Splicetoday

Pop Culture
Apr 03, 2025, 06:27AM

No One Gets a Free Pass

A 2025 New York interview with publisher Nick Denton vs. a 2025 Maclean’s interview with historian Timothy Snyder.

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Timothy Snyder: I don’t know what my Twitter password is.

Nick Denton: And I think that would be the absolute best outcome.

Snyder: The meaningfulness of little individual choices is there, you know?

Denton: Correct. You see it on TikTok, the American tourists arriving in some place, marveling at how low the rents are, whether it’s Medellín or Lisbon or—

Snyder: Sad is exactly right.

•••

Denton: This is like brain surgery conducted by three drunken surgeons who are all fighting with each other at the same time, and they can’t decide whether to use a chainsaw or a scalpel.

Snyder: It’s tricky because, on the one hand, of course you have to care. No one gets a free pass.

Denton: Maybe. I kind of doubt it. I don’t know.

Snyder: I was at a lunch thing in Davos, and someone asked, “Is there any hope in all this, or are we all gonna die?”

Denton: You barely even notice the knife going in, it was so subtle.

•••

Snyder: Let’s turn this conversation around.

Denton: You’re attacking your best friends, your best allies in Europe.

Snyder: I do think this is going to be a really interesting time to be Canadian; it already is.

Denton: We will see whether that remains the case.

Snyder: I dare you to print this.

Discussion

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