TLP Weekend Edition (June 21-22, 2025)
What we're reading and checking out.
🤝 "How to Prevent Political Violence," by Amanda Ripley. Following the assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker last week (and the near assassination of another), Americans are facing the specter of increased political violence yet again. As this leads nowhere good—and fast—it is imperative that cooler heads and saner voices prevail. Enter journalist Amanda Ripley, who has written extensively about American polarization, tribal conflict, and their consequences. In the aftermath of the Minnesota incident, Ripley wrote on her personal Substack about how we might stop the doom spiral of politically induced violence, including offering some words of wisdom for elected leaders:
One powerful way to reduce political violence...is to lower the threat level. There will always be violent people. But they will not always choose politicians or protesters as their target. They tend to do that when influential people convince them they are threatened—and blame this or that group. Any language that heightens the sense of threat helps create the conditions for violence.
It is time to invite politicians to the table to come up with a short list of ways they can lower the threat level. Condemning violence after the fact is not enough. We need a nonaggression pact that politicians can commit to for the future. And the politicians themselves need to help craft that pact.
🤖 "They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling," by Kashmir Hill. In a wild and alarming piece for The New York Times, reporter Kashmir Hill documents several stories of people whose use of the new AI chatbot, ChatGPT, led to extremely distressing outcomes over time:
In recent months, tech journalists at The New York Times have received quite a few such messages, sent by people who claim to have unlocked hidden knowledge with the help of ChatGPT, which then instructed them to blow the whistle on what they had uncovered. People claimed a range of discoveries: A.I. spiritual awakenings, cognitive weapons, a plan by tech billionaires to end human civilization so they can have the planet to themselves. But in each case, the person had been persuaded that ChatGPT had revealed a profound and world-altering truth…
Reports of chatbots going off the rails seem to have increased since April, when OpenAI briefly released a version of ChatGPT that was overly sycophantic. The update made the A.I. bot try too hard to please users by “validating doubts, fueling anger, urging impulsive actions or reinforcing negative emotions,” the company wrote in a blog post. The company said it had begun rolling back the update within days, but these experiences predate that version of the chatbot and have continued since. Stories about “ChatGPT-induced psychosis” litter Reddit. Unsettled influencers are channeling “A.I. prophets” on social media.
The whole thing is worth a read, and it serves as a warning about what the future of A.I. may hold if we don't begin putting up guardrails and building sensible norms around its use and adoption in mainstream life.
📚 Survival in the Killing Fields, by Haing Ngor. Half a century ago, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh and established "Democratic Kampuchea," a regime so brutal it made North Korea look like a day at the beach. In a few short years, they killed off a quarter of the population (1.5-2 million people) as they emptied the cities and implemented a forced labor regime in the countryside. Haing Ngor was one of the survivors and he tells his beyond-harrowing tale in the memoir, Survival in the Killing Fields—one of the best books, if not the best, to come out of that horrendous time.
Best known for his academy award-winning role as Dith Pran in "The Killing Fields," for Haing Ngor his greatest performance was not in Hollywood but in the rice paddies and labour camps of war-torn Cambodia. Here, in his memoir of life under the Khmer Rouge, is a searing account of a country's descent into hell. His was a world of war slaves and execution squads, of senseless brutality and mind-numbing torture; where families ceased to be...
To understand better how this crime against humanity could have taken place, also listen to this epic 41-part podcast on the history of Cambodia from its earliest days through the Khmer Rouge takeover, In the Shadow of Utopia: The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Nightmare. Stunning and incredibly informative. Everyone should delve into this history because the world must never forget.
🇯🇵 “A popular manga predicted catastrophe—and Japanese tourism took a hit,” in The Washington Post. You’ve heard of “fake news” but have you heard about “manga news?” In this hard-to-believe but real story, tourism to Japan this summer has taken a serious hit due to a “prediction” from a popular comic:
The recent decline in sales of flights from some key Asian tourist markets to Japan has been attributed to a manga, or Japanese comic book, by Ryo Tatsuki: “The Future I Saw.”
In the original 1999 version, the book claimed that a “great disaster will occur in March 2011.” That month happened to be when a deadly triple disaster struck Japan’s Tohoku region: a devastating earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that triggered one of the biggest nuclear disasters in history.
Then, in 2021, an updated version of the book claimed that “the real catastrophe” will come in July 2025, spinning fans and urban legend enthusiasts throughout East Asia into a tizzy.
Tatsuki’s theory has taken off online in recent months, with posts and videos on social media warning about a potential massive earthquake gaining millions of views from audiences including in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and South Korea—all of which were in the top five tourist markets for Japan last year.
Now Japanese officials are scrambling to shut down these rumors and stop the panic.
Let’s hope A.I. doesn’t pick up on manga news any time soon. Let comics be comics!
🗻 Acid Mt. Fuji, by Susumu Yokota. An absolute classic minimalist techno record from the mid-90's, featuring the enchanting electronic and ambient sounds of this Japanese master who sadly died a few years ago at age 54. Full of pulsating beats, bird sounds, and various atmospheric whirs and beeps, it’s a mesmerizing experiencing. Check out this opening track “Zenmai” for a feel of what’s to come. Enjoy the start of summer!
It is not like violence directed against politicians and other politically active people is a new thing. It has been in the background my whole life. Born in 1948 so the first was the attempt against Truman by the Puerto Rican nationalists followed by shooting up the House. Then came the 60s with JFK, RFK, MLK and numerous violent attacks on civil rights activists. Then Wallace, Ford (twice), Reagan. More recently Giffords, the Congressional baseball attack, Rand Paul, Kavanaugh and Trump (twice). While there were a few nuts in the mix, notably the attempted assassins of Reagan, Ford and Giffords, most of these have been ideologically motivated. Moving abroad we have Bolorsio, Abe, Fico, and the numerous attack on AfD politicians. The roots of this lie back in the 19th century with the development of Propaganda of the Deed theory by socialists and anarchists, notably Baukunin. I have to note that the non-nut category is populated mostly by the far left with the anti-civil rights violence being the major exception. The latest shooting has two political narratives that are highly partisan though the recent report about the assassin's letter saying that Walz put him up to killing Klobachar may move this to the nut category.