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Roland Fryer has spent his career finding things out and refusing to sugarcoat them. His research on race, policing, and education has repeatedly landed somewhere progressive orthodoxy doesn’t want it to land, and he’s paid for it—professionally and, at one memorable point in his career, literally, when someone shot out the windows of his house over a p…

There’s a good chance you’ve thought a lot about p(doom) recently, whether or not you knew it. It took less than a month for that term, which represents the probability that AI will wipe out humanity, to grow from an airy debate topic among Bay Area insiders into the most urgent question in public life. But there’s an opposite and almost equal question that’s being overlooked: Is American AI doomed?

Democratic Party leaders, including Barack Obama and Kamala Harris, have echoed the leading AI labs by calling for a slowdown, and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders want to pause or ban development altogether. Meanwhile, the politician with the most sway over the issue, President Donald Trump, is doubling down on pro-AI policies, declaring that whichever country wins the AI race will win everything else besides.

So how is all this going to play out? It seems like a classic case of irresistible force meets immovable object.

On August 26, a wall of rock and ice broke away from Langtang Lirung in the Himalayas, resulting in a massive flood and mudflow that killed thousands of people along the border of Nepal and Tibet. Less than a month later, on September 17, an influential organization called World Weather Attribution (WWA), housed at Imperial College London, published a report on the catastrophe along with a press release touting its alarming findings.

Major media outlets ran with it, claiming that WWA’s scientists had concluded that the collapse was the result of human-caused global warming. WWA also asserted that early warning systems were useless against an event of that scale, and called for a rapid exit from fossil fuels to reduce the risks of future such events.

With this supposedly authoritative report in hand, Nepal’s government now plans to take a $20 million claim for compensation to the United Nations for loss and damage due to climate change.

WWA scientists have now repeated this sequence more than 120 times since its founding in 2014: They issue a press release and technical report after a significant weather event, and link the event to climate change. The scientists then purport to explain how much climate change has tilted the odds for such events—three times more likely, 10 times more likely, impossible without climate change, etc. The media around the world then publicize the claims, invariably without challenge.

President Donald Trump’s latest assault on the news media came on Friday afternoon when he decreed on Truth Social that Politico, MS NOW, and CNN are now banned from the White House. Talking to reporters in the Oval Office, he said, “There’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories.”

What a bizarre thing to say. Our country has tolerated the press writing “negative stories” more or less since its founding. It’s a freedom enshrined in our First Amendment. One might expect the president, who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, to respect that.

With Israeli national elections just over a month away, the attacks of October 7, 2023, and the question of who is responsible for the failures that led to the deadliest day in Israeli history, have taken center stage. At the core of much of that discourse is Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I call on everyone to say things clearly: Netanyahu bears responsibility for October 7, and he must go home,” said opposition leader Avigdor Liberman in a Thursday video on X. A few weeks ago, Netanyahu attempted to cast blame elsewhere, claiming that security officials purposefully did not wake him until hours after the attacks began.

Netanyahu has faced criticism for repeatedly blocking the creation of a national commission to investigate the failures on October 7. But if the rhetoric of the election campaign is any indication, the country is desperate for information. In particular: How did Hamas—long considered Israel’s least formidable foe—succeed in carrying out the most horrific attack in the country’s history? And why, three years into a war Israelis were told would finish off Hamas once and for all, is the terrorist group still standing?

Welcome back to The Weekend Press! Today, Suzy Weiss breaks down the latest Sydney Sweeney drama. Rabbi David Wolpe recommends a poem to read on Yom Kippur. And Peter Savodnik sits down with Taylor Lorenz, who seems like a radical leftist—she thinks Luigi Mangione is “high agency”—until she starts talking about technology . . .

But first: What does Mark Zuckerberg want?

There are more active Facebook users on Earth than there are Christians. The same is true of both Instagram and WhatsApp. Every presidential term, roughly speaking, their parent company, Meta, adds a zero to its valuation. All of these platforms are controlled by one man. “His products are used by one out of every 2.3 people currently breathing, more than the total number of humans that existed in 1965,” writes Jeremy Stern, in today’s lead story, a profile of Mark Zuckerberg.

To find out what drives one of the most powerful men alive, Jeremy interviewed nearly three dozen people—including his parents, his wife, and Zuckerberg himself. He watched the Meta CEO get winded by a UFC champion, and attended a family dinner party at his home near Lake Tahoe. “A lot of people probably care about public perception more than I do,” Zuckerberg told Jeremy, sitting on the couch, clearly not enjoying the interview.

But this piece is about so much more than one man. It is first and foremost an investigation of power—the mind-boggling kind that’s accrued to the men who, since the start of the millennium, have invented products that shape how we see everything; who face the “dictator’s dilemma,” whereby people stop telling them things they don’t want to hear, until they lose their grip on reality entirely; and who, if you believe this week’s headlines about artificial intelligence, could destroy us all.

Once upon a time, Zuckerberg himself hovered at the frontier of AI, and this piece tells the story of how he fell behind, and asks whether it’ll be the end of him. “Mark is the fucking Terminator. He’s actually not an asshole, which is interesting,” said a researcher who used to work at Meta’s lab. “But his source of advantage is he’s never happy. He just doesn’t fucking stop.”

Do the tech titans owe their influence to talent, or luck? Is their continued reign inevitable, or are they fighting tooth and nail to maintain it? How do they feel about the stories we tell about them? And do they have as much power as we assume they do, when we blame them for all of society’s problems? Jeremy’s piece offers answers to all these questions, as well as a remarkable portrait of Zuckerberg’s character.

“Things have been written and said about him that are so untrue from such an early age,” said Zuckerberg’s mom. “I sometimes really wonder if anyone has ever sat back and thought, This is a real person.”

If you want to understand that person, click here to read the whole piece—or to download a printable version:

Yet again, feminists are furious with Sydney Sweeney for profiting off her sexiness.

For her latest ad she posed nude with everything from a football to a hockey stick—she was promoting the sports betting platform Novig—and was promptly accused of “sexualizing women’s sports.”

But, as Suzy Weiss and Dan Ahdoot argue in this week’s episode of Second Thought, this ad is not about women. “It is meant for incels who are living in their parents’ basements spending all their DoorDash funds on some sports gambling,” says Dan.

Suzy and Dan also explain why an Apple TV show you’ve never heard of swept the Emmys; commiserate with the mathematicians who sobbed after AI solved their life’s work; and taste-test a loaf of rye that New Yorkers are lining up to spend $60 on. Click below to watch the video, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

This week, Amanda Knox wrote about Patrick Clancy, and what it’s like when strangers interpret everything you do as evidence that you’re a murderer; Caitlin Flanagan wrote about the feminist backlash to the Sydney Sweeney ad; and Josh Kaplan argued that canceling Macklemore has made him a martyr. . .

A new batch of ads from single Free Pressers is live on the site. Click here to meet a trilingual woman in Miami who’s on sabbatical, or an investigator in Miami Beach. Your special someone could be just one email away! If you’d like to take a chance at Free Press love, write a paragraph that defines you, including your age, where you live, and what you’re looking for, and send it over to [email protected].

How should you spend the rest of your weekend? We asked our editor Will Rahn for his recommendations . . .

🍺Drink . . . Ginger beer, which is basically just strong ginger ale with a heck of a lot more ginger. And I’ll even turn you on to the best one I’ve ever had: Reed’s Premium Ginger Beer, which is sweetened only with pineapple juice and honey. Loaded with sugar and calories? You bet. Expensive? Oh yes, at least by soda standards. But it tastes marvelous and, at least in my experience, is a great salve for stomachaches. My very pregnant wife agrees: Go get the fancy ginger ale.

📺Watch . . . The third and final season of the delightful Australian sitcom Colin from Accounts, now streaming on Paramount+. Now, Paramount just happens to be the name on my paycheck every month, but I really do love this romantic comedy following two attractive Aussies who meet after running over a stray border terrier. It’s well written, funny, and the leads are adorable. Start it Friday after work and you’ll be done by Sunday.

🏈Join . . . a fantasy football league, one of the best ways Americans have to make and keep male friendships. (I assume there are some women who play fantasy football but have no way of knowing for certain.) And who cares if it’s already week two of the NFL season? That’s not too late. I used to be a member of a league managed by an old friend who farms weed out in Colorado; I think we started playing around Thanksgiving every year. Go Giants.

That’s all, folks! Have a great weekend.

Taylor Lorenz, the technology writer and podcaster, was talking about the internet of her dreams—a world free of alarmists and doomers and Big Brother.

“America obviously has so many problems, but the thing that we have is the First Amendment, and, to me, that’s what makes America the best country,” she told me. “I know it’s not the best country in every way, but it is one of the best countries to live in, because we have freedom of expression, and I think it’s being destroyed.”

We were in a little park next to Pine & Crane, a Taiwanese spot in downtown Los Angeles. It was just past noon, and we both had the vegan mapo tofu. I had a beer. Lorenz ordered a nonalcoholic apple cider.

She was wearing a mask, as she always does in public—it was black, probably an N95, nothing fancy. “I’m immunocompromised,” she explained. “Alcohol doesn’t work with the meds I’m on.”

Anyway, back to the internet.

This is a long piece. But we think you should read every word of it. In some senses, it’s a profile of Mark Zuckerberg, one of the most powerful men alive. As the writer, Jeremy Stern, points out, the social networks he oversees have 3.6 billion users, and the company he controls “has averaged, over nearly a quarter century, the addition of a zero to its valuation roughly once every U.S. presidential term.” As commanders in chief come and go, the 42-year-old Facebook founder could rule for several more decades. It behooves all of us to understand him.

But this piece is about so much more than one man. It is, more than anything, about power—the mind-boggling kind that’s accrued to a handful of men who, since the start of the millennium, have invented products that shape how we see everything and, if you believe this week’s headlines about AI, could destroy us all. Do they owe their influence to talent, or luck? Why do so many of them lose their grip on reality? Is their continued reign inevitable, or are they fighting tooth and nail to maintain it? How do they feel about the stories we tell about them? And do they have as much power as we assume they do, when we blame them for all of society’s problems?

Jeremy offers answers to all these questions and more, in this remarkable investigation into Mark Zuckerberg’s character, first published in Colossus, for which he spoke to three dozen people—including the Meta CEO’s parents, his wife, and the man himself. If you’re short on time, click here to understand why Zuckerberg likes getting punched in the face, or click here if you want to understand his relationship to AI. For those who want to print out the whole piece, we’ve made a PDF version, which you’ll find below the paywall.

The moment you face the possibility of death is clarifying in a way no other experience can be. In an instant, you know with certainty what and who you truly love, and the dross of life falls away.

Part of the frustration of those lucky enough to survive such an experience is that they—or rather, I—cannot hold on to it forever. I remember the crystalline sense of clarity that followed two diagnoses—first a brain tumor, and years later, blood cancer. I felt, for a moment, that irritants from small frustrations like traffic, to larger ones like finances, mattered so much less than the gift of being able to walk out of treatment and embrace those I loved. I was certain—and the second time even more certain—that I could hold that moment of shocked lucidity forever. Yet each time, slowly, the difficulties and annoyances of life reasserted themselves. I may have faced and overcome death, but the tire was still flat, the co-worker cranky, and the delivery went to the wrong house. I survived to be irascible again.

It’s Friday, September 18. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Is your pastor using ChatGPT? Hasan Piker says America is worse than al-Qaeda. Will these New York nuns ever get their money back? And much more.

But first: What’s gone wrong with the right?

One of the more disturbing trends in American political life is the way in which once fringe ideas are forcing their way into respectable conservative institutions. Erick Erickson, a rock-ribbed conservative and influential writer and radio host, is one of the people raising the alarm. He believes a network of wealthy donors, activists, intellectuals, and online personalities are pushing a radical vision for the American right, shaped by racial grievance, authoritarianism, and a rejection of liberal democracy. At the center of the movement is Charles Haywood, whose donations and writings have gained him influence within conservative organizations.

In his piece for us today, Erick traces those connections through think tanks, churches, and advocacy groups, and he tracks the spread of a new philosophy: No enemies to the right. Even Vice President J.D. Vance is implicated, he says.

This is a story about what happens when a movement stops policing its own boundaries, and instead treats its own longstanding principles as a problem to eradicate. If you want to understand what is happening on the right today, it’s a must-read.

—The Editors

There is a little-known philosophy shared by many of the tech executives who are trying to slow down AI, and its principles don’t always square with American values. It’s called effective altruism, and this week, Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar argued that its focus on existential risks and the distant future could set back American progress. Sankar traces effective altruism from its intellectual roots to the rise of AI “doomerism,” and he argues that behind the warnings about extinction lies a much bigger question: Will elites get to choose how quickly America develops the most consequential technology of the 21st century, or will the public decide?

For more coverage of the debate about AI and the future of humanity, don’t miss Niall Ferguson on whether it’s AIpocalypse now, and Tyler Cowen on why the AI lab slowdown is not what it seems.

Sydney Sweeney’s beauty has apparently become a political problem. A sports-betting ad featuring the actress this month triggered a cultural freakout, including accusations of objectification, and a debate about how women are allowed to appear in public. But Caitlin Flanagan saw something more revealing behind the outrage. People have become determined to complicate the age-old fact that sex sells—or they insist that women apologize for it. The controversy over Sweeney, she writes, is really about whether we can still talk honestly about beauty, sex, and feminine power.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali took aim at one of the most fashionable ideas in Western commentary, recently boosted by The Economist: the notion that Islamic extremism and the European far right are essentially two symmetrical threats. But as Ayaan argues, this neat formulation ignores differences in ideology, history, and institutional power. The result is a kind of moral symmetry that may sound enlightened, but which overlooks uncomfortable realities about Islamism, immigration, and the future of Europe.

Patrick Clancy lost all three of his children, ran the Boston Marathon in their memory, and raised money for the hospital that cared for his son. Two years later, strangers watching his wife’s trial are scrutinizing that marathon, and have decided that a grieving father who can still run, smile, and function must be hiding something. Amanda Knox became an unwilling celebrity after being convicted and then exonerated of murder, and she understands Clancy’s nightmare. Once the internet decides you must be a monster, Amanda writes, every action you take becomes evidence against you.