This is the fourth installment of an ongoing series investigating Substack writers who choose to disable the Pangram AI scanning software in order to conceal their use of AI to aid in writing their articles. See the first three maximalist essay installments here:
![TOTALLY BUSTED: Here Are 47 Top Substackers So Dumb They Think Disabling Pangram Will Hide Their AI Plagiarism [Now Updated!]](https://substackcdn.com/image/youtube/w_728,c_limit/11HB7SyAv94)
![Existence Is Pain: 16 More Substackers Fail to Conceal AI Plagiarism By Disabling Pangram [Now Updated! Look At Me!]](https://substackcdn.com/image/youtube/w_728,c_limit/gtRolWSMkSo)
This installment will present a simple summary of Substack writers identified in the investigation who have ignored or outright refused the request to enable Pangram.
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On Tuesday, I published this piece praising 125 Substackers whose work inspired me the most the last few months:
Here’s a particularly relevant fact to keep in mind about this list:
Nine people appearing on it were previously in jeopardy of showing up on this list instead.
Some named in the two previous installments stopped disabling Pangram afterwards. Others I confronted about it and they responded in an honest, mature fashion. Then I did not include them in either article and instead their ethical response inspired me to start reading their work more closely so I could offer positive praise and friendly feedback when the opportunities arose.
And likewise, there’s a flipside too. Of the 52 substackers appearing on this list, ten would have flipped over to the favorites list if they had simply responded professionally when confronted by me. And I’ll go ahead and name them now front and center as I am most ashamed of them for their actions:
Dean Blundell
David Pakman
Christopher Hale
Nikki Davidson
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Emily Schrader
Daniel Mael
Yisrael M. Eliashiv
Marc Friedman
Tim Denning
I expected better of you all.
Most of the Substacks listed on The Wall of Shame I came across during the investigations for this series. However, for many I had read them for a while and it was a huge disapointment to need to include them. I was relieved and rather stunned that there were so many people — especially some I really liked — who had responded well to the series and changed their ways.
So all that to say: the people listed on here have had their chance to avoid their placement on…
The Wall of Shame
The qualifications for placement on the list are three-fold (and I make only one exception, and you’ll understand why shortly):
They choose to disable Pangram AI-scanning on one or more of their public posts.
When one scans the text of the article then it reveals anything less than 100% human-written authorship. (Individuals who disable Pangram but still write their articles entirely themselves made up roughly 5% of all the Substacks found in this investigation which block AI scanning. They were not included, even though their excuses for disabling Pangram were as ignorant and confused as the other 95%. But it’s OK to be a stupid writer. It’s not OK to be a lying writer)
The individual has failed to respond properly when confronted, either ignoring, arguing, rationalizing, gaslighting, deleting comments, or ultimately with blocking. Yes, I am playing the role of Pangram AI Police Chief here. People who respond properly when pulled over will get off with a warning.
Here is the breakdown of the various categories of individuals who have chosen to continue publishing with Pangram disabled (or who have yet to provide any confirmation they intend to stop):
Left-Wing BS Merchants: 20
Right-Wing BS Merchants: 3
Religious BS Merchants: 4
New Age BS Merchants: 4
Zionist BS Merchants: 3
Cultural BS Merchants: 12
Technology BS Merchants: 6
I noted this huge ideological disparity in the findings previously. There are nearly seven times as many left-wing Substacks I’ve found so far which do this compared to those on right.
Why is this?
While I have my suspicions and personal opinions about psychological tendencies among left-wing people, I’m not entirely sure yet.
Obviously, the general tendency on this list across topics, is that people will disable Pangram so that their readers will think more of highly of them by not knowing the extent they rely on LLMs to help them. Perhaps that need is more prominent among left-wing people than right-wing? I went out of my way to hunt for right-wing substacks to try and offset this disparity, but these are all I’ve found so far. It seems like perhaps right-wingers maybe just aren’t as embarrassed about helping use AI to write? They’re still using it too, but they just don’t feel a need to hide it.
I really don’t have a large enough sample size yet to draw any broader conclusions. The investigation will proceed. The War on Bullshit must continue.
This will be an evolving list and each time it is updated to add or remove people then it will be noted. Many categories and regions of Substack still requite deep sea exploration. So anticipate new categories emerging, including by splitting up categories as they grow larger and trends emerge within them.
If you want to see the evidence for why these individuals are on the list then please consult the previous two articles in this series, linked above.
19 Left-Wing BS Merchants
1. Adam Kinzinger
2. Hope for America with Heather Delaney Reese
3. Mike Brock - Notes from the Circus [Blocked me.]
4. Dean Blundell
5. The Warning with Steve Schmidt
6. The David Pakman Show
7. Hunter Biden - Where’s Hunter?
8. Christopher Hale - Letters from Leo
9. Endless Emergency with Mike Nellis
10. Andrew Springer - The Jesus Movement [Blocked me.]
11. Jermaine Fowler - The Humanity Archive
12. Really American
13. Democratic Wins Media
14. I Fucking Love Australia
15. Nikki Davidson - The Northern Watch [Blocked me.]
16. Amanda Nelson - Amanda’s Mild Takes [Blocked me.]
17. Feral America
18. V Spehar - Under the Desk News
19. Marlon Weems - The Journeyman
20. Rev. Benjamin R. Cremer [Blocked me.]*
Rev. Benjamin R. Cremer here is the only person included on this list who did not originally disable Pangram on his 100% AI-generated piece. Thus, I had no intention of including him here until he decided to do all this today which you’ll see more than qualifies him:
Following our exchange and his decision to block me, Rev. Cremer chose to delete the entire piece:
Yeah, that’s not suspicious at all.
However, he already sent the piece out via email, so I now have a permanent copy of it forever whe he cannot delete. I didn’t even need to use Pangram to tell this was totally 100% AI. You can see it within the first four sentences:
That “we call,” one-line structure is a key tell. Real people don’t write that way.
Reverend, when I was a teenage Evangelical inspired by the late Rev. Billy Graham, I thought our God wanted me to walk your path to preach from the pulpit. Instead, He guided me down a much more painful path of becoming the counter-terror investigative journalist, indie publisher, and now AI training expert equipped with the skills to call out murderers, warmongers, and false prophets such as you.
The Lord God of Israel loves everyone and calls us to do the same. We are all His children and we are all one family. We are all brothers and sisters.
Your left-wing Christianity is every bit as much a heresy as the right-wing Christianity you condemn.
We need to use both of our arms to hug and embrace our brothers and sisters.
Speaking of false prophets, there are a good many more to come…
3 Right-Wing BS Merchants
20. Restoring the West by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
21. From the Frontline by Emily Schrader [Blocked me.]
22. Ned Ryun - American Leviathan
4 Religious BS Merchants
23. John Andersen PhD - Tipping Point Prophecy Update
24. Stranger Theology
25. Michael S. Heiser Foundation [Blocked me.]
26. Rabbi Steven Abraham
4 New Age BS Merchants
27. The Hood Healer
28. The Wise Wolf [Blocked me.]
29. Damien Echols [Blocked me.]
30. Demi Pietchell - The Starfire Codes [Blocked me.]
3 Zionist BS Merchants
31. Daniel Mael - The Mael Review [Blocked me.]
32. Yisrael M. Eliashiv - Magen Yehudi
33. Hussein Aboubakr Mansour - The Abrahamic Metacritique
12 Cultural BS Merchants
34. James Lucas - Beauty is Truth
35. Everything Happens with Kate Bowler
36. Marc Friedman
37. Shannon Bindler - The Flow [Blocked me.]
38. Yuri Minamide - Japan Uncovered [Blocked me.]
39. The News Today, Oh Boy
40. The Style Edit
41. The Human Project
42. Richard Cooper - The Unplugged Alpha
43. Scarlett Longstreet - Happy Enough
44. Tim Denning - Modern Freedom [Blocked me from commenting.]
45. Stoic Wisdoms [Blocked Me]
6 Technology BS Merchants
46. Chamath Palihapitiya
47. Azeem Azhar - Exponential View
48. Damnang Research
49. Ruben Dominguez - the AI Corner
50. Peter H. Diamandis - Metatrends
51. The AI Pixel
Conclusion: Forgiveness
Let’s wrap up with four very relevant Merriam-Webster dictionary definitions, the first of which opened this initial investigation into Substackers who choose to attempt to conceal their AI plagiarism:
If someone takes an output from an an LLM and presents it to others with the claim they wrote it themselves then that counts as plagiarism.
And plagiarism is the Cardinal Sin of writing.
Any writer who deliberately engages in it should not be respected by other writers. They are the equivalent of a doctor sued for malpractice after injuring a patient or a lawyer who has engaged in unethical behavior which provokes disbarrment.
They are doing literary shoplifting. Which is worse: stealing a $5 candy bar or stealing somebody else’s writing so you can then sell it for hundreds or even thousands of dollars? Or even use that writing to fraudulently earn degrees?
People who engage in crimes or professional ethical offenses should feel shame for what they’ve done:
However, there is a simple cure for shame, and surely Rev. Benjamin R. Cremer knows it very well:
As stated at the beginning: anyone who wishes to have their name removed from The Wall of Shame simply needs to contact me in public or private and let me know they’re not going to disable Pangram any more. And that’s it. Their name gets erased immediately.
All sins can be forgiven, all shame can be washed away, and every hidden truth will eventually be revealed.
