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Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
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Feb 18 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
The publisher of the books of the late Roald Dahl has made hundreds of changes to them, supposedly to make them more palatable to “sensitive” audiences. This is totalitarian censorship and should be broadly condemned by authors & publishers. telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/1…
This New York Times defense of the N-word in "Huckleberry Finn" makes 2011 seem like a long time ago.

nytimes.com/2011/01/07/boo…
"Authors’ original texts should be sacrosanct intellectual property, whether a book is a classic or not... To censor or redact books on school reading lists is a form of denial: shutting the door on harsh historical realities — whitewashing them or nytimes.com/2011/01/07/boo…… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
The culture of safetyism has become the demand for totalitarianism. It is coming from major cultural institutions: the book publishing industry, the news media, Hollywood, etc, and being demanded by governments. Look how quickly things have changed just over the last 10 years.
We need a united liberal-conservative movement to resist Woke totalitarianism.

public.substack.com/p/normies-of-t…
The censorship of Dahl is symptomatic of the Woke view of children as fragile (safetyism) and of the broader infantilization of the culture.

The infantilization of the climate change movement reflects a broader infantilization that, historians note, has public.substack.com/p/infantilizat…… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
This thread summarizes the censor’s berserking through Dahl’s books
Every generation understood this until now. What changed? Coddling culture has reached a tipping point whereby elites see being offensive as worse than totalitarian censorship, which is extremely scary.
Yes to this. Allow students to be offended, and then talk about it.
The censorship of anything imagined to be offensive is a kind of repressive Puritanism. And, as always, the thing being repressed will find a way to express itself more later, and much more aggressively.

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More from @ShellenbergerMD

Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Feb 16
How it started How it’s going ImageImage
An astonishing 24% of San Franciscans surveyed say they were assaulted or threatened in the last 5 years. Image
Large parts of S.F. are controlled by the MS-13 mafia, which runs drugs and traffics children, thanks to Mayor Breed’s demoralization of the police.

public.substack.com/p/san-francisc…
Read 5 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Feb 16
“We do not consider people under 18 to be mature enough to vote, drink or have sex with an older person, yet want to make an exception when it comes to undergoing surgery or medical treatment that is in many cases irreversible.” slowboring.com/p/progressives…
The best explanation for the rapid increase in girls who believe they are, in spirit, boys, and that they could take pills and remove their breasts in order to become boys physically, is that it is a social contagion like anorexia.

public.substack.com/p/normies-of-t…
Finally, institutions are standing up to the Woke

More of this please
Read 5 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Feb 14
San Francisco leaders are proposing to legalize prostitution, create supervised drug sites, and promote drug tourism at a time of severe police shortages, open air drug dealing, and cities like Amsterdam going in the opposite direction. Why is that?
public.substack.com/p/san-francisc…
A progressive San Francisco politician is proposing that California legalize sex work and create a red-light district in the city. Though Supervisor Hillary Ronen’s proposal is just a resolution, not a mandate, it’s part of a continuing trend in the city and state of… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
“I don’t think this is going to happen tomorrow,” Ronen told a journalist. But, she said to another, “I do feel that society’s acceptance and (ability) to get away from the morality issues is growing.”

But if California and San Francisco legalize prostitution, it will likely… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Read 5 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Feb 13
For too long, people committed to free speech & civilization have allowed ourselves to be divided by issues from the past. Now, as we learn more about how radical Wokeism creates psychiatric disorders, it’s time for the normies of the world to unite.

public.substack.com/p/normies-of-t…
This starts with a defense of @jordanbpeterson

He is being persecuted for his political views, not his clinical practice

We are proud to publish this open letter, denouncing the witch hunt against him

public.substack.com/p/open-letter-…
Here's the context:

People who worked in hospital clinics in the United States and Great Britain are blowing the whistle on the rush to prescribe puberty-blocking drugs and surgeries to children suffering from gender dysphoria.
Read 14 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Feb 12
The evidence is now overwhelming that progressive climate activists, Black Lives Matter, & LGBT groups cause the very things they claim to be fighting: higher emissions (from attacking nuclear & nat gas); more black deaths (from attacking the police); and harm to LGBT youth.
Since the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, the number of black deaths from homicides increased by ~3,000, and the share of U.S. murder victims who were black rose from 53% in 2019 to 58% in 2021, due to the demonization and demoralization of police.

public.substack.com/p/warning-the-…
Emissions had been declining over the last decade, both in rich nations and globally, mostly due to the transition from coal to natural gas.

But then, climate activists started shutting down nuclear plants and blocking natural gas production, resulting in more coal-burning.
Read 19 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Feb 12
In response to drug labs blowing up homes, MS-13 sex trafficking children, and a deadly downtown drug scene driving the highest U.S. commercial vacancy rate, San Francisco’s leaders are seeking to put drug dens in every neighborhood, legalize brothels, & promote drug tourism.
ktvu.com/news/suspect-a…
public.substack.com/p/san-francisc…
Read 11 tweets

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