Over the years I have taken issue with a lot of folks on the left, including some I used to admire. One of my personal heroes, Elon Musk, was one of them. In the same video where I went after Musk, I also took a swing at Bill Maher.
Back then, both of them were still firmly in Democrat territory, and both were preaching the same tired line about “saving the earth from global warming.” They were willing to criticize woke excess in some areas, but they still treated climate alarmism like a sacred cow.
On May 27, 2017, I put out a video calling that out and saying what a lot of people were afraid to say out loud. That video aged pretty well.
Because now, years later, we are watching people like Bill Gates quietly walk back the doomsday script.
Gates just dropped a climate memo where he basically says climate change is serious, but it is not going to cause “humanity’s demise” and that we should be talking more about poverty, disease and human welfare than laser-focused carbon targets and panic. (AP News)
Funny how that sounds a lot closer to what many of us were saying a long time ago.
You can watch my original 2017 video here:
Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ljPYgyryso
And here is the article on Gates’ memo that set off the latest round of outrage:
Reference: https://theconversation.com/why-bill-gates-climate-memo-is-being-celebrated-by-skeptics-while-frustrating-scientists-268940 (QOSHE)
The Church Of Woke Climate Panic
Here is the thing.
For years, criticizing climate alarmism got you treated like a heretic. You could accept that the climate changes, you could accept that humans have an impact, but if you questioned the panic industry around it, you were branded a “denier.”
It stopped being a scientific debate and turned into a moral purity test.
If you did not worship at the altar of the IPCC, you were kicked out of polite society. People lost jobs, platforms, and friendships.
I know this first hand. When I started saying out loud that the “we have 10 years left” hysteria was being used as a political weapon, people I thought were my friends cut me off. I got cancelled and unfriended in real life, long before the social media mobs made it trendy.
Now along comes Bill Gates telling the world climate change is not going to wipe humanity out, and that maybe we should worry more about malaria, hunger and poverty than obsessing over one line on a temperature chart. (Financial Times)
You know what? He is not suddenly a skeptic. Scientists are furious at him precisely because he still says climate change is real and serious, but he is rejecting the apocalypse framing. (Wikipedia)
Yet the same media that used to treat anyone like me as a dangerous crank is now running “Gates says climate is not the end of the world” headlines like it is just another Tuesday.
Being Early Means Being Lonely
It is easy to agree with someone when CNN finally grants you permission. It is harder when you are saying it while the crowd is still holding torches and pitchforks.
When I put out that 2017 video, I was not doing it to be edgy. I did it because I refuse to hand my thinking over to a tribe, whether that tribe is left, right, or whatever today’s activist hashtag is.
Of course, there was a cost.
Friends dropped off. Some stopped talking to me. Others made it clear that disagreeing with the progressive script on climate and social issues made me radioactive.
That is the funny thing about “tolerance.” It always seems to expire the moment you question the script.
But here is what I learned.
The more you can stand being misunderstood, the more honest your life gets. The less you need peer approval, the more you can say what you actually believe, even if it costs you invitations, likes, and fake “community.”
Relying on group approval for your identity is like living on a credit card. It feels good while it lasts, then one day the bill shows up and you realize you never owned any of it.
Woke Ideology Eats Its Own
Woke ideology runs on purity tests.
You are never pure enough. You did not phrase it perfectly. Your joke was “problematic.” You liked the wrong tweet. You listened to the wrong podcast three years ago.
The left used to be the side that mocked moral hysteria. Now a big chunk of it runs the new Salem Witch Trials.
Take climate again. If you say, “Yes, the climate changes, yes, humans have an effect, but maybe we should stop pretending this is the single biggest threat in human history while ignoring actual people starving right now,” you are branded a monster.
Never mind that Bill Gates is literally saying the same sort of thing in softer language: that climate spending has to be weighed against real human suffering, that innovation and adaptation matter, and that climate change is not going to cause human extinction. (AP News)
The reaction from some scientists and activists is anger, not because he denies climate change, but because he challenges the narrative that nothing else is allowed to matter.
That is what woke ideology does. It turns complex tradeoffs into moral theater. If you question the theater, you are the villain.
Taylor Swift, Cancel Culture, And Matching Scars
Which brings me to Taylor Swift’s new song, “Cancelled!”
Look, I am not on board with her woke LGBT activism. This is not 2008 Taylor with a country twang and a guitar on a stool. She has gone full pop-culture powerhouse, wrapped in every modern cause that plays well on Instagram.
But I can still say this; “Cancelled!” is a sharp song.
The track is from her 2025 album The Life of a Showgirl and it goes right at cancel culture, especially how women get torn apart for things men often get away with. (Wikipedia)
Two lines really land for me:
“Good thing I like my friends cancelled”
“They’re the ones with matching scars”
That hits.
Because that is what happens when you get cancelled. You find out who your people really are. Not the ones who cheer when you are popular and safe, but the ones who stay when it costs them something to stand next to you.
Back before my oldest daughter cancelled me, she and I shared a genuine love for Taylor Swift’s music. I bought her a pink electric guitar and she started trying to play Taylor songs in her room. This was back when Taylor was still the country star version of herself, not the modern woke avatar of every trending issue.
Now my son Iriel adores Taylor Swift. Different kid, different era, same artist.
That is how culture works. It moves. It morphs. Sometimes it matures, sometimes it just chases the next wave of attention. Time will tell which one this is. (The Washington Post)
Standing On Your Own Two Feet
Here is what I keep coming back to.
If you build your life on peer approval, you will eventually betray either your values or yourself. Sometimes both.
If you build your life on what you actually believe, rooted in something deeper than trends, then cancellation just becomes data. Painful, yes. But useful.
You find out:
- Who sticks around
- Who folds at the first sign of pressure
- Who only liked you as long as you were good for their image
And weirdly, that clarity is a gift.
The left has spent years feeding the cancel machine, only to find that the machine does not care about loyalty. It just wants more fuel. Today it is right-wing villains. Tomorrow it is Bill Maher for an off-script joke. Next week it is Taylor Swift for the wrong friend, or Bill Gates for questioning the climate panic storyline.
You know what? Let it eat.
Because every time the mob turns on one of its own, more people wake up and realize this was never about justice. It was about control.
Merry Cancellation
So here I am, years after getting socially cancelled for saying climate hysteria was out of control, watching some of the same establishment darlings quietly edge closer to the things people like me were already saying.
Climate is real. Human impact is real. Panic is a choice. And using fear to control people is the oldest political trick in the book.
Cancel culture is the same scam, just with social credit instead of carbon credit. Step out of line, lose your place in the club.
I am not saying it is fun to be on the wrong side of the mob. It hurts. It cost me relationships, including with my own daughter. But I would rather stand on my own two feet, misunderstood and uninvited, than live on my knees waiting for strangers to click “like.”
This is Ryan “Dickie” Thompson, wishing you a Merry Cancellation.
Sources
- 2017 video critique of Elon Musk, Bill Maher and climate alarmism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ljPYgyryso
- The Conversation: “Why Bill Gates’ climate memo is being celebrated by skeptics while frustrating scientists” (original link provided by user)
https://theconversation.com/why-bill-gates-climate-memo-is-being-celebrated-by-skeptics-while-frustrating-scientists-268940 (QOSHE) - Associated Press: “Bill Gates calls for climate fight to shift focus from curbing emissions to reducing human suffering” (AP News)
- The Guardian: Gates memo and the “not humanity’s demise” framing of climate change (The Guardian)
- Wikipedia: “Cancelled!” by Taylor Swift and The Life of a Showgirl album info (Wikipedia)
- Entertainment Weekly and other coverage on Taylor Swift’s “Cancelled!” and cancel culture themes (EW.com)
- Financial Times
- AP News
- The Guardian
- The Guardian
- The Times
- EW.com
- The Washington Post
- marieclaire.co.uk
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