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by amazingman 2526 days ago
Quillette is not an alt-right publication. At “worst” it is a center-right publication, and if you can’t see the value of such a publication existing then you should probably question your own epistemology.

Re: the “cement milkshake conspiracy”, the Portland police’s official twitter account posted a warning about cement milkshakes. For a (short) period after that, it was entirely reasonable to mention it as a real possibility.

Regardless of whether or not one agrees with Quillette pieces (~50/50 for me), it should be obvious that it is a legitimate, even valuable publication. If you’re having trouble seeing this, perhaps you’ve been caught in a social media echo chamber.

1 comments

Quillette is strongly associated with "the intellectual dark web," which is associated with the alt-right. Quillette publishes prominent alt-right individuals. Several articles on the front page, including the one you mention, favorably portray alt-right individuals.

You seem to be familiar with them, so I think that you're aware of this, to be honest.

The “intellectual dark web” isn’t a real thing. Outside of Eric Weinstein, who coined the term, those who try to trade on being part of it (e.g. Rubin, Shapiro) are largely the reason why the term has become associated with toxicity. Indeed some of the other “members” of the IDW (e.g. Harris, Rogan) find the whole idea to be a bit silly.

I’ll also point out that you’re calling me “disingenuous” in one breath while broadly painting several individuals with wildly different politics, audiences, and personal ethics with the term “alt-right” in another.

>Quillette is undeniably associated with "the intellectual dark web," which is undeniably associated with the alt-right.

You state this as if it's fact, instead of just your opinion.

People who consider themselves public figures from "the intellectual dark web" have time and again made clear that they have virtually nothing in common with the alt-right (Sam Harris on countless occasions, for example).

In your OP you say,

>A preliminary search will turn up plenty of reprehensible authors and plenty more reprehensible articles.

Can you list some examples please? This hasn't been my experience as a casual reader of Quillette.