As we transition from the social media age (the internet of trolls) to the AI epoch (the internet of tolls), has the publishing apocalypse finally arrived? That’s the question Keith Teare and I discuss in our That Was the Week [https://www.thatwastheweek.com/p/copyright-cant-save-publishers-from] summary of tech news. Two major court cases this week—Getty Images vs. Stability AI and the Anthropic lawsuit—have fundamentally shifted the legal landscape around AI and copyright. The courts ruled that AI systems can legally "learn" from published content without copying it, essentially giving artificial intelligence a free pass to consume human creativity at scale. Meanwhile, publishers are scrambling to find new business models as search traffic evaporates and AI “answers” replace traditional web browsing. From CloudFlare's proposed toll system to the rise of AI browsers like DIA, Keith and I explore how traditional link economics are being completely reimagined—and whether human creators can survive the transformation. Dead Links Walking everyone. It’s going to be a bloody entertaining spectacle.

* AI Won the Legal Battle: Two major court cases (Getty Images vs. Stability AI and the Anthropic lawsuit) ruled that AI systems can legally "learn" from copyrighted content without permission, as long as they're not directly copying it. This distinction between learning and copying has massive implications for content creators.

* The Search-to-AI Shift is Killing Publisher Revenue: As consumers increasingly use AI instead of search engines, publishers are losing the traffic that drives their advertising-based business models. Google's own CEO admits about two-thirds of their revenue still comes from search ads—a model that's under threat.

* The "Internet of Tolls" is Coming: Publishers will be forced to return to pre-internet subscription models, putting content behind paywalls. CloudFlare is even developing technology to charge AI systems for accessing content at the network level, creating micro-transactions for publishers.

* Links Are the New Currency: The future monetization model for publishers may depend on getting AI systems to surface and properly compensate for links to original content, rather than just providing direct answers.

* We're Still Waiting for Native AI Products: Despite all the hype, we haven't yet seen the "Netscape moment" for AI—a truly native, intuitive product that isn't just AI bolted onto existing technology. The real transformation is still coming.

“The tollbooths are rising”, Keith ends [https://www.thatwastheweek.com/p/copyright-cant-save-publishers-from] his That Was The Week editorial, “the road ahead is ours to choose”. I think he’s wrong. Yes, he’s right, of course, that the AI revolution is inaugurating a new toll economy of walled garden AI leviathans. But the future isn’t ours to choose. We - and I mean the broad content industry from individual producers to larger publishers - are spectators to this epochal change. Agency no longer exists. We don’t shape the future; it shapes us. Maybe that was always the case. But in the age of trillion dollar AI start-ups, we don’t matter. As I said earlier, it’s going to be a bloody entertaining spectacle.

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From the Internet of Trolls to the Internet of Tolls: Has the Publishing Apocalypse Finally Arrived?

Yesterday’s show was on the Great White Hoax [https://keenon.substack.com/p/the-great-white-hoax-two-centuries] of manufactured racism in America. Today’s is on Black Capitalists, the title of a provocative new book by Rachel Layrea. But is this a great black hoax? Or might her focus on race and class really be a blueprint for a more ethical 21st century capitalism? Laryea, who holds a PhD from Yale and works in wealth management at JPMorgan Chase, argues that Black capitalists can strategically use the tools of capitalism to create social good, not just profit. But in a week when Jeff Bezos's lavish Venice wedding sparked protests about wealth inequality, can any kind of capitalism - either black, brown or white - ever truly serve social justice? And with the dismantling of DEI initiatives across America, is Booker T. Washington's style self-reliance the only path forward for Black economic empowerment?

1. Black capitalism means using wealth-building strategically for social good, not just profit .

Laryea:"To be clear, a Black capitalist is someone who identifies as a Black person and strategically repositions themselves within the economic system in order to create social good... it's someone who is still kind of in pursuit of excess resources, but it's also with the intention to create and produce social good."

2. Race and class are inextricably linked in America's economic system

Laryea: "When you think about systemic inequality, that's predicated on racism, implicated in systemic inequality focused on racism is also a story about inequality when it comes to classism as well... there is a correlation between race and class."

3. Black people face different standards and expectations as they accumulate wealth Laryea: "When people ascend the kind of economic social ladder, they are held to different standards than their non-white counterparts... oftentimes correlations that we see around wealth and whiteness are not questioned. But when we see black economic thriving, we question why they should be thriving."

4. Communities can't rely on external institutions to solve economic inequality Laryea: "The cavalry is not coming. We see the strategic kind of dismantling of DE&I initiatives, programs that have aimed to create access and channels to opportunity... it really starts with us and looking within and creating those mechanisms ourselves."

5. Traditional capitalism is fundamentally exploitative, requiring a different approach

Laryea: "What's wrong with capitalism is that it is predicated on exploitation, extraction, harm of some sense... You can have a billionaire exist while still have people who don't have access to meet their fundamental needs to food, water, shelter. Those two things should not coexist."

Like apple pie, everybody loves the idea of ethical capitalism. But just as most “homemade” apple pie in stores today comes from a factory, not some rustic kitchen, most for-profit capitalism - whether practiced by black, white, or brown entrepreneurs - ends up focused singularly on profit. Laryea's example of a unicorn fintech company (ASUS) may help people build credit, but it's still a billion-dollar business extracting value from financial transactions. Blueprints remain just blueprints. I’m wary of coloring capitalism.

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From Ghana to Goldman Sachs: Rachel Laryea on a Blueprint for Black Capitalism 

There’s something fishy about what Philip Kadish [https://thenewpress.org/authors/philip-kadish/] calls The Great White Hoax. [https://thenewpress.org/books/the-great-white-hoax/] It’s his new book about America's long con - how racist scientific hoaxes have shaped two centuries of racist politics. From the 1840 Census Scandal to Henry Ford to George Wallace, Kadish exposes the conmen who have tried to sell racism to America. But here's the chilling twist: many of these fraudsters knew exactly what they were doing. They weren't true believers - they were cynical opportunists who saw profit in peddling fake science to justify white supremacy, creating elaborate deceptions that sometimes fooled even legitimate scientists.

1. Many racist "scientific" theories were deliberate, cynical frauds, not misguided beliefs

"The thing that really characterizes the particular thread that I am following in my book and things that I was finding is that they all involved varying degrees of a kind of cynical, very self-aware, purposeful deception."

2. The 1840 Census created the template for American scientific racism through knowing falsification

"So this was a case that was starting out as an accident, but then he knowingly investigated it, saw the falseness, and then re-certified it, and that information was then used in the defense of slavery for decades."

3. Authority and social credibility mattered more than actual scientific expertise

"Madison Grant... did not have a degree in biology. He was trained as a lawyer... the reason he was trusted about race, all of these politicians and wealthy philanthropists, is because, A, he came from a very wealthy family himself."

4. The hoax pattern shifted but didn't disappear after World War II

"It became socially unacceptable to be that, to be making such openly racist arguments... And things shift into a kind of coded mode... while we're talking about state's rights or he's developing a language talking about the federal government as a tyranny."

5. Many hoaxes continued to influence people even after being exposed as fraudulent

"Over half of the hoaxes that I described in the book were revealed as hoaxes in the midst of them. And yet were still embraced by many people and often for a long time after."

I’m in two minds on this. One the one hand, Kadish’ expose of two centuries of selling fraudulent scientific racism is chilling. On the other hand, I wonder if progressive historians like Kadish are themselves becoming overly preoccupied with race and racism. I’m also not convinced that the MAGA movement, RFK Jr or Fox News are a return to the overt racism of D.W. Griffith’s movie Birth of a Nation or the “science” of eugenicists like Madison Grant. History, particularly American history, is too complex to simply repeat itself endlessly. Sometimes it rhymes and sometimes it doesn’t. And sometimes, the historical hoax is in the hoax.

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The Great White Hoax: Two Centuries of Manufactured Racism in America

Next month, America will celebrate the centenary of the Scopes Trial [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_trial], the so-called 1925 “Monkey Trial” on evolution that riveted a nation. Although perhaps celebrate is the wrong word to describe the Tennessee trial that not only riveted America but also divided it. According to the historian Brenda Wineapple [https://www.brendawineapple.com/], author of Keeping The Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial that Riveted a Nation [https://bookshop.org/p/books/keeping-the-faith-the-scopes-trial-god-and-democracy-brenda-wineapple/20880745?ean=9780593229927&next=t&affiliate=287], the Scopes trial is as relevant to America in 2025 as it was in 1925. According to Wineapple, the trial wasn't really about science versus religion at all. Neither side truly understood Darwin's theory of evolution, which had been settled science for decades. Instead, the Scopes trial served as a cultural battleground where deeper American anxieties played out—fears about immigration, racial integration, women's suffrage, and rapid social change in the post-World War I era. The real combatants weren’t evolution and creationism, or even the courtroom celebrities Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, but competing visions of American identity. Today, as debates rage over book bans, curriculum restrictions, and civil rights, Wineapple argues that America is still fighting the same fundamental battles that erupted in that sweltering Dayton, Tennessee courtroom a century ago.

1. The trial wasn't actually about science versus religion Neither side understood Darwin's theory, which had been settled science for decades, revealing the real issues lay elsewhere.

\KEY QUOTE: "Nobody knew the science. Nobody understood the science, and Darwin had published, in 1859, The Origin of Species."

2. It was a proxy fight for deeper cultural anxieties about rapid social change The evolution debate masked fears about immigration, women's suffrage, racial integration, and post-WWI upheaval.

KEY QUOTE: "So there was a proxy fight that was occurring, because it really couldn't be about what it was said to be about, and I think people on the ground in 1925 knew that."

3. Race was a central but often hidden issue in the proceedings Black communities understood that evolution theory undermined racist hierarchies, making this fundamentally about racial anxiety.

KEY QUOTE: "Certainly many in the Black communities felt that this was about race because they understood... that the theory of evolution itself helped make absolutely indefensible the idea that racial hierarchies."

4. William Jennings Bryan embodied the contradictions of progressive populism Bryan simultaneously championed common people while holding reactionary views on race, showing populism's complex nature.

KEY QUOTE: "So in that sense, he was a progressive, as you said he was for the common people... at the same time as being very conservative, even to being reactionary."

5. The trial's relevance to contemporary America lies in ongoing battles over freedom and education

Today's debates over book bans and curriculum restrictions echo the same fundamental questions about who controls knowledge.

KEY QUOTE: "The issues that are being debated in terms of the trial or raised at the trial really are about freedom... who decides what we learn, what we can read."

I’ve always been intrigued by William Jennings Bryan [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryan]

The Real Monkey Business: What the 1925 Scopes Trial was actually all about

Don’t blame women. Men are failing spectacularly and it’s totally their own fault. In What Is Wrong with Men [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717467/what-is-wrong-with-men-by-jessa-crispin/], cultural critic Jessica Crispin [https://www.jessacrispin.com/] borrows from Michael Douglas movies to dissect how masculinity devolved from Seventies style vulnerability into today's aggressive displays of insecurity. While billionaires like Musk compulsively impregnate women and Zuckerberg learns jujitsu to feel "manly," basement-dwelling incels worship sex traffickers like Andrew Tate. The old patriarchy died in the 1980s, Crispin argues, but men refuse to adapt, expecting the world to revolve around them instead of building female-style support systems. It’s the Michael Douglas Trap. From Gordon Gekko's greed to crypto-gambling bros, modern masculinity has degenerated into a grotesque performance of insecurity—and it's getting worse.

1. Modern masculinity is trapped between dead patriarchy and refusal to adapt Crispin argues that traditional patriarchal structures collapsed in the 1980s, but men still expect the world to revolve around them instead of building new support systems like women did.

KEY QUOTE: "The world is supposed to adapt to men. Men are not supposed to adopt to the world."

2. Billionaire masculinity reveals desperate insecurity despite ultimate success Even the world's richest men obsessively seek validation through physical transformation and procreation, proving that external markers of success no longer provide masculine identity.

KEY QUOTE: "Nothing is ever enough anymore. And so that's why you see Elon Musk will never stop having children, never stop fathering children. Jeff Bezos will never have enough money to be satisfied."

3. The 1980s created a fantasy of male rejection to mask female-initiated abandonment As women initiated two-thirds of divorces, Hollywood created the "midlife crisis" narrative where men chose to leave, protecting male ego from the reality of being unwanted.

KEY QUOTE: "There was this sort of fantasy that was being created at the time of the male midlife crisis, where a kind of, you can't fire me, I quit. Fantasy was being generated."

4. Today's male influencers have inverted basic human connection into pathology The evolution from 1970s male vulnerability to Andrew Tate's misogyny represents a complete rejection of emotional intimacy and romantic love.

KEY QUOTE: "Andrew Tate does not fall in love, you know, he sexually violates, he's charged with sex trafficking... You can't hold a woman's hand, that's gay. You can have sex with women, that is gay."

5. The crisis requires material solutions, not emotional band-aids Rather than teaching boys to cry, society needs to address the gambling-based economy and lack of meaningful work that creates destructive masculine behaviors.

KEY QUOTE: "You're not gonna be able to fight against that just by learning how to cry... This is about making sure people have steady employment, making sure that people have study income, making sure the people have health care and community."

Nothing explains everything. Not even Michael Douglas movies. But just as women like setting traps, men love stumbling into them. I’m not convinced by Crispin’s reading of Hollywood movies. Men have always been making fools of themselves on screen - from Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo to the equally pathetic Douglas in Wall Street. Everything is supposed to be in crisis in America these days: from democracy to cap

The Michael Douglas Trap: What Is Wrong with Men

So I get why Jeff Bezos isn’t popular in Venice this week. But why would Africans in general, and Kenyans in particular, not love Bill Gates after the philanthropist pledged to give away $200 billion of his fortune to Africa? According to Tablet [https://www.tabletmag.com/] staff writer, Armin Rosen [https://www.tabletmag.com/contributors/armin-rosen], it’s because Gates’ top-down, metrics-driven approach often ignores what Africans actually want. Drawing from extensive on-the-ground reporting in Kenya, Rosen highlights [https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/bill-gates-kenya-armin-rosen] how Gates' Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa pushed unwanted agricultural technologies onto Kenyan farmers, while his foundation received controversial diplomatic immunity from Kenya's unpopular President Ruto. Though acknowledging Gates' successes in vaccination programs, Rosen questions whether billionaire-led development truly helps or undermines local agency and democratic governance. Maybe Gates should, instead, pledge his billions to Venice to enable the sinking city to outlaw tasteless American celebrity marriages.

5 key takeaways & quotes

1. Gates' philanthropy often imposes unwanted solutions on Africans Rosen argues that Gates consistently brings his own technological fixes to problems without consulting the people he claims to help, particularly through initiatives like the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

KEY QUOTE: "So a lot of his philanthropy either sort of goes towards bringing his own solutions to these places or his money is spent in such a way that there isn't a lot of consultation with the people that he's actually trying to help."

2. The Gates Foundation operates with government-scale power and spending With massive operational costs and diplomatic immunity, the foundation wields influence comparable to state actors, raising questions about accountability and democratic oversight.

KEY QUOTE: "The Gates Foundation spends something like $140 million a year just on travel expenses... They have the same scale as a government agency."

3. Gates has become deeply unpopular in Kenya due to political associations His close relationship with Kenya's controversial President Ruto has damaged his reputation among Kenyans who already distrust their government and foreign interference.

KEY QUOTE: "At the moment, Bill Gates is not a very popular person in Kenya. And the reason for his bad name is the trust deficit with the government."

4. Diplomatic immunity controversy reveals troubling governance patterns The secretive granting of legal immunity to the Gates Foundation, announced after deadly protests against the government, exemplified the lack of transparency that fuels public mistrust.

KEY QUOTE: "The Gates Foundation had gotten full diplomatic immunity from the Kenyan government... it was relatively unusual in Kenya for any non-governmental organization to get that kind of legal protection."

5. Local innovation often outperforms foreign philanthropy African societies frequently develop their own solutions more effectively than external interventions, as demonstrated by Kenya's creation of mobile money systems that became global models.

KEY QUOTE: "It turns out that these societies can kind of solve their problems on their own... Kenya is where basically mobile money began, you know, and M-Pesa is a Kenyan invention."



The KEEN ON conclusion

At least Gates isn't spen

The $200 billion dilemma: Is Bill Gates helping or harming Africa?

Are Donald Trump and Steven Miller terrorists? Pakistani-American lawyer and author Rafia Zakaria [https://www.rafiazakaria.com/] argues that their willfully cruel immigration policies reflect what she describes as an "architecture of terror." In her June Liberties Quarterly piece "Silencings [https://libertiesjournal.com/online-articles/silencings-the-transformation-of-the-american-public-sphere/]", Zakaria argues that these policies represent a deliberate strategy to terrorize communities and systematically dismantle the American democratic public sphere. Drawing on her experience both in practicing immigration law and as a naturalized American citizen, she connects domestic enforcement tactics to broader patterns of dehumanization affecting brown people globally—from detention centers in California to the US/Israeli bombing campaigns of Iran to what she dubs the “historical shame” of orchestrated mass starvation in Gaza.

5 key takeaways and quotes

1. Immigration Enforcement as Deliberate Terrorism Zakaria argues that the Trump administration's immigration policies are intentionally designed to terrorize entire communities, not just target individuals for deportation. The strategy involves detaining people without legal basis, forcing them into expensive legal battles, then releasing them after causing maximum pain.

KEY QUOTE: "It's kind of a terrorist act on the part of the Trump administration, which knows that eventually they'll have to release the people, but why not cause them as much pain and harassment as possible in the meantime."

2. Legal System Double Standard The administration manipulates public perception by calling immigration violators "criminals" in public discourse while simultaneously denying them the constitutional protections afforded to actual criminals in court proceedings.

KEY QUOTE: "You can't have it both ways, where in the public realm, you're calling them criminals, but in court you're saying, oh no, no, this is a civil matter, this is a civil matter."

3. Systematic Silencing of Public Sphere Even naturalized citizens and legal residents are being chilled from speaking out due to fear of legal and financial harassment, effectively destroying the independent public sphere that serves as a democratic check on state power.

KEY QUOTE: "I have to really kind of talk to myself a lot before I give an interview like this, because I'm a naturalized citizen."

4. Connected Dehumanization Campaign Zakaria sees the domestic immigration crackdown and military actions abroad as part of the same broader strategy of systematically dehumanizing brown people, whether they're "invaders" at the border or targets of bombing campaigns.

KEY QUOTE: "This is the systematic demonization and dehumanization of brown people."

5. Gaza as Historical Moral Failure She believes the world's inaction on Gaza will be viewed by future historians as a moral failure comparable to other historical atrocities, where people knew genocide was happening but did nothing to stop it.

KEY QUOTE: "I think this will be the world's shame."

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The Architecture of Terror: Rafia Zakaria on Trump, Miller, Israel, Iran and Gaza

In today’s age of authoritarian plutocracy, the UCLA political theorist Natasha Piano [https://polisci.ucla.edu/person/natasha-piano/] argues that we need to rethink the supposed “elitist” school of Italian thinkers like Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca. In her intriguing new book, Democratic Elitism [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674295377], Piano suggests Pareto, Mosca and even the Marxist Antonio Gramsci were actually "democratic theorists of elitism" who warned that electoral institutions can often enhance elite domination. Piano contends that American political science created a "founding myth" by misrepresenting these Italian thinkers to legitimize electoral democracy during the Cold War. And in our current political climate she says, their warnings about plutocracy are particularly prescient.

Five takeaways

1. Flipped Interpretation of Italian Elite Theorists

Pareto, Mosca, and Gramsci weren't "elite theorists of democracy" but rather "democratic theorists of elitism" - they studied elite power to expose its dangers, not endorse it.

KEY QUOTE: "They investigated elitism not to endorse it, but to study it and figure out how democracy could actually create genuine accountable leaders."

2. Elections ≠ Democracy

Equating democracy with competitive elections creates two major threats: it conceals plutocratic domination (rule by the wealthy) and enables demagogic manipulation by those claiming to represent "the people."

KEY QUOTE: "Elections are actually representative mechanisms, they're not democratic mechanisms."

3. American Political Science's "Founding Myth"

The discipline misrepresented these Italian thinkers during the Cold War to legitimize electoral democracy as superior to communist alternatives, covering up their warnings about plutocracy.

KEY QUOTE: "My book kind of tries to understand why we lost the extent to which plutocracy can undermine electoral institutions, as the Italians warned, and why American political science kind of covered this study of plutocracy up."

4. Democracy as "Good Government"

Piano advocates redefining democracy not as elections but as good government with three attributes: popular support, actively anti-plutocratic measures, and genuine pluralistic competition with majoritarian pressure from below.

KEY QUOTE: "What I've understood or what I think we should take from them is that perhaps a redefinition of democracy, not as election, but as good government is in order."

5. Elite Self-Recognition is Essential

Contemporary "coastal elites" must acknowledge their own elite status and impose limits on their power - the solution requires elites to honestly assess their role, not blame "the mob" for democratic failures.

KEY QUOTE: "They would really encourage all elites on the left or right to look within themselves and ask themselves if they're genuine aristocrats and what that would mean vis-a-vis the resurrecting the polity."

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Why Elections Aren't Always Democratic: Challenging American Political Science's Founding Myth

Yes, there still are some well meaning folks in Silicon Valley. Take, for example, Jimmy Chen [https://www.propel.app/author/jimmy-chen/], founder and CEO of Propel [https://www.propel.app/], an app designed to simplify food assistance for 41 million of the poorest Americans. Growing up food insecure himself, the Stanford educated Chen left lucrative jobs at Facebook and LinkedIn to build technology that actually serves those who need it most, proving that some Valley entrepreneurs are driven by social rather than financial ambition. Propel replaces the outdated 1-800 number system that food stamp recipients previously had to use to check their benefits, while connecting users to additional online resources and discounts. Chen's story challenges the conventional narrative that all tech founders are solely profit-motivated, and demonstrates how growing up in poverty can fuel mission-driven entrepreneurship.

Five Key Takeaways

1. Silicon Valley's Echo Chamber Problem Tech companies typically build for people like themselves - affluent, educated users - because founders solve problems they personally understand. This explains why so many startups focus on convenience for the already-comfortable rather than addressing real needs of vulnerable populations.

2. Personal Experience Drives Authentic Mission Jimmy Chen's childhood food insecurity, including watching his father skip meals to ensure his children could eat, directly shaped his motivation to build technology for low-income families. This personal connection distinguishes mission-driven entrepreneurs from those simply claiming social impact.

3. The For-Profit vs. Nonprofit Debate Chen argues that sustainable social impact requires a viable business model, not just philanthropic funding. Propel generates revenue by connecting users to vetted financial services and discounts, proving that companies can be profitable while serving society's most vulnerable.

4. Technology Infrastructure Failures Hit the Poor Hardest Food stamp recipients still rely on outdated systems like calling 1-800 numbers to check balances, while criminals exploit antiquated magnetic stripe EBT cards through skimming schemes. These technological gaps disproportionately harm those who can least afford it.

5. Scale Reveals Impact Potential With 41 million Americans receiving food assistance and Propel serving 5 million monthly users, Chen argues that technology solutions for underserved populations can achieve massive scale while creating genuine social good - challenging the current pessimism about “profitable” social enterprises.

Jimmy Chen is the founder and CEO of Propel, an app used by over 5 million low-income households to manage their government benefits. Propel has over 500,000 five-star reviews and has been recognized by the White House, and Propel's investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, JPMorganChase, Kevin Durant, and Serena Williams. In addition to his work at Propel, Jimmy serves on the boards of Share Our Strength, a national anti-hunger nonprofit, and TechNYC, a nonprofit coalition focused on the technology industry in New York. Jimmy holds a B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, where he was an inaugural winner of the President's Award for the Advancement of the Common Good in 2022.



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The Virtuous Side Of Silicon Valley: How Jimmy Chen is Building Tech to Help the Poorest America

Can we ever really know Primo Levi [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primo_Levi]? We know his books, of course, especially If This Is A Man [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_This_Is_a_Man], the astonishing account of his survival from Auschwitz. But what, then, of his apparent suicide in 1987? How can a man who miraculously survived Auschwitz take his own life forty years later? That’s one of the questions that Joseph Olshan [https://josepholshan.com/] asks in Milo’s Reckoning [https://greencitybooks.com/onesheet/milos-reckoning/], a new novel about Levi, suicide and our own unknowability. Olshan, himself deeply affected by Primo Levi's death when he first heard the news during a newspaper interview in Italy, explores the profound mystery of human nature and the limits of what we can truly understand about others, even those, like Levi, whose experiences have been supposedly laid bare in their autobiographical work.

5 takeaways

1. Suicide is often impulsive, not premeditated Most suicides happen in the spur of the moment when people "snap" under pressure, rather than being carefully planned decisions. The majority don't even leave notes, contrary to popular belief.

2. Personal trauma shaped Olshan's literary obsessions Olshan's lifelong fascination with suicide stems from witnessing a child's drowning at age six, followed by the suicides of an influential college professor and his aunt - experiences that ultimately inspired Milo's Reckoning.

3. We can never fully know another person Even when someone writes intimately about their experiences, as Levi did about Auschwitz, we still can't truly understand their inner life or predict their future actions - hence the shock of Levi's apparent suicide.

4. Language barriers limit authentic cultural understanding Olshan argues that American writers who spend brief periods abroad without knowing the local language cannot authentically capture those cultures, emphasizing the importance of linguistic fluency for true cultural insight.

5. Too much self-knowledge may be dangerous Olshan suggests that suicide might result from excessive self-awareness - people who contemplate life's inequities and their own perceived deficiencies too deeply may become overwhelmed by the world's suffering and their place in it.

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The Tragic Paradox of Survival in Auschwitz: The Mystery of Primo Levi

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