{"id":2841,"date":"2016-06-22T16:41:54","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T20:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=2841"},"modified":"2016-12-10T04:20:58","modified_gmt":"2016-12-10T09:20:58","slug":"leonard-susskinds-open-letter-on-the-lunatic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=2841","title":{"rendered":"Leonard Susskind’s Open Letter on “The Lunatic”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my own anti-Trump post<\/a> two weeks ago, I started out by mentioning that Terry Tao and Stephen Hawking had recently denounced Trump, and\u00a0jokingly wondered when we’d hear from Ed Witten. \u00a0Well, will\u00a0<\/span>Leonard Susskind<\/a> of Stanford University—a creator of string theory, and one of the most\u00a0legendarily original\u00a0physicists and physics expositors of our time—do instead?<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the last decade, it’s been a privilege\u00a0for me to get to know Lenny, to learn from him, and recently, to collaborate with him on\u00a0quantum circuit complexity and AdS\/CFT. \u00a0Today, Lenny wrote to ask whether I’d share his open letter about the US election on this\u00a0blog. \u00a0Of course I said yes. \u00a0Better yet, Lenny has agreed to\u00a0my request to be available here to answer questions and comments. \u00a0Lenny’s views, even when close to mine (as they certainly are in this case), are still his<\/em>, and I’d never\u00a0want to speak on his behalf. \u00a0Better that you should hear it straight from the horse’s mouth—as you now will, without further ado. \u00a0–Scott A.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Letter to My Friends, by Leonard Susskind<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m watching this thing that’s happening with disbelief, dismay, and disgust. There is a lunatic loose—I’m sure we all agree about that—but I keep hearing people say that they can’t vote for Hillary. I heard it at my daughter’s birthday party Sunday<\/span><\/span>. Boy oh boy, will these people be sorry if the lunatic gets his way. Personally I do not find it an excuse that “I live in California, which will go Democrat whatever I do.”<\/p>\n

I strongly believe in all things Bernie, but Hillary is not the Anti-Bernie. There is much less difference between Clinton and Sanders than the distortions of the nominating process might lead people to think. She’s for health care, he’s for health care; he’s for increased minimum wage, she’s for increased minimum wage; she’s for immigrant rights, he’s for immigrant rights; and on and on it goes.<\/p>\n

The lunatic may be just that—a lunatic—but he is also a master of smear and innuendo.\u00a0 He is a gigantic liar, and he knows that if you keep saying something over and over, it sticks in people’s minds. It’s called the Big Lie, and it works. Say it enough and it sows confusion and distrust, not only among the know-nothings, but even among those who know better.<\/p>\n

The lunatic and his supporters are exceedingly dangerous. Tell your friends: don’t be fooled. The only thing between us and the lunatic is Hillary. Get off your ass and vote in Nov.<\/p>\n

Leonard Susskind<\/p>\n

Director, Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics,<\/p>\n

Stanford University<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my own anti-Trump post two weeks ago, I started out by mentioning that Terry Tao and Stephen Hawking had recently denounced Trump, and\u00a0jokingly wondered when we’d hear from Ed Witten. \u00a0Well, will\u00a0Leonard Susskind of Stanford University—a creator of string theory, and one of the most\u00a0legendarily original\u00a0physicists and physics expositors of our time—do instead? Over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[31,11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements","category-nerd-interest","category-the-fate-of-humanity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2846,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions\/2846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}