Richard Hanania

I first met Hanania when he hired me to write a post for his thinktank when I was 23. It took a lot of friction, back and forth, and editing, but we got it up. It was good¹.

He paid the agreed amount.

Are We Getting Dumber?

He asked about my plans for life, what I was doing, and I told him I was applying for PhDs. He told me that was a waste of time, and that I should try writing independently and making a living off of it. I stared at my keyboard for a few minutes, not knowing what to say, and then I just said I was staring at my keyboard not knowing what to say.

I think I was stumped because I never seriously planned on writing professionally or even as a hobby, it just kind of happened. It was something I imagined doing, but I didn’t think I had the talent for it, and I didn’t think I would actually try doing it… Until I just decided to one day. I always imagined myself working for my father’s firm or writing fiction, because that’s where my passions were pointing to at the time.

I didn’t end up taking his advice at the time, but now I think he was in the right. Academia isn’t the right place for me, and maybe he knew that better than I did.

Hanania² and I both have a lot of similarities: he’s autistic, and I likely have attention deficit disorder; we have similar personalities, likely more similar than the average pair of siblings; neither of us are “really” white and were born in the United States; both of us starting writing about the same topics, at more or less the same age, among the same crowd, under pseudonyms, and later regretting³ it; and we both tried to get into academia and eventually ended up somewhere else.

Overall, Hanania has treated me well over the years, and has served as an example and a mentor to me. He has promoted my thought consistently over the years, more than I have his. I feel a little guilty about that, even though it is just a little detail. I understand why a lot of people don’t like him — his twitter account, uh, leaves a lot to be desired. I don’t think he’d even deny that it does. It’s not a website that is built for high quality content.

I’m a little hesitant to bat for him wholeheartedly, since we’ve never met in person, though I’d like to eventually. He is doing the “I was racist and now…” bit, but I don’t fault him for it — it’s public relations, and he still writes high quality work. I don’t particularly care about him having “betrayed” the alt-right; you can only truly betray something that matters or cashes out.

1. Mr. gwern endorsed it, and added it to his list of ~100 liked posts on substack.

2. I also share a lot of freakishly coincidental early life details with Cremieux — both of us are middle children, who were raised predominantly around women, and have Jewish surnames. Sometimes I wonder if those coincidences are really coincidences.

3. With… caveats. I’m reluctant to share my feelings on exactly why. I’ve impulsively just written about my reasons for doing things, that later turned out to be sincere, but not true.