her but of half the world.

In many ways, Klein’s real target isn’t Wolf but Steve Bannon, that arch ghoul who is working so hard to steal elections and destroy democracy. Klein studied the famous strategist’s podcast, in order to discover how populists co-opt movements which has caused many to actually shift from left-of-center to the far right (and it’s often hippie/spiritual types who make this strange path). Some of this is due to the difference between lukewarm liberalism and true economic leftism, while much of it is admittedly because of the failure of the left to respond accordingly to the challenges of our times.

Klein labels the mediasphere of Bannon and the canceled conspiracy-obsessed, “the Mirror World.” It’s an excellent way to put it. A lot of that comes from internet addiction, the way we’ve been trained on our phones to value online clout instead of human connection. The damage happening is overwhelming, but like The Shock Doctrine, at least there’s a vocabulary we can use to highlight what is happening and hopefully deal with this.

Conspiracy theory subculture, as she says, often gets the feeling right but not the facts. There are valid reasons it’s become such a powerful way to manipulate the masses. By the way, Klein is much more sympathetic than I could ever be to those people who have fallen down such rabbit holes. It’s downright saintly of her how hard she tries to understand the truly lost.

Another thing to appreciate from Klein with regards to this book, is how very personal she gets when she makes these points. It’s not just about how annoying it is to be mixed up with Wolf, nor only the universal struggles of the 2020 lockdowns we’ve all experienced, but of her own family. She tells of her own child diagnosed with autism, with heartfelt authenticity, and about how this unfortunately led to early encounters with the anti-vax movement even before that movement became a powerful political force.

Furthermore, Doppelganger is also among the best books I have ever read about Judaism and anti-Semitism. The debates throughout the 1800s, the tragic history of Nazism and Zionism and so much, expertly researched and analyzed in a context that sadly matters right now as much as it ever has. Her take on Israel and Palestine in particular, the Doppelganger effect through history which turns victim into oppressor, this couldn't be more timely. It is in fact quite horrifying considering she wrote it before the war that began on October 7th of this year.

The book makes many connections on a spectrum of issues, and then ends on a somewhat depressing note. Because, I suppose, it has to. We still have a shit ton to work on with climate change and economic equity and so very many issues. A resurgence of a true left still hasn’t happened yet, and Klein’s descriptions of how the Sanders presidential campaign ended among online infighting instead of a bigger solidarity movement offers stark lessons on how much more needs to be done.

Maybe, just maybe, readers out there will work at slowly making a better world. We kind of absolutely have to. Sure no one book has all the answers, but this could help. We do need the language to understand what we are dealing with, and then build up the solutions. This book alone won’t save the world, nothing probably will, but is a decent step (and perhaps even crucial) however small along that long and difficult path.

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