On today’s episode of Walt Right Perspectives I speak with Mordechai Ben-Emet, a big-brained college freshman of Ashkenazi lineage with wonkish centrist politics and a keen interest in artificial intelligence.
Putting this behind a paywall so any ADL interns listening to this have to give me $5.
Topics include:
Mordechai’s upbringing as a Conservative Jew
Mordechai’s experience of Alt Right memes as a 10 year old Jewish boy
Hebrew, Yiddish, and the Alt Right’s adoption of Jewish American slang
Different types of anti-Semitism
Political polarization internal to the Jewish community
Are Jews white?
Philo-Semitism and Anti-Semitism come from the same place
The Alt Right implicitly respected Jews
Jewish attitudes towards Israel and the Gaza War
Cultural vs. religious Judaism
Jewish life on campus and polarization over Israel
Mordechai’s anti-Zionism and support for the Palestinian people
Is the One State Solution tenable?
Only Jews can effectively advocate for Palestinians
The mental / social / sexual health of young Zoomers
Progress of gender discourse over the past decade
Humanity is becoming a longer-lived creature
Mordechai’s interest in AI policy
AI as a force to democratize art and threat to mediocre artists / technicians
Walt’s addiction to limitless novelty of artificial intelligence
The impact of dopamine traps on Zoomer attention span
How COVID ruined Mordechai’s high school experience
Gerontocracy as a force screwing over Zoomers
Political strength of old people
Mordechai’s stance on foreign policy
Would Zoomers fight if they’re drafted? Could America handle a war with China?
Ancient Jewish history and Dovahhatty’s videos about the Jewish-Roman wars
Walt’s nostalgia for the Alt Right
Did the Alt Right normalize talking about HBD and white identity?
Walt’s new philosophy of Intersectional Identitarianism
Mordechai’s stance that Jews aren’t an oppressed group in America
White interest groups in South Africa vs. America
Mordechai’s ideological volatility as a teen and current wonkish centrism
Campus social pressure to be very progressive
Is being culturally Jewish important to Mordechai?
It’s fun to embrace stereotypes
Is Gen Alpha retarded?
Dopamine traps are lowering people’s IQs
Technological sophistication increases value of exponential life strategies
WALL-E is the most likely dystopia
Do people have the right to be beautiful?
Kaczynski’s “Power Process”
Job stacking and the inefficiency of climbing the ladder
Did the anti-work movement fail or succeed?
Walt offends Mordechai by talking about sleeping with female coworkers
Walt gives Mordechai game advice for picking up nerdy girls
Women aren’t as ideological and more focused on status
Does Mordechai feel like an adult?
Smart and agentic people can “skip the line”
Walt advises Mordechai to drop out of college and form a startup
Walt is a friend of the Jews
Mordechai says Walt looks like he could be Jewish
Walt wants a more banal identity politics
Jews self-identify as white more when anti-Semitism is less prevalent
Mordechai’s personal experience with anti-Semitism
How Jews think about converting to Christianity
How and why Walt turned from anti-Semitism to philo-Semitism
The Great Replacement and Kevin MacDonald’s Culture of Critique
Walt has lost old friends because he is a friend of the Jews
The Alt Right played a role in dispelling hypocrisy over Israel vs. white identity
Neo-Conservativism and mid-2000s GOP philo-Semitism
It’s impossible to disambiguate ethnic nepotism from meritocracy
You need to destigmatize and allow conversation about overrepresentation to adequately fight anti-Semitism
Zionists need flyover country chuds to defend Israeli interests
Evangelical love of Jews
It feels really good when black people agree with you
Black guy reaction videos and the “Based Black Guy”
Mordechai’s thoughts on how to deal with black nationalism
Walt’s attitude that ethnic kinship between southrons and blacks should be a basis for racial reconciliation
Standardized testing as a crucial aspect of American meritocracy
Zoomer takes on affirmative action
Walt tries to convince Mordechai to embrace HBD
Why are liberals averse to discussions about race and IQ?
Very few people change their mind because of good arguments or facts
The Bar Mitzvah and psychological utility of formal coming of age rituals
