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Evolution Favors Hate Baiters; Are Facts Headed Toward Extinction?
Joe Friday, the protagonist in the 1960’s television series Dragnet, delighted a generation of baby-boomers with his good cop demeanor and his famous tagline: “just the facts, ma’am.”
Underscoring just how deeply the authority of facts has been degraded since Dragnet first aired, when asked for just the facts about Detective Joe Friday, DeepAI eviscerated him for his misogynistic and coercive assault on subjective reality.
The character, said DeepAI, “is not interested in listening to the women’s [sic] perspectives or emotions.” When pressed to stand by this statement, DeepAI retreated to a more nuanced position. But for those seeking AI’s instant socio-cultural output, there is far less interest in generating verifiable facts than in increasing the already breakneck pace of today’s online discovery and share cycle.
The coded doctrine of social media’s phobic underbelly is shaping the summary judgements rendered by AI chatbots so decisively that in the fight against hate-driven incitement, facts may never regain their authority as arbiters of truth.
It isn’t that chatbots want to undermine facts, but the more their conclusions are affirmed by users, the more lyrical they become. Nor is it that online hate posters are hooked on AI chatbots simply because they provide confirmation of their already existing ideologies. The hate posters keep coming back for more because what happens during their interaction with the chatbots also makes them feel really good.
The appeal of cooking up facts to persecute innocents is nothing new. In 14th century Germany, Jews were mass murdered for causing the Black Death by poisoning wells. From the 15th to the 18th centuries, witches were burned in the UK for casting deadly spells on livestock. Between 2014 and 2017, Yazidi Kurds were raped and tortured for being devil worshippers. But what distinguishes today’s hate-led battle cry is not just the scale and speed with which conspicuous facts are overturned by dubious and often inhumane propositions, but the reward of the exercise itself.
The human brain was never hardwired to prioritize facts. Under duress, our primal instinct is to cling to opinions and beliefs that we already have, even if they are wrong. This is illustrated by the oft-heard declaration, “he always has to be right,” which harks back to a primordial behavior that is rewarded, as neuroscientists explain, with a pleasure that is similar to that which we get from things like eating or sex. That pleasure can be so compelling that it trumps everything, including common sense and decency.
Hormonally speaking, what this means is that winning an argument — that is, being right — has a satisfying effect not dissimilar to a good carnal romp.
Disciplined, trained, and conscious minds overcome that impulse by engaging in activities like dialogue and debate. But for example, when a Jewish advocate presents relatively indisputable facts to challenge an antisemitic assault on social media, the science tells us that, by nature, the opposing brain will not be inclined to discuss conclusions based on those facts. That is because the battle is not with a self-controlled, rule-based interlocutor. It is with a tidal wave of chemicals that impel the host’s brain to raise its voice, strike back, or simply turn a deaf ear.
A study by University of Texas researcher Ben Wasike demonstrated how this plays out online by examining the effectiveness of social media fact-checking against misinformation sharing. Professor Wasike showed that fact-checked posts, once they have been proven to be misleading, spread on social media at the same rate, whether before or after they were fact checked. It follows from his findings that many of those who check the facts are doing so only to confirm what they already believe.
As digital discourse drives toward a monopoly on the distribution of information, the currency of facts has declined in value to such an extent that no amount of factual ordnance is going to do much to change minds. If anything can alter this trajectory, it is a relentless initiative to drown rancorous online audiences in hormones of love and self-affirming visions of rose-colored rightness until liking targeted groups becomes as much fun as hating them. In the meantime, the champions of hate online will continue to harden their advantage on the digital high ground.
Ron Katz specializes in rhetoric and propaganda. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. He is President of the Tel Aviv Institute and can be reached at ronkatz@tlvi.org.
The post Evolution Favors Hate Baiters; Are Facts Headed Toward Extinction? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’
Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
In a warning sign for the campaign of Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani, a majority of city voters in a new poll say the candidate’s hardline anti-Israel stance makes them less likely to vote for him.
In the survey of likely city voters conducted by American Pulse, 52.5 percent said Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” coupled with his backing of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement made them less likely to vote for him in November. Just 31% of city voters polled were more likely to support him because of these positions.
At the same time, a significant share of young New York City voters support Mamdani’s anti-Israel positioning, a striking sign of shifting generational views on Israel and the Palestinian cause.
Nearly half of voters aged 18 to 44 (46 percent) said the State Assembly member’s backing for BDS and “refusal to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’” made them more likely to support him.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, has been under fire for defending “globalize the intifada,” a slogan many Jewish groups associate with incitement to violence against Israel and Jews. While critics argue it glorifies terrorism, supporters claim it’s a call for international solidarity with oppressed peoples, especially Palestinians. Mamdani has also voiced support for BDS, a movement widely condemned by mainstream Jewish organizations as antisemitic for singling out Israel.
The generational divide exposed by the poll comes amid a broader political realignment. Younger progressives across the country are increasingly critical of Israeli policies, especially in the wake of the Gaza war, and more receptive to Palestinian activism. But to many Jewish leaders, Mamdani’s rising support is alarming.
Rabbi David Wolpe, visiting scholar at Harvard University, condemned the phrase with a sarcastic analogy.
“‘Globalize the intifada’ is just a political slogan,” he said. “Like ‘The cockroaches must be exterminated’ was just a housing authority slogan in Rwanda.”
Jewish organizations have reported a surge in antisemitic incidents in New York and across the U.S. since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last fall. The blending of anti-Zionist slogans with calls for “intifada,” historically linked to violent uprisings, has deepened fears among Jewish communities that traditional red lines are being crossed.
Whether this emerging coalition reshapes New York politics remains to be seen. However, the poll indicates that among younger voters, views that were once considered fringe are quickly moving into the mainstream.
The post New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events
A Jewish gay pride flag. Photo: Twitter.
The research division of the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a report on Wednesday detailing incidents of hate against Jews which took place last month during demonstrations in celebration of LGBTQ rights and identity.
Incidents reported by the group include:
- At a Pride march in Wales, the activists Cymru Queers for Palestine chose to block the path and show a sign that said “Profiting from genocide,” an attempt to link the event’s sponsors — such as Amazon — to the war in Gaza.
- A Dublin Pride march saw the participation of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which labeled Israel a “genocidal entity.”
- In Toronto at a late June Pride march, demonstrators again attacked organizers with a sign declaring, “Pride partners with genocide.”
CAM also identified a recurring narrative deployed against Israel by some far-left activists: so-called “pinkwashing,” a term which the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement calls “an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.”
The report notes that at a Washington DC Pride event in early June Medea Benjamin, cofounder of activist group Code Pink and a regular of anti-war protests, wore a pair of goofy, oversized sunglasses and a shirt in her signature pink with the phrase “you can’t pinkwash genocide.”
Other incidents CAM recorded showed the injection of anti-Israel sentiment into Pride events.
A musical group canceled a performance at an interfaith service in Brooklyn, claiming the hosting synagogue had a “public alignment with pro-Israel political positions.” In San Francisco before the yearly Trans March, a Palestine group said in its announcement of its participation, “Stop the war on Iran and the genocide of Palestine, stop the war on immigrants and attacks on trans people.”
CAM notes that this “queers for Palestine” sentiment is not new, pointing to a 2017 event wherein “organizers of the Chicago Dyke March infamously removed participants who were waving a Pride flag adorned with a Star of David on the grounds that the symbol ‘made people feel unsafe.’”
In February, the Israel Defense Forces shared with the New York Post documents it had recovered demonstrating that Hamas had tortured and executed members it suspected of homosexuality and other moral offenses in conflict with Islamist ideology.
Amit Benjamin, who is gay and a first sergeant major in the IDF, said during a visit to New York City for Pride month that “All the ‘queers for Gaza’ need to open their eyes. Hamas kills gays … kills lesbians … queers cannot exist in Gaza.”
The post Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl/File Photo
The UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it had pulled its last remaining inspectors from Iran as a standoff over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities bombed by the United States and Israel deepens.
Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors have not been able to inspect Iran’s facilities since then, even though IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said that is his top priority.
Iran’s parliament has now passed a law to suspend cooperation with the IAEA until the safety of its nuclear facilities can be guaranteed. While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.
“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the IAEA said on X.
Diplomats said the number of IAEA inspectors in Iran was reduced to a handful after the June 13 start of the war. Some have also expressed concern about the inspectors’ safety since the end of the conflict, given fierce criticism of the agency by Iranian officials and Iranian media.
Iran has accused the agency of effectively paving the way for the bombings by issuing a damning report on May 31 that led to a resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said he stands by the report. He has denied it provided diplomatic cover for military action.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday Iran remained committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“[Grossi] reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible,” the IAEA said.
The US and Israeli military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites. But it was less clear what has happened to much of Iran’s nine tonnes of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400 kg enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons grade.
That is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful, but Western powers say there is no civil justification for enriching to such a high level, and the IAEA says no country has done so without developing the atom bomb.
As a party to the NPT, Iran must account for its enriched uranium, which normally is closely monitored by the IAEA, the body that enforces the NPT and verifies countries’ declarations. But the bombing of Iran’s facilities has now muddied the waters.
“We cannot afford that … the inspection regime is interrupted,” Grossi told a press conference in Vienna last week.
The post IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Evolution Favors Hate Baiters; Are Facts Headed Toward Extinction?
Joe Friday, the protagonist in the 1960’s television series Dragnet, delighted a generation of baby-boomers with his good cop demeanor and his famous tagline: “just the facts, ma’am.”
Underscoring just how deeply the authority of facts has been degraded since Dragnet first aired, when asked for just the facts about Detective Joe Friday, DeepAI eviscerated him for his misogynistic and coercive assault on subjective reality.
The character, said DeepAI, “is not interested in listening to the women’s [sic] perspectives or emotions.” When pressed to stand by this statement, DeepAI retreated to a more nuanced position. But for those seeking AI’s instant socio-cultural output, there is far less interest in generating verifiable facts than in increasing the already breakneck pace of today’s online discovery and share cycle.
The coded doctrine of social media’s phobic underbelly is shaping the summary judgements rendered by AI chatbots so decisively that in the fight against hate-driven incitement, facts may never regain their authority as arbiters of truth.
It isn’t that chatbots want to undermine facts, but the more their conclusions are affirmed by users, the more lyrical they become. Nor is it that online hate posters are hooked on AI chatbots simply because they provide confirmation of their already existing ideologies. The hate posters keep coming back for more because what happens during their interaction with the chatbots also makes them feel really good.
The appeal of cooking up facts to persecute innocents is nothing new. In 14th century Germany, Jews were mass murdered for causing the Black Death by poisoning wells. From the 15th to the 18th centuries, witches were burned in the UK for casting deadly spells on livestock. Between 2014 and 2017, Yazidi Kurds were raped and tortured for being devil worshippers. But what distinguishes today’s hate-led battle cry is not just the scale and speed with which conspicuous facts are overturned by dubious and often inhumane propositions, but the reward of the exercise itself.
The human brain was never hardwired to prioritize facts. Under duress, our primal instinct is to cling to opinions and beliefs that we already have, even if they are wrong. This is illustrated by the oft-heard declaration, “he always has to be right,” which harks back to a primordial behavior that is rewarded, as neuroscientists explain, with a pleasure that is similar to that which we get from things like eating or sex. That pleasure can be so compelling that it trumps everything, including common sense and decency.
Hormonally speaking, what this means is that winning an argument — that is, being right — has a satisfying effect not dissimilar to a good carnal romp.
Disciplined, trained, and conscious minds overcome that impulse by engaging in activities like dialogue and debate. But for example, when a Jewish advocate presents relatively indisputable facts to challenge an antisemitic assault on social media, the science tells us that, by nature, the opposing brain will not be inclined to discuss conclusions based on those facts. That is because the battle is not with a self-controlled, rule-based interlocutor. It is with a tidal wave of chemicals that impel the host’s brain to raise its voice, strike back, or simply turn a deaf ear.
A study by University of Texas researcher Ben Wasike demonstrated how this plays out online by examining the effectiveness of social media fact-checking against misinformation sharing. Professor Wasike showed that fact-checked posts, once they have been proven to be misleading, spread on social media at the same rate, whether before or after they were fact checked. It follows from his findings that many of those who check the facts are doing so only to confirm what they already believe.
As digital discourse drives toward a monopoly on the distribution of information, the currency of facts has declined in value to such an extent that no amount of factual ordnance is going to do much to change minds. If anything can alter this trajectory, it is a relentless initiative to drown rancorous online audiences in hormones of love and self-affirming visions of rose-colored rightness until liking targeted groups becomes as much fun as hating them. In the meantime, the champions of hate online will continue to harden their advantage on the digital high ground.
Ron Katz specializes in rhetoric and propaganda. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. He is President of the Tel Aviv Institute and can be reached at ronkatz@tlvi.org.
The post Evolution Favors Hate Baiters; Are Facts Headed Toward Extinction? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’
Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
In a warning sign for the campaign of Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani, a majority of city voters in a new poll say the candidate’s hardline anti-Israel stance makes them less likely to vote for him.
In the survey of likely city voters conducted by American Pulse, 52.5 percent said Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” coupled with his backing of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement made them less likely to vote for him in November. Just 31% of city voters polled were more likely to support him because of these positions.
At the same time, a significant share of young New York City voters support Mamdani’s anti-Israel positioning, a striking sign of shifting generational views on Israel and the Palestinian cause.
Nearly half of voters aged 18 to 44 (46 percent) said the State Assembly member’s backing for BDS and “refusal to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’” made them more likely to support him.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, has been under fire for defending “globalize the intifada,” a slogan many Jewish groups associate with incitement to violence against Israel and Jews. While critics argue it glorifies terrorism, supporters claim it’s a call for international solidarity with oppressed peoples, especially Palestinians. Mamdani has also voiced support for BDS, a movement widely condemned by mainstream Jewish organizations as antisemitic for singling out Israel.
The generational divide exposed by the poll comes amid a broader political realignment. Younger progressives across the country are increasingly critical of Israeli policies, especially in the wake of the Gaza war, and more receptive to Palestinian activism. But to many Jewish leaders, Mamdani’s rising support is alarming.
Rabbi David Wolpe, visiting scholar at Harvard University, condemned the phrase with a sarcastic analogy.
“‘Globalize the intifada’ is just a political slogan,” he said. “Like ‘The cockroaches must be exterminated’ was just a housing authority slogan in Rwanda.”
Jewish organizations have reported a surge in antisemitic incidents in New York and across the U.S. since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last fall. The blending of anti-Zionist slogans with calls for “intifada,” historically linked to violent uprisings, has deepened fears among Jewish communities that traditional red lines are being crossed.
Whether this emerging coalition reshapes New York politics remains to be seen. However, the poll indicates that among younger voters, views that were once considered fringe are quickly moving into the mainstream.
The post New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events
A Jewish gay pride flag. Photo: Twitter.
The research division of the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a report on Wednesday detailing incidents of hate against Jews which took place last month during demonstrations in celebration of LGBTQ rights and identity.
Incidents reported by the group include:
- At a Pride march in Wales, the activists Cymru Queers for Palestine chose to block the path and show a sign that said “Profiting from genocide,” an attempt to link the event’s sponsors — such as Amazon — to the war in Gaza.
- A Dublin Pride march saw the participation of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which labeled Israel a “genocidal entity.”
- In Toronto at a late June Pride march, demonstrators again attacked organizers with a sign declaring, “Pride partners with genocide.”
CAM also identified a recurring narrative deployed against Israel by some far-left activists: so-called “pinkwashing,” a term which the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement calls “an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.”
The report notes that at a Washington DC Pride event in early June Medea Benjamin, cofounder of activist group Code Pink and a regular of anti-war protests, wore a pair of goofy, oversized sunglasses and a shirt in her signature pink with the phrase “you can’t pinkwash genocide.”
Other incidents CAM recorded showed the injection of anti-Israel sentiment into Pride events.
A musical group canceled a performance at an interfaith service in Brooklyn, claiming the hosting synagogue had a “public alignment with pro-Israel political positions.” In San Francisco before the yearly Trans March, a Palestine group said in its announcement of its participation, “Stop the war on Iran and the genocide of Palestine, stop the war on immigrants and attacks on trans people.”
CAM notes that this “queers for Palestine” sentiment is not new, pointing to a 2017 event wherein “organizers of the Chicago Dyke March infamously removed participants who were waving a Pride flag adorned with a Star of David on the grounds that the symbol ‘made people feel unsafe.’”
In February, the Israel Defense Forces shared with the New York Post documents it had recovered demonstrating that Hamas had tortured and executed members it suspected of homosexuality and other moral offenses in conflict with Islamist ideology.
Amit Benjamin, who is gay and a first sergeant major in the IDF, said during a visit to New York City for Pride month that “All the ‘queers for Gaza’ need to open their eyes. Hamas kills gays … kills lesbians … queers cannot exist in Gaza.”
The post Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl/File Photo
The UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it had pulled its last remaining inspectors from Iran as a standoff over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities bombed by the United States and Israel deepens.
Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors have not been able to inspect Iran’s facilities since then, even though IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said that is his top priority.
Iran’s parliament has now passed a law to suspend cooperation with the IAEA until the safety of its nuclear facilities can be guaranteed. While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.
“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the IAEA said on X.
Diplomats said the number of IAEA inspectors in Iran was reduced to a handful after the June 13 start of the war. Some have also expressed concern about the inspectors’ safety since the end of the conflict, given fierce criticism of the agency by Iranian officials and Iranian media.
Iran has accused the agency of effectively paving the way for the bombings by issuing a damning report on May 31 that led to a resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said he stands by the report. He has denied it provided diplomatic cover for military action.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday Iran remained committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“[Grossi] reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible,” the IAEA said.
The US and Israeli military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites. But it was less clear what has happened to much of Iran’s nine tonnes of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400 kg enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons grade.
That is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful, but Western powers say there is no civil justification for enriching to such a high level, and the IAEA says no country has done so without developing the atom bomb.
As a party to the NPT, Iran must account for its enriched uranium, which normally is closely monitored by the IAEA, the body that enforces the NPT and verifies countries’ declarations. But the bombing of Iran’s facilities has now muddied the waters.
“We cannot afford that … the inspection regime is interrupted,” Grossi told a press conference in Vienna last week.
The post IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on first appeared on Algemeiner.com.