The Intellectual Dark Web

What is the Intellectual Dark Web, and what do its members believe? Open Blogger KT writes in the Ace of Spades blog,

The first definition I ran across was just something vague about people who got their messages out even though they bypassed the mainstream media.

He links to an article by Daniel Miessler who writes about IDW,

It turns out the IDW is mostly a collection of disillusioned liberals looking for a place to have honest conversation.

Miessler compiled the information presented in the graph above. Pictured below are the six of the leading members: Weinstein brothers from Evergreen State, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, and Dave Ruben.

Bari Weiss writes in the New York Times,

Here are some things that you will hear when you sit down to dinner with the vanguard of the Intellectual Dark Web: There are fundamental biological differences between men and women. Free speech is under siege. Identity politics is a toxic ideology that is tearing American society apart. And we’re in a dangerous place if these ideas are considered “dark.”

The closest thing to a phone book for the I.D.W. is a sleek website that lists the dramatis personae of the network, including Mr. Harris; Mr. Weinstein and his brother and sister-in-law, the evolutionary biologists Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying; Jordan Peterson, the psychologist and best-selling author; the conservative commentators Ben Shapiro and Douglas Murray; Maajid Nawaz, the former Islamist turned anti-extremist activist; and the feminists Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Christina Hoff Sommers. But in typical dark web fashion, no one knows who put the website up.

Read more of the Weiss piece here.

The Intellectual Dark Web

Kathryn Hinderaker reports at Real Clear Politics,

Millennials interested in the world of ideas are on a quest for the types of open conversations often lacking in their college classes or in the media. One possible solution is a new rogue movement still sorting out its manners and mores. It’s called the Intellectual Dark Web, and it may prove to be the best thing that’s happened to civil discourse since the Internet began.

Coined by economist Eric Weinstein, the name describes a group of American thinkers spanning the political spectrum who are pushing back against the divisive rhetoric and constricted ideological parameters of the cultural mainstream. Intellectual Dark Web members include University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan B. Peterson, religion critic Sam Harris, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, and Rubin Report host Dave Rubin.

Read more here.