I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think that it is rather a lack of empathy. It’s an inability to feel for another human being. A lack of empathy, a person can’t put himself in another person’s shoes. And when that happens, all of us are capable of being monsters.

Gilbert, G. M. (1947). Nuremberg Diary. New York: Farrar, Straus and Company

It made me think and consider the phenomenon of “evil”, not least in view of current politics.

The concept of “evil” is a subject where clinical science, jurisprudence, and theology seem to overlap. To understand the nature of “evil”, we must synthesise the biological “broken brake” of the brain, the psychological “dark traits” of the personality, the situational pressures of sociology, the legal definitions of intent, as well as the ancient theological struggle with the “privation of good.”

Yet such a synthesis is not free of normative assumptions. It presupposes that “evil” constitutes a coherent, cross-cultural category, rather than a term whose meaning shifts across historical, political, and religious contexts. As skeptics, we ought to question whether there is, in fact, any single nature of “evil” to be discovered at all.

Psychological Foundations

In contemporary psychology, the metaphysical concept of “evil” is usually considered as the study of antisocial personality traits. The current standard for understanding malevolent behaviour is the “Dark Tetrad”, a constellation of four distinct but overlapping personality types: Machiavellianism (manipulation), narcissism (superiority), psychopathy (lack of remorse), and sadism (pleasure in cruelty).

According to Simon Baron-Cohen, what we call “evil” is a state of “empathy erosion”. Empathy, he argues, exists on a spectrum, and when an individual’s “empathy circuit” is effectively neutralised, that person begins to treat other human beings as inanimate objects. Baron-Cohen suggests that this erosion can be “transient” (for example, driven by anger or stress) or “permanent” (such as driven by personality disorders):

Our empathy is like a dimmer switch… When the switch is turned all the way down, the person is in a state of ’empathy erosion,’ in which others are no longer seen as fellow human beings with feelings, but as objects.

From a skeptical perspective, the notion of “empathy erosion” risks becoming a circular argument. Acts are labelled “evil” because they are cruel; their cruelty is then taken as evidence of diminished empathy; and this inferred lack of empathy is subsequently invoked to explain the very “evil” it was derived from. A more robust account would require quantifications of empathy and objective distinctions between transient affective states and enduring dispositional traits.

Biological Reality

The field of neuro-criminology has revealed that many individuals who commit “evil” acts possess distinct biological markers. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) serves as the brain’s executive centre. It can be viewed as the “moral brake” that inhibits impulsive and violent urges. When the PFC malfunctions, the individual loses the ability to regulate the primitive impulses.

Adrian Raine, often cited as the father of neuro-criminology, demonstrated using PET scans that murderers – particularly “affective” or impulsive ones – show significantly lower glucose metabolism in the PFC than control subjects. This suggests that for some, “evil” may not be a choice but rather a failure of parts of the brain. As Raine writes:

Evolution has carved out two different ways of surviving and reproducing… One is the prosocial, cooperative way. The other is the ‘cheater’ strategy – the antisocial, predatory way. For some, evil is a biological niche.

At the same time, Raine admits that such findings should be understood as predisposing rather than deterministic. Reduced prefrontal activity is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for violence, and many individuals with PFC malfunctions never commit “evil” acts. These considerations should caution us against the impulse to medicalise moral responsibility or to construe “evil” as merely the product of a defective brain.

The Sociological Perspective

One of the most chilling perspectives on “evil” is that it does not necessarily require a “monster.” Insights from social psychology suggest that “evil” can simply be a byproduct of the system or circumstance. Philip Zimbardo’s research into the “Lucifer Effect” demonstrates how ordinary people can commit “evil” acts when placed in specific environments characterised by deindividuation and dehumanisation of the “other”.

This would concur with the observations of Hannah Arendt during the 1963 trial of Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann. Arendt coined the phrase “The Banality of Evil” to describe how systemic obedience and thoughtlessness can lead to mass atrocities. In Arendt’s view, “evil” is not always “radical” or deep-seated; it can be a shallow, bureaucratic phenomenon where individuals simply “stop thinking.” Others like Zimbardo agree:

The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.

Yet both Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison Experiment” and some interpretations of Arendt’s work have been criticised for over-generalising from highly specific and often contested cases. Emphasising situational pressures too strongly might risk minimising the roles of ideological commitment, long-term character formation, and the persistence of individual agency even under powerful structural constraints.

The Theological Dimension

Religion provides probably the oldest explanations for “evil”, often viewing it as a distortion of the “Good.” St. Augustine of Hippo famously argued for the Privatio Boni, the idea that evil has no independent existence but is a corruption of goodness, much like blindness is a privation of sight.

In the Christian tradition, this is expressed through the doctrine of Original Sin, suggesting an inherent “bent” in human nature toward self-interest over divine love. Conversely, Eastern traditions often view evil as Avidya (ignorance) or a failure to recognise the interconnectedness of all beings. Regardless of the specific faith, theology emphasises the Will, i.e. the idea that evil is a conscious turning away from the light:

Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name ‘evil’

Augustine of Hippo. (426 AD). De Civitate Dei (The City of God)

From a skeptical standpoint, one might question whether such considerations offer true explanations or whether they just redescribe the problem in metaphysical terms. Moreover, the history of religions demonstrates that appeals to “evil” have frequently been used to justify violence.

The Legal View

The law can serve as the practical arbiter of “evil”. It does not concern itself with the state of one’s soul, but with Mens Rea, the guilty mind. Legally, an act is “evil”, if it involves malice aforethought, a term used to describe a “depraved heart” that acts with a reckless and wanton disregard for human life.

The “M’Naghten Rules” remain the standard for determining if an individual’s biology or psychology absolves them of “evil” intent. If a defendant cannot understand the nature of his or her act, or distinguish right from wrong, the law shifts the label from “evil” to “insane.” However, for most offenders, the law assumes a capacity for choice, holding that “evil” is the deliberate decision to cause harm.

Yet legal categories are unavoidably entangled with relations of power and politics. Numerous examples exist of acts now regarded as “evil” were once legal or even mandated by the state, while those who resisted them were criminalised. Such cases suggest that juridical definitions often follow prevailing social norms and interests at least as closely as they reflect any putatively objective moral reality.

Ultimately, “evil” is best understood not as a monolithic entity or a supernatural intrusion, but as a catastrophic convergence of disparate phenomena. It is a “perfect storm” wherein biological vulnerability – perhaps a neurological deficit in empathy – meets a profound psychological detachment from the lived experiences of others. When this internal architecture is fuelled by situational pressure and codified by a recurring failure of the moral will, the result is a destructive force that transcends mere “bad behaviour.” Seen from this perspective, “evil” is the choice to subordinate the common good to the insatiable demands of the ego.

Does Donald Trump meet the criteria for ‘evil’?

In contemporary discourse, this theoretical framework finds a striking case study in the persona of Donald Trump. Consider how Trump maps onto traditional or philosophical depictions of “evil”:

• The Dark Triad: Psychologists point to a combination of narcissism (extreme self-focus), Machiavellianism (manipulation for power), and psychopathy (lack of empathy or remorse).
• Malignant Narcissism: Social scientists describe a state where the individual views any criticism as a mortal threat, leading to a “siege mentality” and a constant need to create “us vs. them” conflicts.
• Philosophical “Hollowness”: Some see “evil” not as a presence of malice, but as an absence of substance, where a leader lacks a moral core and views the world purely through a solipsistic lens (only their own needs are real).
• Moral Inversion: Ethical critics argue that Trump redefines “good” as strength or winning and “evil” as weakness or losing, effectively discarding traditional virtues like humility or honesty.
• Institutional Destruction: From a sociopolitical view, the “evil” label is applied to the intentional eroding of shared truth and democratic norms, which critics see as a desire to dismantle the structures that bind society together.
• The “Trickster” Archetype: Some view Trump’s persona as a disruptive force that mirrors mythological figures who thrive on chaos, intentionally breaking rules to destabilise the status quo.

When mapped against traditional or philosophical depictions of “evil,” Trump appears less as a political anomaly and more as a mirror to the archetypal antagonist. This alignment is perhaps clearest when viewed through behavioural and ethical frameworks that define “evil” as a specific constellation of destructive traits: the erosion of objective truth, the instrumentalisation of others, and the unapologetic pursuit of power at the cost of institutional and social cohesion.​

If we consider the “evil” of antiquity as the negation of the shared reason and truth that binds a society, then Trump’s disruptions represent a modern manifestation of that ancient void. He may serve as an example of how moral failure can be institutionalised, transforming personal pathology into a broader cultural crisis.

 “Evil” is a multifaceted phenomenon, a “perfect storm” where biological vulnerability, psychological detachment, and situational pressures meet a failure of moral will. Trump’s destructive traits align uncannily with these clinical and philosophical definitions. What we traditionally call “evil” is a set of behaviours characterised by the erosion of empathy and the ethical and social structures that bind humanity together.​

The post An anatomy of infamy: What constitutes “evil”? appeared first on The Skeptic.

The really dangerous superstition is the conviction that their vote has no impact on the political outcome. And it isn’t just a fringe idea: two-thirds of Italian citizens are certain that important decisions are taken elsewhere, behind closed doors.

The rhetoric of “powerful forces” plotting in the shadows to impose their will over democratic institutions through bribery, sabotage and opaque processes has circulated around the country since the 1980s. This climate of profound disillusionment was arguably sustained by real crises, such as the uncovering of the P2 Masonic lodge. The clandestine organisation, which implicated some of the leading figures of the era, was found guilty of a series of crimes and subversions aimed at overthrowing the nation. Some of the bloodiest events in Italian history have been traced directly back to their machinations.

The suspicion, however, endured. While the terminology of “powerful forces” was once associated with specific individuals, its boundaries have become increasingly fuzzy over the years. It now encompasses major institutions like the European Central Bank and the Church, as well as lobbies and “hidden elites” interested in sabotaging the country. Today, with no evidence of a resurgence of the ploys of the past, this lingering political mistrust delegitimises the very existence of a functioning democracy, leading down a treacherous path from pure concern towards social pseudoscience.

As Andrea Alemanno, head of public affairs and corporate reputation at Ipsos, puts it:

Conspiracy theories stem from the fact that in Italy many of the mysteries and scandals that shook the country have never been solved… The mysteries of this country fuel populism and conspiracy theories, but above all, they fuel a distancing not so much from politics as from active participation. And with growing abstentionism, not only do people not feel represented, but they also feel entitled to criticise because they didn’t vote for the current leaders. This is why no government in Italy has ever won re-election.

The deep-seated distrust that many Italians harbour towards the democratic system keeps voters away from the ballot box. A recent survey found that 50% of eligible Italian voters choose to abstain, with 10% citing the “lack of clarity and credibility of the electoral system” as the main motivation behind their decision. But this structural abstentionism guarantees election results that are not representative of the population’s will, thus reinforcing their initial belief that the system is rigged. It ensures the realisation of a self-fulfilling prophecy, ultimately leading to a lethal erosion of civic life.

Abstentionism has been relentlessly on the rise in Italy since 2006. After 2013, it has become the largest “party”, representing the most common choice among the electorate. At the 2024 European Parliament elections, the lowest voter turnout in the whole Republican history of the country was registered.

Although it would be easier to think of the non-voting segment of the country as a single, cohesive party – as it is often referred to by news outlets – this image is far from reality. Abstentionists are not a static bloc; their composition changes from one election to the next. Some have never participated since becoming eligible, while others may pick and choose which elections to vote in. The choice to not participate in the polls can also be ascribed to different reasons: some abstain to manifest their disappointment with the candidates; others to express their disdain for the political scene, viewed as plagued by corruption and scandal; and others report feeling exhausted by the continuous political turmoil and failures.

While non-voters are an ever-changing group and are not bound by a common political interest, they often belong to the same socio-economic categories. Their lack of participation, consequently, has the harmful effect of eroding the quality of democracy itself. This results in the systemic exclusion of younger people, the less educated, the economically disadvantaged, and other marginal groups from the process of democratic representation.

Moreover, Andrea Alemanno explains, it means that whoever wins will be governing with a minority mandate:

Although Giorgia Meloni is the current Prime Minister, only 30% of Italians voted for her, while 70% did not. In a system such as the Italian one, initially designed to have broad consensus, the current situation clearly highlights the challenges that the democracy is facing. The eventual winners are faced with a country that is neutral but potentially hostile to them. As soon as they make a mistake, everyone will promptly turn against them, even those who didn’t vote for anyone.

The relationship between conspiracy thinking and political paralysis is more complex than it might initially appear. At first glance it is evident that Italian citizens are engaging in a self-destructive political act. Their belief in conspiracy theories provides a convenient mental shortcut that justifies inaction; yet, this lack of participation only corroborates their suspicion that crucial decisions are taken elsewhere by vague entities working in the shadows.

“The phenomenon of abstentionism in Italy is a recent one, while conspiracy theories are nothing new,” Alemanno told me. “Twenty years ago we reached one of the highest levels of voter turnout in history with the clash between Prodi and Berlusconi: almost 80% of people voted, and the election was decided by a difference of 23,000 votes between the two coalitions. Is it because twenty years ago there were no conspiracy theories circulating? No, there were countless conspiracy theories.”

According to Alemanno, what changed between then and now is the weakening of intermediary bodies and political parties throughout the West, particularly in Italy:

There are no longer any entities that mediate, that carry out interest aggregation; or there are fewer and fewer of them, and as a result, there is no one who can guarantee voters to be on their side. When bombs exploded in the 1970s, Catholics knew who was on their side, workers knew who was on their side. It may or may not have been true, but they had a sense of belonging, they had someone they trusted who would try to understand the situation better and avoid negative consequences for them, their families, their social group, and their sphere of interest as much as possible. All of this has, as of now, disappeared.

Therefore, conspiracy theories have gained more traction than ever before, precisely because they fill a void. “They are all that remains,” argues Alemanno. “They are not countered by a more rational narrative, one focused on defending its electorate’s interests, which previously managed to absorb them. In the past, I could think that there was a ‘Great Old Man’ behind the terrorist events of the 70s and 80s, but I would vote for the Communist Party because I was a blue-collar worker, and it promised to defend me from American interference, from the CIA, and from the P2 Masonic lodge. Today, who is going to take my side against these threats?”

In 2024, the political engagement rate among Italian citizens has reached an all-time low. A recent study found that one third of the population never even broaches the subject of politics.

This decline in civic action is particularly puzzling in today’s world, where information and resources are so easily accessible. Social media platforms bear significant responsibility: even though they offer a handy source for keeping up with the political scene, they also facilitate the escalation of “filter bubbles”. This environment fosters the rapid expansion of dangerous ideas. Algorithms trap users into vicious cycles, luring them in through content that satisfies their confirmation bias and validates their convictions.

One other problem in contemporary politics and elections is the excessively confrontational manner in which they are discussed. The oversimplification and extreme polarisation of messages cause many people who do not hold extreme beliefs to feel distant from both sides, and therefore abstain, Alemanno explained. “And this mainly has to do with the fact that they do not have a mediator who interprets their point of view. If everything is polarised but I am not, how can I take a stand? I need someone to show me the way, but everything is reduced to a fight against the opposing parties”.

Against this backdrop, it’s no wonder that conspiracy theories serve as a get-out clause for citizens and politicians alike. In the midst of economic instability and political volatility, coupled with the erosion of traditional mediating bodies and increasingly extreme political messages, conspiracy narratives serve as the perfect psychological fillers.

When citizens are overwhelmed with political communications or commentary, resorting to a fatalistic outlook on the situation is the most convenient way out. Instead of expending cognitive energy in trying to understand the complexities of modern society, it’s easier to blame a single, vaguely identified evil force. Conspiracy thinking allows us to synthetise the harsh reality (where systemic institutional failure might be caused by varied issues, such as bureaucratic inefficiency or persistent regional disparity) into a more digestible narrative. Inaction thus appears as the only reasonable choice, since any effort seems futile against such powerful enemies.

Different age groups process this feeling of powerlessness in their own unique ways. Younger people exhibit increasing disinterest in politics due to their lack of familiarity with democracy (considering that civic commitment is no longer being taught in schools). Through the lens of the “powerful forces” rhetoric, they feel justified in not seeking out information on their own. Middle-aged people feel overall disappointed by the current political situation and voice their opinion through abstention. Older people, instead, use non-voting as a specific protest against their former party, which they believe has lost its ability to represent them.

Unfortunately, this only strengthens civic apathy, which is profoundly detrimental to the welfare of the nation’s political infrastructure. Democracy is fundamentally rooted in trust; if its own citizens consistently doubt and degrade the system because they perceive it as failing, then it is unlikely it will ever function properly.

This is not to suggest organisations and elites intent on imposing their will on the Italy’s institutions no longer exist, or will stop existing in the short-term. However, the nation has taken significant steps to mitigate secrecy. The formal structure of the Italian state is legally obliged to repudiate total secrecy: as of 2013, transparency is a legal requirement which mandates specific public disclosure for the prevention of corruption.

As the state moves towards increased transparency and requires honesty from the entirety of its public administration, if citizens fail to take the matter into their own hands by voting to express their will, the final results will never be representative of the entire population. This guarantees that the interests of the active minority overrule those of the abstainers. By abstaining, non-voters are creating fertile ground for what they believe to be organised groups and lobbies to impose their will more easily.

Believing in conspiracy theories means not merely recognising that bribery and corruption might still exist, but bypassing legitimate criticism to identify a single, faceless enemy without a precise goal. It is not a valid critique of the country’s political situation but, rather, promotes a harmful, self-reinforcing mechanism of social pseudoscience. It relies on terminology dating back to the 80s to evoke the cognitive comfort of having a conviction to hide behind.

Before embracing political fatalism, we must ask ourselves whether the system is truly faulty. If it is convenient to believe so because grappling with the complex realities of the everyday world has become increasingly wearisome, there’s still hope for change. After all, no situation is without remedy.

References:

• I tanti perché dell’astensionismo: dal non sentirsi rappresentati al considerarlo una protesta politica – Vita.it
• Cosa sono esattamente i “poteri forti”? | Wired Italia
• ArchivioAntimafia – P2
• Politica: il 50% degli elettori è astensionista. Dal 2015 è fuga dalle urne – La Stampa
• In Italia l’affluenza più bassa nella storia repubblicana. Calo nell’Ue
• Com’è cambiata l’affluenza alle elezioni in Italia | Pagella Politica
• La rivista il Mulino: Gli astensionisti
• L’astensionismo e il partito del non voto – Openpolis
• Astensionismo, tre italiani su dieci sono poco o per niente interessati alla politica. Bocciati parlamentari e partiti, meglio i sindaci – Il Sole 24 ORE
• Elezioni Europee 2024: i risultati elettorali e le analisi post-voto di Ipsos.
• Il grande vecchio | Podcast on Spotify
• Sempre meno italiani si interessano di politica: cosa dicono i dati ISTAT
• Complottismo: origini, manifestazioni e psicologia

The post The Italian electoral abstention, and the self-fulfilling conspiracy theory plot appeared first on The Skeptic.

One can question the legality and legitimacy of the way Maduro was taken, as critics and his defence team describe the raid as a “military abduction” and raise concerns about sovereignty, due process, and the extraterritorial reach of US criminal law. Likewise, even the detailed indictments and public accusations leave room for debate over the extent of his personal involvement in, and command responsibility for, the alleged drug‑trafficking apparatus he is accused of leading. Yet there is no serious doubt in the international human rights record that Maduro ruled Venezuela as a dictator, presiding over systematic repression, electoral fraud, and widespread abuses – including killings, torture, arbitrary detention, and the crushing of political opposition – documented by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and other monitoring bodies.

If there is so much to criticise about Maduro’s record in power, it is pointless to revive one of the oldest and least substantiated accusations against him: that he was never a legitimate Venezuelan president, because he was allegedly not even born in Venezuela, but in Cúcuta, Colombia. According to this rumour – which circulated for years in exile and opposition circles – Maduro’s true birthplace lies across the border, and it is resurfacing now because some claim that, in the context of the legal proceedings in New York, he must formally state his place of birth and the authorities supposedly cannot be entirely sure he was born in Venezuela. Yet all of this remains at the level of rumour and political folklore, and it has not played any real role in the case against him. The New York court has focused on the concrete criminal charges and has shown no genuine concern with litigating where, exactly, Maduro first entered the world.

In a sense, this renewed focus on Maduro’s birthplace functions as a subtle form of American cultural imperialism in the Western hemisphere, because it imports into the Venezuelan context a style of delegitimising politics that Americans themselves popularised through “birtherism.” In the United States, the Obama birth conspiracy theory claimed – falsely – that Barack Obama had not been born in Hawaii, and was therefore constitutionally ineligible to be president, despite overwhelming documentary evidence and official confirmations to the contrary. The story emerged on the fringes during the 2008 campaign, and then gained national prominence as Donald Trump promoted it aggressively in the years that followed. Trump has repeatedly and inaccurately insisted that the whole thing was originally invented by Hillary Clinton, even though there is no evidence that she personally launched the conspiracy, and the most that can be said is that a few low‑level staff or supporters in her 2008 primary orbit appear to have recycled or flirted with rumours that were already circulating in the darker corners of partisan media.

Birtherism is not, in fact, an exclusively American invention; Latin America has its own long history of similar conspiratorial attempts to delegitimise political leaders by questioning their origins. In Peru, for example, opponents of Alberto Fujimori repeatedly claimed that he had actually been born in Japan rather than on Peruvian soil, and in Venezuela, long before Maduro, there were rumours that President Carlos Andrés Pérez had really been born in Colombia rather than in the Andean State of Táchira he always claimed as his birthplace. In each case, the point was not simply to dispute a biographical detail, but to suggest that the leader was constitutionally or symbolically unfit to represent the nation, because he was supposedly not truly “one of us.”

These Latin American birther conspiracy theories, much like the US version targeting Obama, can be traced back to the pernicious influence of nationalism as a political religion. If one is obsessed with the greatness and purity of one’s own nation, and with sharply distinguishing it from its neighbours, it becomes tempting to turn politics into a kind of witch hunt aimed at purging those whom one suspects of not being authentically part of the national body. In such a nationalist context, if one dislikes a political figure, the easiest and most intuitive move is to accuse them of being a foreigner – of literally not belonging – so that disagreement over policies or corruption or abuse of power is recast as an existential threat posed by an alien intruder who must be expelled.

Ironically, it was the Maduro government itself that helped cultivate precisely the kind of paranoid, exclusionary mindset that now fuels birther-style conspiracies against him, so that the doubts about his own birthplace are in some sense the chickens coming home to roost. Chavismo, the movement inspired by Hugo Chávez that combines left‑populism, militarism, and intense nationalism around the figure of the “pueblo,” has for years thrived on a mixture of aggressive national pride and baroque conspiracy theories, in which enemies of the “homeland” are forever plotting to infiltrate, corrupt, or dismember Venezuela. Ever since the separation from Gran Colombia in 1830, Venezuelan governments have played to the tune of nationalism, but from 1998 onward Hugo Chávez radically intensified its symbolism and emotional charge, saturating public life with flag-waving, ritualised singing of the national anthem, and a quasi-sacralisation of the founding fathers that left little room for critical historical reflection.

Colombia, meanwhile, has always been an uneasy neighbour, and a convenient foil for this nationalist dramaturgy. On the surface there are even light-hearted culture-war skirmishes – such as the playful but telling dispute over who can truly claim authorship of the arepa – but beneath that lie long-standing territorial disputes, cross-border militancy, and episodes of diplomatic and military tension. Against this background, a general Venezuelan suspicion or animosity toward Colombia has long existed, and Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s political mentor, elevated it into a central axis of his narrative about the Bolivarian revolution and its enemies.

Chávez repeatedly portrayed Colombia as a country ruled by oligarchies in league with North American imperialism, and he even rewrote the death of Simón Bolívar into a grand conspiracy according to which Colombian aristocrats, hand in hand with US interests, murdered the Liberator. This narrative persisted despite the firm historical consensus that Bolívar died of tuberculosis, not poisoning, and Chávez went so far as to have Bolívar’s remains exhumed in a macabre, made-for-TV gesture to “investigate” whether he had in fact been assassinated. No credible evidence has ever emerged to support those claims, but the episode shows how Chavismo normalised the idea that foreign or “foreignised” elites are secretly responsible for every national trauma – which makes it grimly fitting that some of Maduro’s own detractors now turn that same conspiratorial logic against him by casting doubt on his Venezuelan birth.

All of this should worry skeptics, because it shows how easily conspiratorial ideation and senseless nationalism cut across both the left and the right. Einstein famously described nationalism as a kind of childhood illness of humanity, and there is something to that diagnosis: once one becomes infatuated with one’s own country and its grand narratives, critical thinking atrophies and even the most absurd conspiratorial claims start to feel intuitively plausible. When political identity fuses with national identity in this way, questioning the story becomes tantamount to betrayal, and people who pride themselves on being hard-headed realists end up embracing fantasies about birth certificates, secret plots, and foreign infiltrators.

If skepticism is to mean anything in such a climate, it has to include pushing back against the emotional seductions of nationalism itself.

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I was born in Belarus, a small, authoritarian country near Russia. This offers a unique vantage point for examining Putin’s views. On the one hand, I grew up in a Russian-speaking media environment. On the other, I am not part of the Russian political arena, which allows me to analyse his views without the inherent bias – whether affection or animosity – that a Russian author might have.

Ukrainian biological laboratories

Many perceive Russian statements about Ukrainian biological laboratories solely as an attempt to justify Russian aggression in Ukraine. This theory is supported by the timing: the narrative was aggressively promoted starting in March 2022 – as if retroactively, when the atrocities committed by the Russian military became known. But the fact that this narrative only appeared then does not mean that it is completely artificial.

The very idea of a biological threat from the West was expressed in Russia even before the war – for example, the Russian media accused Covid-19 of having Western origins. It is important to note that propaganda in authoritarian regimes is structured in such a way that broad narratives cannot exist for long without at least the tacit consent of the head of state.

Moreover, such theories fit into the broad political tradition of the Russia in which Putin was formed: the USSR accused the US of using biological weapons during the Korean War and also saw the hand of the West behind many major epidemics, such as HIV-AIDS.

But, most importantly, the idea that there is some kind of biological threat is confirmed by other statements Putin has made.

Genetic bomb against russians

In 2017, Putin first expressed concern that foreign countries were collecting genetic material from Russian citizens, for some unstated reason. The topic was immediately picked up by pro-Kremlin media and commentators on the internet, and turned into the idea of a weapon capable of attacking people based on their genetic code and selectively destroying Russians.

It is impossible to say for sure which came first, the chicken or the egg. Perhaps Putin initially adhered to the idea of a “genetic bomb”. Perhaps he finally formulated his position under the influence of his own propaganda. Either way, a year later, he claimed that certain drugs existed that could change a person’s appearance after two or three generations. This was clearly not mere idle speculation; it led to serious changes. In 2019, a Federal Genetic Technology Programme was adopted, ordering the creation of a “sovereign” genetic sequencing structure and including its own funding programme.

The focus on genetics can be explained not only by external threats, but also by internal needs to monitor citizens. But the benefit here is only indirect. Genetics is too complex a tool for authoritarian control. Digital surveillance, social media analysis, facial recognition – all of these are cheaper to implement and have a faster and more tangible effect.

Thus, Putin takes the idea of the threat of genetic weapons quite seriously – so much so that he is willing to finance his ideas from the budget.

Climate change denial

Like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, Putin is also a climate-change denier. However, Putin’s position on this issue is much more complex, and it is precisely the nuances of his beliefs on this issue that shed light on why Putin needs pseudoscience.

Unlike Trump or Bolsonaro, who initially claimed that “the climate is not changing” and only later came to the position that “okay, it is changing, but humans are not to blame”, Putin has never denied the fact of change itself – but has always emphasised that “natural climate cycles” (Putin is not original in this regard) are used by the West as a pretext to put pressure on Russia. In Putin’s logic, the transition to green energy is a new form of neocolonialism, a new way of subjugating other countries – including Russia.

Thus, Putin’s pseudoscientific thinking does not exist in a vacuum, but serves deeper internal convictions about the confrontation between Russia and the West.

Why does putin believe this?

Why does Putin back up his idea of confrontation with the West not only with ideology, but also with pseudoscience?

The theory that pseudoscientific beliefs arise in any politician who does not receive feedback from society does not stand up to scrutiny. On the one hand, Donald Trump often promotes scientific misinformation, and he is not hindered by feedback in the form of exposés in the media. On the other hand, Kim Jong-un may not fear criticism in the media, but when it comes to superweapons, he relies on a completely scientific atomic bomb, not a genetic one.

Putin’s pseudoscience is not an aberration, but a way of understanding the world in which science becomes yet another field of geopolitical confrontation. And there are specific reasons that may have influenced this. Putin’s childhood and youth coincided with the Cold War, whose influence was much stronger in the USSR than in the West. For the capitalist bloc, the Cold War was one of the factors in foreign policy. In the Soviet Union, it effectively justified the regime’s existence. Shortages of goods, repression, lack of freedom – all this was explained by the external threat from global capital, from which the working class had to be protected.

The United States went through the repressive era of McCarthyism, but at all other times, alternative points of view existed. In the United States, Sartre’s work was widely published and discussed, despite the fact that he was a staunch socialist. In the USSR, Sartre was viewed with suspicion, because he was not socialist enough.

Soviet cinemas showed films about Western spies, and schools held civil defence lessons. Soviet citizens lived in a state of constant threat, and pseudoscience is good at framing suspicion with solid scientific terminology.

Working for the KGB

Putin comes not only from Soviet society, but also from the Soviet KGB. Secret services around the world teach their agents to perceive the world as a source of threats. An intelligence officer must always assume the worst-case scenario – it is better to respond to ten false alarms than to miss one real one.

An intelligence officer’s adversary always acts covertly. Any technology is perceived as dual-use technology – if even a sheet of paper can be turned into a murder weapon, why couldn’t a genetic bomb exist?

Any information can turn out to be disinformation – and for discovering this disinformation, you are given a new rank. If a scientist tries to discover “hidden patterns” in random data, he can be accused of apophenia. If a secret service agent fails to discover a conspiracy in random data, he will be accused of working for the enemy.

All this shapes conspiratorial thinking simply because the sphere of state security is one in which conspiracies really do happen all the time. And this type of thinking is the perfect breeding ground for pseudoscientific ideas.

Soviet education

Soviet education, especially technical education, was some of the best in the world. Soviet education made it possible to send humans into space. The best teachers worked in the Soviet education system. There was one drawback to Soviet education: you couldn’t question what the teacher said.

Critical thinking was actively discouraged in school and, to be honest, was not very useful in everyday life. Total state control had a peculiar positive side: if a Soviet citizen read a popular science article in a magazine, they could be completely sure that the article was written by a professional scientist and checked by a scientific editor.

As a result, after the collapse of the USSR, the post-Soviet media was filled with psychics. One of them, Anatoly Kashpirovsky, for example, hosted television programmes where he promised viewers that he would transmit healing energy through the screen. To receive this energy, one simply had to sit in front of the television and improve one’s health in this way. Or place a jar of water in front of the television, in which case the water in it would become healing.

The Russian adaptation of the show “Britain’s Psychic Challenge” has been broadcast on Russian television in various forms for almost 20 years. In it, charlatans “demonstrate” their supernatural abilities. Despite the huge number of exposés, which were even shown on Russian federal television, the psychics from the programme have gained immense popularity and deceive viewers for a higher price. If British readers have never heard of this show, it’s no surprise – it only lasted one season on ITV.

Now, thanks to the efforts of science popularisers, the situation is beginning to change, especially among young people. But Putin’s views are close to those of many Russians who grew up in the same era.

It is impossible to get inside another person’s head. But on closer inspection, Putin’s pseudoscientific statements cease to be mere disinformation and become part of a coherent worldview – one that, unfortunately, Putin has the resources and power to impose on a large number of people.

Header image – caricature by DonkeyHotey

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Everyone has their threshold. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, currently stalled at the committee stage in the House of Lords, is intended to help people who have reached their threshold to end their lives with dignity and without unnecessary suffering. The overwhelming majority of disabled people support it: depending on the poll, the principle of assisted dying has more support from disabled people than from the general public. However, many have some trepidation about the implications of such legislation in a society where so many people already consider your life not worth living.

The experience of being disabled is a continuous stream of little reminders that you are inconvenient, and that accommodating you is expensive and annoying. On its own, each one is minor. But they add up. The broken lift that added three hours to your journey because only a third of London tube stations have step-free access. The pub that described itself as wheelchair accessible – apart from the massive step out the front. It IS accessible… but only if you’re already inside. Open the box with the crowbar contained within.

It never stops. The disabled parking space that only allows you to park for four hours – because you can’t possibly be disabled AND working a full-time job. Except you MUST be disabled and working, because the government has decided that in order to balance the books and avoid some difficult politics, you no longer qualify for the money that allowed you to pay for your wheelchair, or the vehicle necessary to transport it. The government are going to help (ie force) you back to work instead. How? Not by funding the existing programme designed for that purpose, which has also been cut to the bone, forcing hundreds of previously employed disabled people out of work.

Making it legal to kill citizens requires a lot of trust. Disabled citizens have lots of really excellent reasons to be wary of extending that trust. The examples given here are – for the sake of levity – fairly minor. They are problems experienced mostly by people who are able to be relatively independent. Another common assumption is that if you have ‘real’ need, of course you will be taken care of. The fact is that disabled people with real need die all the time because of cruel, arbitrary decisions empowered by government policy.

There’s the case of Errol Graham, who weighed only four and a half stone when his body was found by some bailiffs when they broke down the door to his flat. Despite clear rules stating that vulnerable claimants must receive multiple safeguarding assessments before their benefits are stopped, the Department of Work and Pensions – DWP – cut him off, and he starved to death. It was determined that the DWP failed to seek supporting medical evidence from his doctor before sanctioning him.

A recent BBC investigation found that, since 2012, at least 82 people have died following a DWP decision that adversely affected them. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the DWP made significant errors or broke their own safeguarding rules. An inquest into the death of Phillipa Day found that the DWP had made 28 errors in her case, resulting in her being denied a home assessment – despite being a vulnerable adult fully entitled to that accommodation under the department’s rules. She was found dead by suicide, next to the letter informing her that her claim had been denied. Notes taken by call handlers show that she reported that she was ‘starving’ and in extreme distress, but her case was never escalated, and no safeguarding measures were taken, despite her being a type 1 diabetic with high-risk mental health diagnoses.

When disabled people raise concern about the risks to vulnerable people, proponents of the bill are very quick to dismiss them by listing proposed safeguards to be implemented by the institutions responsible for administering the assisted dying pathway. That is not a compelling argument. There is already an entity empowered to make life and death decisions in the lives of disabled people. It has very clear rules about safeguarding and protecting vulnerable adults, that it routinely and callously ignores. No matter how many Prevention of Future Deaths reports pile up that directly implicate the DWP in the deaths of vulnerable claimants, the government and civil servants are allowed to mark their own homework – and they say they are doing fine. 

Evidence submitted to the Select Committee highlights some specific concerns about the impact of such a bill on disabled and other marginalised communities. There are the obvious direct concerns: that people may be shuffled off this mortal coil before their time by unscrupulous family members or carers who tire of the responsibility and hardship of caring for them. What is more insidious than the spectre of a careless carer are factors it is much harder to identify and safeguard against. You can train doctors and social workers to spot the signs that a family member may be exercising undue influence, but it is much harder to train them to spot the cumulative pressure of a society that regards you as disposable.

Evidence given by Professor Katherine Sleeman, Director of the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s Policy Research Unit in Palliative and End of Life Care, highlights that a growing number of people seeking or considering physician assisted death in Canada and Oregon cite the financial cost of their care as a reason for seeking this pathway. Being sick or disabled is expensive, even in countries with universal healthcare, and the majority of disabled people live substantially below the poverty line. How does a physician identify this pressure – and what on earth are they supposed to do about it when they do?

She also highlights that in the Canadian system, one that is substantively similar to the UK in terms of how healthcare and welfare are administered, the mere presence of the Medical Assistance in Dying – MAiD – pathway has diverted funds away from comprehensive palliative care provision. This makes it extremely challenging to explore non-lethal end of life options with patients who are suffering, and potentially acts as a funnel towards the patient ‘choosing’ an assisted death because other options to alleviate their pain and suffering simply aren’t available. Anyone familiar with the way the NHS is forced to ration care will not be hard pressed to imagine a similar situation unfolding here.  

The Canadian system has been the subject of much criticism from disability rights campaigners, and was the subject of a damning report by a UN Special Rapporteur. When it was implemented, MAiD looked very similar to the UK legislation. It was limited only to those with less than six months to live, who were experiencing extreme suffering, with all the attendant safeguards. Less than ten years after it passed, the legislation has been broadened to include people who are not terminally ill but who have a ‘grievous and irremediable’ medical condition. It is currently in the process of being extended even further to include people whose only or primary medical diagnosis is a mental health condition. In 2023, MAiD accounted for 4.7% of all deaths in Canada.

There are multiple lawsuits and legal challenges currently in the Canadian courts, the most striking of which is being bought by plaintiffs who report having MAiD suggested to them unprompted – by medical professionals and social workers – as a solution to medical or material conditions that could be alleviated by access to proper medical care and a stronger social safety net.

Any disabled person who has been through a DWP assessment will have absolutely no problem imagining an assessor raising assisted dying as an alternative to the state covering the couple of hundred pounds a month needed to pay for someone to take you to the toilet.

I’ve tried to keep my personal perspective out of this article (how did I do?), but I will never forget opening the envelope containing the notes taken by the nurse who conducted my PIP assessment and the complete, soul-destroying horror of realising she had… lied. She hadn’t been a bit loose with the truth, she hadn’t massaged the facts, this wasn’t a sexed-up dossier. She had lied.

Almost every line said the opposite of what I had told her. She said I did not use any mobility aids, when I had explicitly told her that I was using a wheelchair, and my walking stick was visible in frame on Zoom throughout the assessment. She recorded that I seemed well presented, clean and in good spirits, when I was wearing the same pyjamas I’d been in for the past two days, my hair was unbrushed, and I was supported on multiple pillows so I could sit up for the interview. I started crying five minutes into the assessment, and didn’t stop until long after it was over. Is that what counts as ‘in good spirits’ for a DWP assessor? It went on and on for page after page. It was unmistakably my notes, but at every point where I had told her something that would have ‘scored’ points, she wrote the opposite. 

I had been expecting it to be tricky. I have supported family members with their benefits applications, I have friends who had already been through the process. I knew it was going to be hard, that I’d have to word things extremely carefully because the assessor would give me no benefit of the doubt. I hadn’t expected that she would simply falsify the whole thing.

I should have complained. I had support, I know lawyers. I know how the system works. But it devastated me at such a fundamental level that I couldn’t bear to continue. It took me five years to apply following my diagnosis, and it was two more before I tried again. The second time, I got halfway through the form, and for the first time in a decade I was severely, dangerously suicidal. Even with support, there was no way I could safely put myself through it.

That betrayal – by a system that is supposed to be there to support you when you need help the most – is profound and terrifying. That’s at the core of how disabled citizens and their supporters regard this bill. How can you trust the state to safeguard you when it has repeatedly shown that it will actively do the opposite?

The bill is currently stalled, mired in an unprecedented number of bad faith amendments – 900 at time of writing – tabled by a coterie of Peers who hope to filibuster the bill by swamping the committee stage, causing it to miss the legislative deadline in the spring. In doing so they risk also drowning out the real concerns people have about this bill, ones that deserve serious scrutiny and consideration, and real amendments made to protect us against slipping into something similar to MAiD.

Once legislation passes, it will never again receive the same level of scrutiny and interest as it did in the lead up. It doesn’t just need to be robust enough to resist potentially harmful amendments by the current government, but also the worst tendencies of any future governments. There has been very little outcry from the general public over the treatment of disabled people by the DWP – each death treated as a one-off, a tragic mistake. The victim should have reached out for the magical help that everyone who has never needed it believes must be there for those who are really in need – and if they didn’t, they probably didn’t really need it. Has anyone checked with their neighbours to make sure they weren’t seen carrying any heavy shopping recently? That’s probably it. Mistakes are inevitable and hey, it’s very important to catch all the scroungers! Will that public come out to fight the good fight if we start sliding down the slippery slope?

Disabled people want the right to die with dignity, and without unnecessary suffering, at a time of our choosing – but we want the right to live to those standards, too. The report on MAiD by the UN special rapporteur warned that the very existence of the non-terminal pathway for ‘grievous and irremediable’ conditions devalued the lives of the people living with them. Don’t like it? Have you considered simply dying?

This was an opportunity to have a nuanced and important discussion about what would actually be needed to safeguard disabled people if assisted dying were made legal. Is a condition ‘grievous and irremediable’ if it could be remedied by a proper social safety net that prioritises the right of disabled people to live fulfilled lives? Or failing that, the right of disabled people not to live in abject poverty, constantly in fear that the routine, callous incompetence of the DWP – or whim of a Chancellor with a budget to balance – will render you penniless, plunge you into debt, leave you starving to death alone in your flat, until some bailiffs arrive to turf you out onto the street? What does it mean to make a ‘free, informed’ choice to die, if that is how you are forced to live?

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But what if, like some geopolitical version of the Eurovision Song Contest, we demonstrated our superiority over others by being the cheeriest, healthiest, freest, sportiest, most trusting nation on Earth? What if happiness was the measure of a nation’s success?

World happiness has been measured, using some pretty sound methods, for the last 14 years, since the idea was first proposed by Bhutan in 2012. Every year, the UN publishes its World Happiness Report, in which it ranks 147 countries (the number of countries for which it has access and accurate data) by overall happiness. So far, Finland is the overall winner. Other Scandinavian countries hog the top five slots.

When Donald Trump spoke at the UN General Assembly in September 2025, he claimed Europe was “going to hell”. He criticised what he called the failed experiment of open borders. He told the world the UK had a London Mayor enforcing Sharia Law. His bleak and sweeping appraisal of an entire continent is not just wrong, it ignores how poorly his own country has been doing of late.

An interesting trend that Trump might observe, were he to look, is the consistent downward movement of the USA. In 2012 the USA was ranked 11th (an excellent ranking in the scheme of things), but has since then fallen to a record low of 24th in 2025. 

Another interesting thing Trump would be able to observe in the data is this: 15 of those top 20 ranked countries are European. Is Europe really going to hell? Or is Europe doing amazingly well?

Meanwhile, here in the UK, over the period 2019 to 2025, we have dropped from 13th to 23rd. Shouldn’t that be worthy of our attention? Dropping out of the top 20 ought to be alarming. Dropping just one place should be newsworthy. Questions should be asked in parliament. But media outlets – if they focus on this at all – tend only to point out that the winner is Finland. Again. And the winner always being Finland makes it a second-rate story.

You might be wondering how happiness is measured. Do UN officials go round the globe asking people if they are happy? Well, yes. Asking people that one simple question is a big part of the research.

Each year they sample-survey well over 100,000 people in more than 140 countries. The exact number varies, but a sample of around 1,000 people is common for each country. Reports always combine the last three years of data to produce current rankings.

But the final ranking is also based on hard data and the sum of several carefully observed parts of a national picture. The six key things they look at are GDP per capita (sorry, can’t be avoided), social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and the perception of corruption. 

Costa Rica, which has no standing army to fund, sits in the top 20. It can more readily spend its small but significant capital on practical social policies. It’s a brave road to go down. Happy and defenceless. Unlike Finland, which is happy, fully armed and ready for anything.

Finland has compulsory military service, and the young people who turn up to train know why that’s important. They share a land border with Russia. Patriotism is a mix of cultural pride and a very real solidarity against a rather nasty, very real existential threat.

Like other Scandinavian countries, they tend to have coalition governments implementing progressive but well-researched social policies. These ensure it’s almost impossible to drop out of the bottom of society. Taxes are high, but people trust that the money is being spent wisely.

Also, Finland claims ownership of Santa Claus. The population is trained in Tundra warfare. They have fully stocked nuclear bunkers, and not just for the leader-class, but for every Finnish citizen.

Social policies like those we see in Finland are not just feel-good people-pleasers, they are backed up by sound economics and science. By way of an example, Denmark (ranked second), offer fathers 480 days of paternity leave. Denmark knows that women are statistically more likely to have attained higher levels of education than men. Therefore, they are statistically more productive and in more senior positions in the workplace.

On a purely practical level it makes sense for Dad to look after the baby. Other emotional and wellbeing benefits follow. Similar policies, deceptively impractical and idealistic to the casual observer, are common across this part of Europe.

A second illustrative example of this type of thinking is the Danish wind turbine policy. In the same speech to the UN, where Donald Trump claimed European countries were going to hell, due to immigration, he also denounced Europe’s energy plans and the climate change ‘hoax’.

We won’t deal with his argument here. But we can consider how Denmark has dealt with the potential friction caused by building huge wind turbines near populated areas. Taking a very different approach to that seen here in the UK, the Danes told residents exactly which individual wind turbine belonged to them, awarding them a sort of ownership. They explained this particular turbine is currently powering your street – very cheaply. It was a simple, clever idea that all but extinguished resistance to wind turbines.

Another interesting part of the UN research package is the ‘dropped wallet experiment’. Wallets are dropped in various places to see if they’ll be returned. Each wallet contains the equivalent of $200. The test is used to show that people are, on the whole, pessimistic about the kindness of strangers. But also, that the rate at which the lost wallets are returned is about double what people expect.

This belief, or lack of belief, in the kindness of others is a strong predictor of wellbeing. Benevolence, or the act of making the effort to find the wallet-less person, is a good measure of happiness, and also a good source of happiness.

In these tests, Finland consistently has the highest rates of returned wallets. Canada also scores well.

So while the USA drops to its lowest ever position in the Happiness Index, those Scandinavian countries stay solidly in the top 10. The UK and the USA, with their innate senses of ‘global superiority’, might be expected to be more vocal about not being in, or even near, the top 10.

More recently the UN has included one extra side study to each annual report. Last year this focused on the happiness of children; in 2025 they looked at how eating together affects happiness. The findings from the USA were quite revealing. Roughly one in four American adults report eating all of their daily meals alone, an overall increase of more than 50% since 2003, the report stated. Sharing meals is a powerful indicator of well-being, broadly equivalent to factors like income and employment status. 

It would be foolish to see Finland and Denmark as the owners of absolute happiness. They have in no way achieved that. They’re just doing a tad better than the rest of us. If we see them – for argument’s sake – as currently achieving 25% total possible happiness, that could help the rest of us see just how much is left to do. Or see just how poorly the majority of countries are sustaining a happy population.

The issues Donald Trump identifies in his ‘gone-to-hell’ analysis of Europe centre mostly on immigration. He’s seemingly offended that Europe isn’t 100% white and Christian. Scandinavian countries are also currently dealing with a range of issues associated with the recent rise in immigration seen across Europe.

Sweden has been bulking up its police. Denmark is forcibly moving some immigrant families out of their homes and rehousing them in another area in an attempt to avoid a ghettoising effect and to promote integration. On the surface this looks sinister. But it is certainly not an America First-type policy of round ‘em up / kick ‘em out. Time will tell if it has a broadly positive effect.

Policies like these are not worked out in secret or enacted covertly. Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland all have ‘open government’, meaning policy decision making is visible to all. Whatever future policies are implemented, they will likely to be based on proper research, social science and a sense of fairness.

The Skandi approach is to try something logical. And given they keep very few secrets from the world – an uncommon level of trust in Government is really the hallmark of this whole region – their approach can be easily read, dissected and copied.

That much of the world doesn’t copy ideas that evidently work is the real mystery.

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To many of his followers, Charlie Kirk was a committed defender of free speech. He made his name travelling to college campuses and engaging with people he disagreed with. Well, that’s not quite true. He made his name as the teenage face of a movement funded by septuagenarian millionaires and billionaires, trying to persuade young people that a regressive form of conservatism was something they could really get into. Part of that political strategy involved turning up to college campuses and having provocative ‘debates’, often involving Kirk using his position on the stage with a microphone, to catch inexperienced debaters in gotcha questions – while talking over any counterpoints from his opponents and belittling them to the audience – and portraying it as free speech.

In the wake of his death, Kirk has been reframed as a committed defender of free speech, despite maintaining a watchlist of professors he believed should be fired for what they taught. But that branding of free-speech warrior, once grasped, is hard to wrestle free of, and even media outlets who would disagree with Kirk’s positions described him in their coverage as a free-speech activist. Becoming synonymous with a fundamental right, even if you’re doing so falsely, is a powerful branding exercise.

It’s also an exercise that puts skeptics and other critical thinkers who value free speech into a potential bind – how do you distance yourself from the views, actions and positions of Charlie Kirk, as well as other would-be free-speech activists like Toby Young of the Free Speech Union, or even “free speech festival” founder Stephen Yaxley-Lennon/Tommy Robinson, without defending infringements of free speech?

The issue is partly one of framing. By allowing propagandists to frame themselves as free-speech defenders, anyone who disagrees with them is by default seen as being against free speech. That framing is powerful because it’s part of the norms we live by in society, which can be hijacked and subverted to give space to misleading views.

Media norms

Take the media, for example. The BBC is, by design, a media organisation that seeks more than any other to achieve a fair and balanced view; the impartial view from nowhere. This can lead to all manner of distortions. On a topic where there’s a vocal-but-fringe perspective, the BBC’s coverage might highlight the fringe view, before featuring someone who disagrees. Balance. Even though believers in the fringe view are, in reality, outnumbered 99 to 1.

This ‘false balance’ isn’t merely a question of which experts are in studio – it applies equally to talking-head, person-on-the-street interviews. Balance must be achieved, even if that means spending a huge amount of time trying to find someone, anyone, who represents the fringe viewpoint. If the first nine people interviewed agree with the mainstream point of view, eight need to be cut, while reporters work hard to find anyone who will give voice to the fringe. When it comes to broadcast, what gets aired is a view from either side – balance. But, in reality, distortion.

This came up in relation to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, with the BBC’s Documentary Podcast interviewing people with a range of views. Those views included an activist from conservative group Moms for America and two students from the university, one a Kirk fan, one a critic. They all agreed that Kirk was committed believer in free speech, and that he was always willing to talk to anyone about his beliefs and their beliefs – which is simply not the case, but as it was their opinions and perceptions, it was unchallenged.

The left-wing interviewee explained that ‘both sides’ are equally responsible for extremism and radicalisation; the right-wing interviewee explained that the left is to blame for silencing views any views that hurt their feelings, whether or not they were true. In the second half of the show, host Rahul Tandon tells three Charlie Kirk fans that, whether you agreed with Kirk or not, what he always wanted was dialogue.

This reporting, I’d argue, is incredibly naive. While the BBC show followed the media norms – interview a range of people, find interesting case studies, hear from different voices, and don’t celebrate the violence – the effect was to platform six voices, only one of which disagreed with Charlie Kirk’s actions and rhetoric. Meanwhile, the host himself repeated the idea that Kirk was committed to open dialogue and freedom of speech – something Kirk’s actions and deeds demonstrate was not the case.

Similarly, the reporting suffered from the media bias towards a novel story. Demographically, the average fan of Charlie Kirk is male, white, conservative, religious, and likely to agree with Kirk’s troubling views on the positions of women and people of colour in society. Across the six interviews, all five Kirk supporters featured were women, including a woman of colour who denied that Kirk was racist or misogynistic.

From a media point of view, finding a Charlie Kirk fan who is a young, black woman is obviously novel, because she defies the norm. It’s easy to see why a journalist might want to hear her story. But, in sharing it, the reporting centred viewpoints that weren’t remotely reflective of Kirk and his fanbase and so presented a skewed view. You wouldn’t present a story on white supremacy in the US under the framing “Are the KKK antisemitic? We found the only Orthodox Jewish member of the Klan, and they told us, ‘No!’”.

It’s easy to see how an organisation might make use of these established media norms to manage their reputation in the press. Charlie Kirk fans who agreed with their hero’s statements that black women are intellectually inferior and gay people were deliberately trying to recruit and corrupt children probably wouldn’t speak to the BBC, and certainly wouldn’t be put forward by his organisation as spokespeople. Turning Point USA understands the value of putting forward outlier spokespeople from diverse backgrounds – the organisation hired conspiracy theorist Candace Owens as “director of urban engagement” in 2017 in the wake of allegations of racism at Turning Point.

Skeptical norms

That idea of societal norms being used subversively to push agendas is something we as skeptics also have to be conscious of. The norm, for skeptics, is that we treat arguments in good faith, we listen to the claim as it is being presented, and then we examine the evidence for it. That is all very reasonable, and obviously the right way to do things. But equally, those norms can be used to subvert skeptical defences of free speech by helping to shape which claims we see and question and which cases stay out of the spotlight.

Take, for example, the UK’s own staunch ‘defenders of free speech’: Toby Young and the Free Speech Union. Given the credible threats to free speech in the UK, it might be seen as a comfort that Toby Young and his union are here to be our defenders. But what causes are they championing? Their number one case right now, visible from a banner on their homepage, is to “Help Graham Linehan Fight Back”. As their associated fundraising campaign explains:

After getting off a nine-hour transatlantic flight, [Linehan] was met at Heathrow by five armed police officers, arrested, interrogated and held in a cell for 16 hours…

What had he done wrong? Threatened to blow up the plane? Plotted to steal the Crown Jewels? Been found with indecent images of children? No. His ‘crime’ was to have posted three tweets taking the Mickey out of trans rights activists. That’s it…

We have to fight this all-out assault on freedom of expression. The police shouldn’t be wasting their time arresting people for hurty words when there are actual crimes they could be investigating, such as the epidemic of violence against women and girls.

According to the Free Speech Union, Graham Linehan’s only offence was for sending a mere three tweets that “took the mickey”, and for that he was arrested. If true, that would be self evidently an outrage, and deeply illiberal. But, once again, the framing is important because arguably there is more context that warrants at least mentioning, amidst the condemnation of taking “hurty” words to heart. One of the tweets in question read:

If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.

If we’re engaging those skeptical norms, we can debate the exact wording of the tweet, and whether it’s OK to be arrested for calling on people to punch someone from a protected class, simply because they’re from a protected class. There is a discussion to be had there, and I would suspect, for most people, such a tweet wouldn’t result in arrest.

Even if you switched out the target of the suggested violence – if Linehan had instead tweeted: “if you happen to see someone who is black, make sure you punch them”. Would that be arrest-worthy to tweet? Honestly, as offensive, unpleasant, and nakedly prejudiced as that would be, I’m still unsure that it would result in arrest – people tweet far more direct incitements to violence against minorities on a regular basis, without action being taken.

Why, then, was Linehan singled out? It’s hard to say, because the police do not routinely release details to the public of arrests and the only information we have on the arrest comes from Linehan’s own blog – which, even if you were an enormous fan of the former comedy writer, you would be forced to admit is written to present him in the most sympathetic light. Linehan has a sizeable online following, specifically among people who follow him for the things he says and does about trans people. Further, what the FSU don’t mention in their fundraiser is that Linehan was arrested for those tweets two days before he was in court for a separate case in which he is accused of publishing a “relentless” series of “abusive and vindictive posts” about a trans teenager, and a physical altercation in which he smacked her phone out of her hand.

Returning to the analogy, the story is closer to Tommy Robinson – famed for his negative views on people of colour – tweeting that his followers should assault people of colour, days before being in court over assaulting a person of colour. Whether or not you think that meets the standard for police action at that point, you have to accept that the context offers a far clearer view than the misleading framing of the FSU. Who, incidentally, have already raised £180,000 of their £250,000 fundraising goal on the case (at time of writing), while their supporters praise them for “defending all of us against the forces of creeping tyranny” and “making a stand against those who are attempting to destroy freedom of thought and expression, both in this country, and throughout the democratic world”.

Free speech… for whom?

But, is the FSU defending all of us? Because while the cases and causes they champion are telling, it’s the places where they’re silent that speak the loudest.

In recent years, thousands of protesters have been jailed for taking part in Just Stop Oil (JSO) demonstrations – merely exercising, in many of those cases, their right to protest. In response, the Free Speech Union have stepped in to defend… a police inspector from Merseyside Police was dismissed from his job for describing JSO as “spoilt special needs kids” and calling them “r****ds”. That is the sole article about JSO on the Free Speech Union website.

JSO isn’t the only protest group facing mass arrests for free expression – people have been arrested for holding signs bearing the words “Palestine Action”, since the government have proscribed the protest group as a terrorist organisation. One protestor, Miles Pickering, was arrested just last month for being at a protest against clampdown on expression, while wearing a shirt that read “Plasticine action”, with a pitcure of the stop-motion character Morph. However you look at that, it is a clear infringement of the right to protest – yet it is one that, to date, the Free Speech Union has been unmoved by. If you are a celebrity who is imprisoned for encouraging people to attack trans people, the FSU will raise £180k to defend you – but, wear a satirical T-shirt and, when you find yourself in jail, you’re on your own.

Most recently, during Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK, the protest group Led By Donkeys projected photos of Jeffrey Epstein onto the walls of Windsor Castle, making international headlines. Commentators in the US praised British protestors for being willing to remind people of Trump’s close friendship with the convicted paedophile. What those commentators likely do not realise is that Led By Donkeys were arrested for the stunt, on suspicion of “malicious communications” for an “unauthorised projection”. The number of mentions on the Free Speech Union website of Led By Donkeys, or their arrest for projecting images from published newspapers onto the sides of buildings? Zero.

All of these selective blinkers can be hard to point out, as skeptics, because people who have claimed the title of defenders of free speech frame any criticism of them as an attack on free expression. How can you criticise the Free Speech Union – what have you got against free speech? Why are you talking about Led By Donkeys when Graham Linehan was arrested just for posting three tweets? Why are you talking about THIS when we should be talking about THAT?

And they’ll rely on your good faith to engage with where they’re leading you, those skeptical norms of how we check claims, and soon you’re in a conversation about Irish celebrities and trans people, and the censorship of unpopular opinions. Soon, you’re once again on their turf, because you assume their arguments are in good faith.

The hypocrisy is the point

It can be tempting to focus instead on highlighting the hypocrisy of a free-speech champion who is more than comfortable turning a blind eye, or even outright celebrating, when ideas they dislike are silenced. But doing so is ineffectual, because ideological consistency and consistency of values isn’t something they aspire to or try to uphold.

For many of the most vocal and visible champions of free speech, their commitment is just a cloak they wrap themselves in to give themselves cover – and one they’ll drop as soon as it’s convenient. Meanwhile, their position as would-be free-speech defenders relies on people taking their free-speech claims in good faith; reasonable people who might say “Well, I don’t like that Nigel Farage says those things, but doesn’t he have a right to? And doesn’t the right to expression also cover Charlie Kirk’s right to call for women to subjugate themselves to their husband? And if we want to have a truly free society, doesn’t that freedom of speech also extends to what Tommy Robinson has to say about Muslims?”

Robinson, another who would grasp the crown of free-speech champion, labelled his “Unite the Kingdom” march in London as a festival of free speech – though, notably, it was primarily concerned with celebrating the freedom of far-right politicians from across Europe to speak freely, while Elon Musk video called in to tell the crowd:

“Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die.”

This was a message the crowd was clearly comfortable hearing, given how readily they attacked the police, throwing bottles and flares, with 24 arrested. A movement that was condemning political violence three days earlier, was now openly scuffling with the police, egged on by a foreign tech billionaire who called for the dissolution of a democratically elected parliament.

Meanwhile, more than 150 lawyers, human rights, refugee and environmental organisations have said they are being “pressured into silence” by the rape threats and death threats they’re receiving from anti-migrant protesters – the very same people who, I’d argue, were the audience for that free speech march from Tommy Robinson and that speech from Musk.

This inherent hypocrisy is not a flaw in the ideology – it’s a strength. Fascism relies on making it clear that there is a system of very important rules the rest of us must live by, but that absolutely does not apply to them. It is why fascists make a show of upholding the rules, up until they violate them, at which point those rules don’t matter. Seen through this lens, it’s easy to see why it’s important to protect the rights of a police officer to tweet slurs about protestors, or for favoured celebrities to encourage violence – but to be silent once someone is arrested over a cause you dislike.

Skepticism is political

As skeptics, we rightly care about free speech. Indeed, here in the UK, skeptics were at the forefront of the Libel Reform campaign, whose goal was to ensure that the powerful can’t just silence criticism with legal threats. And, on a personal level, I defy anyone to look at my career of over fifteen years and tell me free speech doesn’t matter to me – that I’m not willing to let people I disagree with speak, or that I won’t engage with their ideas civilly and respectfully.

Unlike Charlie Kirk, whenever I speak to people I disagree with, I don’t just focus on trotting out gotcha questions, or shouting louder than them in order to bully them into silence, or engaging in cheap dunks and insults to dismiss anything I can’t explain. Unlike Kirk, I don’t seek out those least capable of defending an idea, and then use their inability to overcome well-rehearsed rhetoric to castigate any ideas I disagree with, and portray them as inherently stupid or evil.

There is a movement, on both sides of the pond, that has self-evidently fascist features, where free expression is under threat from the very people who claim to be its staunchest defenders. It is a movement that relies on the norms of polite society and civil debate to offer cover for a campaign of intimidation, censorship and authoritarianism.

Now is not the time for skeptics to sit on the sidelines or to act as apolitical intellectual referees, because doing so cedes the ground to people whose interests are not in free speech, but in control and domination. To paraphrase one of the most powerful men on the planet: whether you choose politics or not, politics is coming to you.

The post Beware the groups who use edge cases and social norms to curtail free speech appeared first on The Skeptic.

But between these poles lies a vast grey area where it is often difficult to know what people truly mean; sometimes religious language functions as metaphor, sometimes as poetry, and sometimes as a literal claim about reality.

Take the case of the Antichrist: when most people talk about the Antichrist, it’s often difficult to pin down exactly what is meant, as the concept has evolved over centuries and is deeply layered in religious and cultural imagination. The idea originates in several New Testament texts, especially the letters of John, which speak of “many antichrists”, and in II Thessalonians, where the author describes the “man of lawlessness” who will exalt himself and deceive many. These strands were later woven together with the vivid apocalyptic imagery of the Book of Revelation, where the figures of the beast, the number 666, and ultimate evil became synonymous in Christian storytelling – even though, strictly speaking, the Antichrist and the beast are distinct entities in the biblical texts.

During the Middle Ages, the legend of the Antichrist was greatly expanded and systematized, most notably by the 10th-century monk Adso of Montier-en-Der. Adso’s treatise on the Antichrist became a foundational source for later medieval writings and was influential in shaping mystery plays and church teachings, solidifying the Antichrist as a singular, monstrous adversary who would appear before the end of the world. Over time, this figure was invoked in political and religious disputes to label various adversaries as embodiments of ultimate evil. The motif flourished, morphing through centuries of Christian imagination and resurfacing strongly in modern times through novels and films.

Within Christian apocalyptic expectation, the Antichrist is imagined as a deceptive leader who will arise in the last days, drawing people away from God, performing false miracles, and orchestrating widespread persecution of believers. He is destined to reign for a limited period – often conceived as three and a half years – before being vanquished by Christ at the Second Coming and preceding the final judgment. This narrative retains a powerful grip on many believers, fuelling speculation, prophecy, and cultural anxiety through its mix of biblical origin, theological expansion, and dramatic representation.

Across history, some of the world’s most intellectually gifted individuals have obsessively speculated about the Antichrist. Isaac Newton, for example, devoted much energy outside his groundbreaking scientific work to biblical prophecy – convinced that the office of the Pope was the fulfilment of the Antichrist and even attempting to calculate the time of the apocalypse using prophetic numerology based on Daniel and Revelation.

In the 21st century, Peter Thiel – a renowned tech billionaire, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, and early investor in Facebook – has also shown deep fascination with the Antichrist. Thiel, who is known for his influential role in Silicon Valley, his libertarian views, and his vocal political support for Donald Trump, has recently drawn public attention by organising a series of closed-door lectures on the Antichrist in San Francisco. His talks have sparked intrigue and debate by mixing theological speculation with concerns about the intersection of technology, politics, and ultimate evil, demonstrating that the apocalyptic imagination endures among even the most analytically minded modern elites.

Peter Thiel has been outspoken about his concerns over technological stagnation, arguing that the dramatic progress society once experienced has slowed to a crawl, and expressing frustration that the bold ambitions of past generations have been replaced by incremental and uninspired developments.

But Thiel’s anxieties go beyond mere stagnation itself – he warns that fear-mongering about technological risks can be exploited by would-be leaders who amplify these anxieties to justify tighter controls, ultimately paving the way for a centralised, one-government totalitarian regime. This preoccupation has lately focused on figures like Greta Thunberg, whom Thiel sees as promoting an anti-technological, alarmist agenda on the world stage. He explains his views as follows:

“The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon nonstop. You talk about existential risk nonstop, and this is what you need to regulate… The thing that has political resonance is: We need to stop science, we need to just say “stop” to this. And this is where, in the 17th century, I can imagine a Dr. Strangelove, Edward Teller-type person taking over the world. In our world, it’s far more likely to be Greta Thunberg.”

People have long been fascinated by the prospect of identifying the Antichrist, and this impulse has often unfolded as a game of connecting unlikely dots and extracting hidden meanings from random or trivial details – much like modern conspiracy thinking.

Throughout history, a procession of world figures – Napoleon, Hitler, Gorbachev, Reagan – have all been labelled as the Antichrist by various groups. The “evidence” marshalled to support such claims has ranged from linguistic and numerological tricks (for example, adding the values of the letters in someone’s name to see if it totals 666, as was done with Reagan – whose three names each contain six letters), to more fanciful interpretations, like viewing Gorbachev’s prominent birthmark as the “mark of the beast” foretold in prophecy. This pattern of seeking out arbitrary signs and weaving them into an apocalyptic storyline shows just how much projection and creative license is involved in Antichrist hunting, and how disconnected it can be from any reasonable discourse.

In this sense, Peter Thiel’s current effort to single out a contemporary figure as a potential Antichrist follows the same tradition, but with a more intellectual veneer. Unlike the crudely literal approaches of the past – fixating on names, numbers, or physical features – Thiel’s method is focused on ideological influence, especially the potential for certain political movements to provoke fear and suppress technological progress. Still, one cannot help but wonder whether Thiel’s vision has been coloured by popular culture, particularly films like The Omen, which famously cast the Antichrist as a charismatic child with ominous potential. Given that Greta Thunberg herself emerged as a global figure in childhood, Thiel’s concerns, though more sophisticated in their analytical scope, ultimately echo the archetypes that have dominated Christian apocalyptic imagination – and remind us how thin the line can be between critical scrutiny and elaborate myth-making.

Thiel could be right, or he could be wrong, about the dangers of technophobia and its potential to support authoritarian regimes on a global scale; his argument is provocative, but its real-world implications remain open to debate. While I personally think Greta Thunberg’s brand of activism is more performative than substantive, and Thiel’s warnings about the risks of fear-driven regulation deserve consideration, the question remains whether invoking religious language like “Antichrist” actually clarifies, or just confuses the conversation. Thiel’s references leave it fundamentally ambiguous – sometimes his scenario sounds like metaphor, other times like a sincere warning about a coming supernatural evil – making it unclear whether his analysis is mostly political, theological, or a blend of both.

Religious language, especially when it conjures figures like the Antichrist or the devil, possesses an emotional and imaginative force that goes far beyond its origins. Even for those without religious belief, there is much to appreciate in the way literary masterworks featuring the devil – like Milton’s Paradise Lost – explore the psychological and political dimensions of rebellion, tyranny, and vanity. Paradise Lost itself is an epic poem recounting Satan’s rebellion against God, his temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the tragic consequences of humanity’s fall.

Yet, philosophers such as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have shown that metaphors are not merely ornamental; as argued in their influential work Metaphors We Live By, metaphors actively shape how we understand abstract concepts, structure thought, and motivate action. This means that using religious allegories in public debate can have far-reaching effects, especially when they tap into deep cultural narratives whose mythic resonance can move people in ways that transcend literal belief.

That power comes with risks. If one invokes the allegory of the Antichrist to frame opposition to a climate activist, the move is not simply about adding vividness to speech – it is about mobilising moral passion and framing disagreement as a cosmic battle between forces of good and evil. Such language can drive crowds, escalate conflicts, and heighten polarisation, turning complex debates about technology or policy into arenas for apocalyptic confrontation. Thiel may or may not mean his references to the Antichrist literally, but for many in his MAGA-leaning audience the term is much more than metaphor – it is a vivid summons to a culture war where existential stakes feel very real.

Philologists have warned for centuries about the risks of confusing metaphor with reality in religious language. In the 19th century, Max Müller famously described mythology as a “disease of language,” arguing that poetic metaphors used to name or describe natural phenomena gradually ossified into personified myths, with symbolic figures becoming literal deities over time. For Müller, this “disease” occurred when cultures forgot the figurative nature of their language, allowing names and attributes – like Eos for dawn or Zeus for the sky – to gain an undeserved independence and become the centrepieces of elaborate religious systems. His broader point was that metaphor, while a tool for thought, can, when misunderstood, twist entire cultural worldviews.

But the case of the Antichrist in Christian theology is more complex. It is unlikely that the original authors of the Letters of John or II Thessalonians saw the Antichrist merely as allegory; on the contrary, the literary and historical evidence suggests they genuinely believed in a supernatural evil taking form in history. Liberal Christian readers who treat such figures as “just metaphors” may be projecting modern skepticism onto ancient texts.

Still, even if one accepted for argument’s sake that the Antichrist began as a metaphor, philological warning remains: continuing to use such loaded religious language in debates today risks unleashing the same confusions, allowing allegories to take on dangerous life and inspire real-world hostility or extremism.

The post Peter Thiel’s Antichrist: when apocalyptic myths meet Silicon Valley appeared first on The Skeptic.

The Say No To Racism campaign has created the impression that racial discrimination, xenophobia, and other intolerance happens mainly in the West; that racism is a Western issue or only a ‘crime’ by non-Africans, white Westerners, against Africans. The campaign seems to frame Africans as victims, and never as victimisers; as always at the receiving end of racial hate, prejudice, and disrespect. 

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Racism and xenophobic attacks feature in other parts of the world, including Africa. Africans have been victims as well as villains. The Say No To Racism campaign has overlooked, ignored, or barely paid attention to acts of hate, intolerance, and discrimination against Africans by Africans in Africa. It has disregarded the rising tide of ethnicism and xenophobic politics/attacks in different parts of the region. African countries are multi-ethnic and multicultural. In many African states, some ethnic groups are in the majority while others are in the minority. These ethnic communities have coexisted, and the constituents have intermarried for centuries and millennia. However, hate, prejudice, and discrimination are pervasive and feature in their relationships. Ethnic clashes and violence often erupt, resulting in unimaginable carnage and bloodshed.

Colonialism brought these ethnic communities together as states and countries. The quest to govern these states in post-colonial dispensation has revealed ethnic fault lines hampering growth, development, unity, peace, and progress. Ethnic apartheid has become entrenched and systemic.

As in post-colonial African states such as Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe, ethnic hate, tension, division, and intolerance have been present, persistent, and pronounced in many aspects and forms. The Nigerian Civil War (1967), The Lord’s Resistance Army Insurgency (1987), Somali Civil War (1991), Rwandan Genocide (1994), Eritrean-Ethiopian War (199), and other examples provide tragic episodes of ethnic and xenophobic hate and intolerance.

Ethnicist behaviours, sentiments, and attitudes feature in everyday life and the interaction of Africans. Many Africans vote, marry, socialise, or do business along ethnic lines. In Nigeria, those from the majority ethnic groups deny people of other or minority ethnic groups the right to vote or be voted for. Politicians use ethnicity to mobilise votes and to further political opposition and propositions. During the 2023 presidential elections in Nigeria, some politicians in some parts of the country told Nigerians from other ethnic groups to go back to their regions to vote and be voted for. They described candidates with different or mixed ethnic roots and lineage as ‘strangers’ and ‘bastards’. 

With the ethnic and xenophobic politics in the country, Nigerian citizens from certain ethnic groups cannot aspire to certain political posts and positions; they cannot become parliamentarians, governors, or presidents. Africans applaud and celebrate when persons of African origin are elected presidents, mayors, county or municipal heads in Europe or America. They denounce as racism any call for Africans or people of African descent to return to Africa to vote or be voted for. In many parts of the region, people are disenfranchised and discriminated against based on ethnicity.

In many parts of Africa, what prevails is not a democracy, a government of the people and by the people, but an ethnocracy, a government of a certain ethnic group or people, or better, a government of ethnic majorities. Africans see themselves as ethnizens, members of an ethnic city, not citizens, members of a city-state. They assume that the power of citizenship is drawn not from the state constitution but from ethnic constituency and affiliation.

In many countries, Africans deny ethnic others their rights and liberties. They exclude and oppress minorities and treat them with indignity and disrespect. Africans use ethnic stereotypes to make sense of the perception and representation of others. Ethnic sentiments influence policy debates, formulations, and implementation. Africans judge and impose sanctions and punishments for any real or imagined misdeed of a person, or persons, on others who belong to the same ethnic group. Many Africans have no qualms about attacking or killing innocent members of an ethnic group in revenge for some attack or killing by perceived members of that ethnic group in some place. 

In Nigeria, people see themselves more as indigenes and strangers than citizens and use this distinction to oppress, hate, exclude, or discriminate against each other. Many Nigerians are denied employment or admission into football teams, schools, universities, and colleges because of their ethnic identity. They are denied justice in courts and refused enlistment into the military, police, and other state agencies due to their real or imagined ethnic background.

Simply put, in many African countries, ethnic others are treated as second-class citizens beyond their regions. Ethnic discrimination has hampered the flourishing of Africans in Africa, including the progressive evolution of African states and democracies. Ethnicism is incompatible with the ideals of pan-Africanism. Xenophobic attacks negate the concept of Ubuntu, the ideas of common paternity, fraternity, and maternity, and other cognates of African humanism.

It has become pertinent that Africans effectively combat ethnicism and intolerance. While it is important for Africans, especially those in the West, to call out racism in Europe and America, it has become more urgent for Africans in Africa and overseas to stand up against ethnic discrimination and bigotry in the region. Africans should not expect the West to get rid of racism, while ethnic hate and xenophobic politics rage on the continent. Africans should not only complain or rally against racism in Europe, they need to fight and mobilise against ethnic prejudice and discrimination by Africans against Africans in Africa.

They must say a categorical NO to intolerance and celebrate the beauty, spice, and strength in ethnic diversity. Africans should highlight manifestations of xenophobic attacks and the harmful impact of discrimination, and promote equality and inclusion. The people of Africa should strive to raise awareness and promote action against ethnic oppression and encourage dialogue about discriminatory practices in the region. 

Africans need to put in place initiatives that oppose, expose, and challenge ethnocentric behaviors, stereotypes, and attitudes. They should use the hashtag #SayNoToEthnicism to highlight discriminatory practices and experiences in various countries.

African countries and institutions should Say No To Ethnicism and Xenophobia. The African Union and member states should sit up and rise to the challenge of combating ‘racism’ in Africa. They should organize special events to address the problem of ethnicism and other intolerance. ECOWAS, SADC, the Confederation of African Football, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, National Human Rights Institutions, and other regional agencies should also sign up to the Say No To Ethnicism campaign and work to realise a more inclusive and equitable society where every African, despite the ethnic background or identity, is treated with dignity and respect. 

The UN should robustly support the Say No To Ethnicism initiative as a part of the Say No To Racism campaign. UN agencies should realize that the Say No To Racism campaign speaks to the situation in Western countries, and discrimination against Black people and Africans in Europe and America. But the Say No To Ethnicism campaign speaks to the situation in Africa, within Africa, and amongst Africans. Say No To Ethnicism addresses the African specifics in the anti-racism campaign and provides the missing links in the efforts to combat racial hatred, prejudice, and discrimination worldwide.

The post Combating hate and discrimination against Africans by Africans in Africa appeared first on The Skeptic.

This isn’t Schrödinger’s actual experiment. He was writing that the statistical probability of the life of the cat is 50/50, not the actual probability. Before the box is opened it is equally likely that the cat is alive or dead, but only one of those states can be the correct one. The focus of the thought experiment is that, when you open the box, you collapse the probability of the cat being one of those two states. In the same way, quantum physics is about probabilities rather than actualities. A particle cannot be in two different states at the same time if it is just one particle.

Currently we have a similar situation with the “Epstein list”; it both exists and doesn’t exist, because we’ve been told that both states are true by the same people. Does the list exist or does it not? Well, as a skeptic, I have one question that will make some people very mad: what “list” are you talking about?

I ask, because there seem to be two lists.

One list is compiled from flight logs (and this is difficult because of the fake lists put out by Q-Anon conspiracy theorists), business contacts, legal proceedings, and social interactions. The last of which are photos, guest books, and correspondences that have all come to light since the death of Epstein.

The other list is an Area 51-like mysterious list that has everyone we despise doing illegal things on specific dates. The latter list very likely does not exist. The lack of existence, however, isn’t going to stop this “list” from doing a lot of damage.

A conspiracy theory, once we strip the details from it, is a story. It’s a narrative of what really happened underneath the official story. The actual details of the conspiracy theory do not matter compared to the satisfaction that one receives from believing in the story the conspiracy theory tells – no matter the motive for that belief.

What a conspiracy theory should never do, and what conspiracy theorists should never do, is make claims so specific that they could be accomplished. Conspiracy theorists have a lot of tools to pull from and one of them is goalpost shifting. They typically shift those posts so far away that the goal can never be realised. Flat Earthers do not ever expect to be able to go to Antarctica and those who do are quickly decried as traitors. Here, the administration hired people who set those goalposts in concrete and now have to figure out a way to pretend that they can’t see them.

One reason this Epstein story has not gone away and is now the petard upon which the US president has hoisted himself (if I’m interpreting that phrase correctly) is because his supporters and key members of his administration have used the Epstein case as a way to accuse leftists of… something. Exactly what is a little unclear, except that the Biden administration never released the documents related to the case. Part of the push for Trump’s re-election was that he would nominate people into positions so that we could finally get our hands on the Epstein documents and, most importantly, the list. This was a promise of the incoming administration. This was the mistake.

It was barely a month ago when some conspiracy theorist podcasters were invited to the White House to receive binders labelled “Epstein files release phase 1.” The White House itself had been feeding this beast since they took office. Attorney General Pam Bondi not only confirmed that there was a list, but also that the Democrats in New York had hidden documents and a “truck load” of them were being delivered to Kash Patel’s FBI for review. This was only a few months ago, but now they’ve opened the box and there’s no cat. The administration now claims that Epstein’s death was definitely the result of suicide and that there is no “Epstein list.” The case, as far as the US justice department is concerned, is closed.

What the president seems to not understand is that this is a story that can’t just be waved away, because it is his supporters keeping it going. Indeed, I doubt if anyone would have even heard of Jeffrey Epstein if it weren’t for them. People may have been aware upon his second arrest, but it was the Q people who kept this conspiracy theory going. Epstein always served as an example of a rich, powerful, connected elite, who was engaged in child sexual abuse trafficking, and was able to escape justice.

The question of the Epstein conspiracy theory has always been who he was connected to; Q-anon theorists and Trump supporters were always able to ignore the connections between Epstein and Trump as well as between Epstein and adjacent figures like Alan Dershowitz and Steven Pinker. The latter two, who worked on Epstein’s defence, could be thrown to the wolves no problem. Trump’s relationship was always assumed to be business related. However, his administration’s refusal to not only release the documents and “the list” makes that relationship seem much closer than it appeared to be.

Of course, we should not assume that a lack of evidence is evidence of anything. That’s a fallacy called “argument from ignorance”. This is the fallacy that powers the Area 51 conspiracy theories. The inflection point for this conspiracy theory, though, is that Epstein was so well connected that his crimes and misdeeds would never see the light of day. His connections, for whom the accusation is that he has plenty of video evidence of their misdeeds, would serve to keep quiet. When the president consistently tries to make the story go away, he’s only confirming the cover-up part of the story in the minds of his supporters.

Those individuals who view the Trump administration with nothing but contempt have been quick to seize on that connection, even if the connection appeared to be merely financial. The only difference is that now we have some considerable evidence that no matter what the relationship was, it was not merely a business relationship. We don’t, admittedly, have concrete evidence that the president knew about Epstein’s crimes but it is getting increasingly difficult to hold that position.

I get why people are latching on to the potential that “the list” holds, I really do, but we don’t need it. Are accusations of Trump’s involvement with Epstein, beyond what we already know, going to make any difference? Is there someone out there for whom more details are going to bend toward the side of justice? The answer to both questions is very likely “no”.

What is going to matter is not the content of “the list” but the act of not releasing it. Denizens of the conspiracy subreddit struggle with the realisation that Trump has never been on their side. The only service that pushing the “Epstein list” narrative does is force that realisation. Emotionally, this sense of betrayal might be the only thing that breaks the spell for them.

The post Schrödinger’s Client List: why the Epstein conspiracy theory will not go away appeared first on The Skeptic.