Update: I just added the above screenshot. To repeat, this blog entry wasn't actually about Ron. That ship has sailed. What I find most interesting about the above is his attack on donkeytale. And yes, Ron is annihilated-banned. He is on a supertroll level way beyond the one I received from maryscott at My Left Wing. Nothing he posts will be allowed in the comments. I'm not looking for any scoop on his big brouhaha with WeinerFace in the hotel bar. That concludes this update from the prepostericity news network.
prelude:
Hey guys! This blog entry actually has nothing to do with Anthony Weiner. I needed a photo for the top. They make the articles look better if by chance they make it to the right side greatest hits widget.
And this also has nothing to do with "Ron Brynaert who is not a friend of mine." I did notice that Ron has a new diary thingie in which he describes recently meeting with Weiner for an interview in a New York City hotel bar. It is wicked bizarre. It is extremely surreal. So much weird stuff happens on the net. Track it down if you must. If true, it sounded like two verbal abusers were going toe to toe. I will not link to Ron and advise anyone visiting his website to use a proxy.
The Main Blog Entrée:
This is where we have all congregated to have the last bit of free soul extinguished. Have no doubts. This is a criminal society from the top down. Marshall McLuhan shared with us the ultimate warning. He said the medium is the message. What that boils down to is that content no longer matters. The cult of personality and its evoking of authority is all that remains.
The internet was pushed by Habermas as being a potential steering device for positive or negative social change. I am not a big fan of his, but he did nail that point. Wittgenstein said everything can be reduced to a game and he was also correct. There is on the one hand the everyday wonder of nature. There is both a spiritual and material component to existence. The former is not a game. It simply is. Those who don't try to master it are able to live in harmony. They are Rousseau's noble savages. The corollary represents that the more one tries to master social reality, the further one will be removed from experiencing inner tranquility and nature.
There are other corollaries one can surmise from sincerely observing and reflecting on social reality. Some of them are even well-known. For example, there is the saying it's not what you know but who you know which makes all the difference. I suppose a related adage is that it's not who votes which counts, but rather who is doing the counting. Many believe Stalin once said that.
I do not believe that our votes are being illegally processed. If the people want Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nominee, he will win the nomination and then in all likelihood skate easily by any wackadoo nominated from the other side of the political aisle. We shall put other factors to the side such as gerrymandering, the denying of certain people of their right to vote, the lack of voting machines in areas that lean left, etc.. Those are real factors but not the most influential. Our collective problem is much more serious than all that. The problem starts from the moment we are born into this world and then programmed as to how to think and what to think about. As to everything else, e.g. environmental and social justice, those profound topics are left for random nobodies we won't ever see interviewed on CNN.
There is certainly always going to be some resistance with the internet providing each of us with a free publishing service. This had to be the rationale behind Habermas' initial optimism. He could see like McLuhan before him that the computer was going to become a major influence on social reality. What is a medium? In its most simplest and probably most accepted form, it is known as mass media. Its roots are in the Gutenberg printing press. Its roots are in the telephone. While the enclosure acts of the 1300's herded folks into cities ushering in the onset of modernity, the printing press and later the telegraph, radio and cinema truly made the world much smaller. The internet is the accumulation of all the technological advances. It turned the medium as we had known it into a less objectified experience. Picture the change that took place when one could use a remote control to change television channels. Folks no longer had to view commercials. They could see what else was on.
Of course by merely changing the channel, one is still nothing more than a listener object. The internet is fundamentally different. It's the difference between sitting for a lecture with three hundred other students and one with only ten. The latter allows for one to ask questions. It is a more informal setting in which the teacher can see and interact with a manageable student count. We are talking about the fundamental difference between being a couch potato and having the power to discuss and shape the potato's evolving.
While the internet has certainly provided us with the appearance of having greater power and influence, it is offset by the very nature of authority. The ptb's of the previous medium have simply moved a big chunk of their operations from old-school devices such as television and newsprint onto this contraption referred to as social media. It is definitely more messy here. In the olden days, one could perhaps write a letter to the editor. Nowadays one can write up a blog entry and with a little luck, such a creation will reach masses of individuals. Yet, don't bet on it.
There is the illusion that with more options, progressive ideas are more apt to emerge. On the surface, that is what has actually taken place. Anonymous and Occupied Wall Street are two prominent examples. The former has become or was from close to its beginning a honeypot for the Military-Industrial Complex. The latter has transformed itself into the Bernie Sanders Movement.
This is the problem. The medium as explained by Herbert Marcuse will always side with the bad guys whenever there is so-called freedom of expression. He argued that we need to be intolerant of such a rigged game. The first Democratic Party debate is a current example which may help one to see what Marcuse meant. For all intents and purposes, Sanders won the debate. And he will win any future type interactions with Hillary Clinton a priori based on their past positions.
Hillary won in the way a boxing champion often holds onto the belt despite getting his arse kicked.
We must look beyond what we perceive as the medium (television, radio, cinema, newsprint, internet, et al) and add education to the equation. As much as our conventional definition of medium has much to blame for this horrid mess of a society, core institutions can also be defined as mediums. They form the totality of all that we share. While there are certainly wide rifts between the excellence of one school juxtaposed with a bad one, we all go through the same K-12 cradle to adulthood processing. And processing it is, from those early years of being brainwashed into saying the Pledge of Allegiance all the way through high school.
If one did any research at all, one would find so much real dirt on Hillary. I'm not talking about Breitbart styled attacks. I remember when those same people went after Bill Clinton. Forget all that vast right wing conspiracy chatter talk. It's all fake from both sides. Look at actual Hillary moves. She was against gay marriage in 2013. She voted for the Iraq War. She even remains steadfast against the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. The only reason Hillary has made so many recent flip-flops is because Bernie caught on as an old-school populist. She changed her mind on the trade pact and Keystone for only one reason: Bernie Sanders.
We have been told to vote for neoliberals because the alternative is a Republican president. The line of thought is akin to Ralph Nader being evil, that if only those fools voting for Ralph had gone for Al Gore, so much of our current mess would look quite different for the better. I do agree with that. I voted for Ralph Nader in a state that Al Gore had in his back pocket. My vote was a protest vote. If GW was competing in Massachusetts, I would have voted for Al, not Ralph. One other time, I voted for Jesse Jackson. I wouldn't be following this election so closely if there were no Bernie or Elizabeth Warren.
This is what I am unwilling to accept. If Hillary is coronated, I will not vote for her. The deal is supposed to be that politics is the art of the possible, thus always make sure to cast your vote for the lesser of two evils. It is too late in the game for our society. Greece has had its drama. England just voted in its version of a lefier-than-thou and he seems to be making big time waves. It should now be our turn. I am not blind as many also aren't and we can see that Hillary in unauthentic, manipulative, and only out for herself. She is part of the 1%. Her ascendancy without a corresponding Democratic Party victory rout across the board will bring us into an immediate gridlock. She cannot help pull that off. She is part and parcel of the establishment. While a Bernie victory doesn't guarantee a nationwide push towards progressivism, it would be a nice start. With Hillary, there is no hope of a political revolution. With Bernie, there is.
The social theorists I read in my college days were quite cynical. Unlike Hillary Clinton, they never needed to evolve. They devoted their whole lives to understanding society and pointing it towards fixing itself. If Hillary wins, and currently it looks good for her, I will wash my hands of all of it. Hillary Clinton is winning because people are stupid. Too many people are weak and never pushed back against their formal indoctrination. I am thoroughly upset with anyone who would vote for Hillary over Bernie. Are we supposed to go for the lesser of two evils or not? A Hillary win over Sanders would be cheating, period.
There's not one bit of difference between the Americans who vote in our politicians and the Good Germans who formed the bedrock for Nazi authoritarianism. If not for the grace of God it's said that I shan't walk in those shoes. Or to take from an episode of Seinfeld, you think you're better than me? Do you really think we are any different from the Germans who enabled Hitler? There are brutal truths to this world and one of them is that America is reprehensible and that includes all of us.
Maybe things need to get worse until people take more responsibility with their votes.
The Democratic Party nomination process this specific year is a litmus test for our collective soul. If Hillary wins, we are truly fucked. That you can bet on.
~~~
Death by Internet:
I stumbled across a tragic story of another unarmed person being assassinated by police. It was a white kid only seventeen.
Michigan teen's family files federal lawsuit over fatal traffic-stop shooting
And interviews with Guilford's father and girlfriend revealed that the teen had become strongly focused on YouTube videos of police encounters, the prosecutor said.
"They said that Deven's focus on these videos was recent, sudden, out of the ordinary, and may have influenced Deven in this traffic stop," Lloyd wrote in the report.A shallow loser will say the kid had it coming to him. I think a cowardly cop yet again took the easy way out. It's too bad the kid didn't simply hand over his license. That's where the death by internet part comes into it. Deven got fixated on watching confrontations with police. It sounds like he was especially influenced by the ones which show "freedom fighters" asking if they are being detained and if they are free to go. People need to better pick their battles. It's good to be ready to go with a video phone and know your rights. And I am not letting the cop off the hook. There's something in this world called nuance and complexities. Yet, rather than young people being taught critical thinking skills and how to become a responsible adult, they are teaching to the tests.
Hillary's Weight:
I am not sure I should go there, but here goes. I am guessing she is 100 pounds overweight. I would not be concerned with her weight if not for the fact that she is filthy rich with no excuses. It is symbolic of how fat her whole life is beyond her physical body.
From her interview with Jake Tapper:
I am basing the 100 pound number on before and after photos of a Canadian girl who lost 100 pounds.
They look to be similar. Perhaps the girl weighed a bit more than Hillary. But Hillary hides it. I learned over the Summer into NBA preseason that Jared Sullinger was also able to hide his weight in some kind of body suit. It looked like he was rounding into shape. It was a mirage.
I am going to guess Hillary weighs 200 pounds. The Daily Mail said that girl weighed 223. Hillary looks like she could lose forty pounds and still have forty more to shed.
I lost 25 pounds over the last several months. I want to lose another ten. I did have a tire forming, but it was nowhere close to what Hillary has.
It is difficult to lose weight. It takes tremendous discipline. It takes both an exercise and diet plan. People are so heavy in our country that I hadn't realised how much I had ballooned. I love life. I want to be around for as long as I can. I don't want diabetes or any other health issues that can arise due to not taking care of one's material body. I am not rich and cannot afford a personal trainer, dietitian, and chef. What is Hillary's excuse other than being extremely obese for spirituality?
I guess it all makes sense she is probably the next president. There are a lot of fat fuck faces in this country. The majority of people are brainwashed morons. I wash my hands of them to go with the Democratic Party.
39 comments:
Canada just took a hard left turn. Hillary would be a paid fake left turn. That's my counterpunch.
Brilliant, Best most cogent Socrates entry in awhile. Thanks for this excellent analysis.
I would not even consider this one mailed in but a formal academic exposition that is neither shrill nor emotional. It is a succinct rendering of your evolution. I might quibble in a few places but more in the vein of shades of truth rather than falsities versus truth,. There is not a false note in this masterpiece.
I might say that social media gives us an illusion of making a difference but we remain objectified in the one most important sense. Yes we are subjective to each other and our 12 readers but to the people who take the counts, gather the differing herds into online ghettos under respective socio political battle flags and own the machines we are merely cogs, slaves in a certain sense, addicts in another sense.
Are we changing the zeitgeist? I think so though strictly within our circumscribed online communities where it is proven the group controls the mindset of the individuals within that herd while imposing a certain trend towards the farthest edge of radicalization but inside a bubble that expands outward but seldom if ever breaks free and meaningfully engages the broken society at large, which can no longer be defined as a body politic, an intersecting roadway where different ideas intersect and meld into compromises which are the way in which politics have worked for centuries. Today, thanks to the medium, we are on totally different roads that seldom if ever interrelate, les and less as the polarize bubbles float apart.
Bernie is OWS that much is true. To the extent he can become BLM too lies his ultimate chance. I disagree that either OWS or BLM has been co-opted. Exploited by individuals and parties, yes. Co-opted as movements or more importantly as ideas? No. Both remain inside a bubble but crucially both broke through the online ghetto and out into the streets where the influence of their ideas became dangerous and threatening in the sense that forces those inside opposing bubble are forced to confront and react.
Bernie movement must itself get outside the bubble as the Bern himself boldly has done. We must force outside our own bubbles in order to help coalesce.
The medium is more than the media. We disagree there too. The political system itself is a medium much greater and more important than media or social media. The current trend of the social media towards insular bubbles of opposing thought that seldom synthesize as the founding fatheads had envisioned is a damaging, negative corrosive unintended (perhaps)result of this internet thingie which has yet to be transcended and may in fact never be overcome until we have a majority Buddha society that frees itself from the machinations of the medium.
I this possible or naively optimistic on my part
And on the other side of the political divide we have the same phenomena encased in separate bubbles. The growing polarity has brought about a crisis within the traditional medium of democratic governing systems, one in fact that may be irredeemable.
Is Canada a hard left turn as Greece? Or is it a phenomena akin to Obama mania in 2008 or Syriza more recently which foundered on the shores of political reality that the opposition including within their own party helped stifle the exuberance of the initial wave?
Time will tell. The election is only the first step. The real battle must be joined post-election by the broader bubble which must be transcended into a greater societal awakening. Unfortunately human nature takes these breakthroughs and tends to complacency as if the job is done once the election happens.
This is not how it is in reality the next stage of battle after the election is where change could occur but the forces of evil have more organization, money and resources to battle back. And they never ever quite the battle before during and after the election, win or loose.
I cant
I can't minimize the role the internet has played in creating gridlock that seems intractable in this the age of the infotainment warriors.
In fact one may look at the political system itself as the best illustration of what McLuhan and Tale posit in our related thesis.
The medium of the US system was designed by the founding fathers in such a way that a baked in result should always occur. Their message: avoid excesses on either side of the political spectrum and reach for compromise.
They created the medium to enshrine the message for all time. Today that message is breaking down thanks in large part to the social media, a competing medium wherein the idea of polarity and extremism, herdism and avoidance of compromise and interaction with opposites is baked in and to the extent these processes infect the body politc are doing real damage to the political process.
There were a few diction problems. I noticed one typo in which I mixed up in and is. I decided not to correct it. Why overthink one letter being off?
That was pretty much free form writing. It was like Bernie Sanders. He says the same things over and over again also from no script.
I actually did mail this one in. I slipped in some big names. Those were poser styled moments.
This was written the way Mandy Nagy would have suggested. I tried to minimise the shenanigans. I also wanted to feed the blog and move us beyond the awkwardness of the last comment thread.
I wanted to come out quite often and say Biden wasn't running. I wanted to guarantee it. Those are risky. If you predict something, then one can always fudge the data into making some fuzzy math. The vernacular calls it moving the goalposts.
I think the Biden story only hurts Bernie short-term. Hillary will continue for at least a while to emit an insurmountable 20-30 point coronation margin of error.
Long-term this helps Bernie in the way Matthews claimed or how your scoop put it. This also lines up with my general schtick of early and often claiming this was a two person race.
You were quick to point out Amerikkka is requesting a better Bernie socialism explanation schtick. Meanwhile, as Hillary hides her runaway obesity within funky looking clothes, she is short-term climbing off the back of the vast right-wing conspiracy schadenfreude.
What a moron that dude was gloating about dropping Hillary's poll numbers with Benghazi smears. Bernie actually has been clobbering Hillary the last couple days. Biden called out Hillary I believe for her obsession with Republicans. And Bernie concurred or something in an interview. I obviously skimmed through this story, but that's what I think the skeleton is. It's what I meant by that Hillary will create gridlock on day one of the first hundred. I don't know if this makes me prescient. Maybe the word prescient is being overused. But something has happened with Biden that transcends how the medium presents it. Bernie has taken advantage of it. Though no one knows except for these polls which use different techniques, etc. giving us a rough estimation on wtf is going on for true numbers and trajectories.
We don't look prescient saying Bernie and Hillary were tied. You actually backed off of that lately with a caveat. I would say a general peanut gallery comment that often emerges says it best. No one knows or knew who Bernie was. Only some of us did. He didn't come out of nowhere and is why he quickly solidified second place.
I don't recall anyone saying Webb and Chafee are losers and wasting space. That was nice for Bernie. O'Malley being inept or wtf has been a major boon. He easily could have chopped ten points off of Bernie. Biden has only been helping Sanders in polls in that he is obviously closer to Hillary than Bernie. Politics 101, I suppose.
(continued)
Long-term, though, this means Hillary has five more debates to sweat through. I think Bernie got hurt with his inexperience. But it's not like he is a minor league politician.
"I might say that social media gives us an illusion of making a difference but we remain objectified in the one most important sense. ..."
I am not so sure we can be classified as cogs. While it appears we will always be amateurs personally, we are not propping up anything. And the amateur classification only works in regards to one gets what they pay for. We do this for free. Fairleft is a cog. You don't post anymore at firedoglake, so I don't think your analysis hold up over time.
Marisacat was a cog for a very small herd. I don't believe there has ever been a herd here. There have been moments. Myself and TLNL used to do the tag team wrestling schtick similar to ours here. The big difference is he had his own place.
I am pretty much a unique individual with a free soul. It may get tormented at times, but it has never needed to evolve. It has been kicking back from day one asking what is the meaning of life.
Your overall point, however, does stand the test of reason. In general, people are herded. There is an initial rush feeling that one can be part of something bigger than our individual mundane existences. It is a bait and switch or it's a there's no there, there situation.
We are all waiting for the next big thing that dominates the zeitgeist.
"The medium is more than the media. We disagree there too. The political system itself is a medium much greater and more important than media or social media. ..."
It most certainly is. Maybe you misread it. I think mass media is the clearest and most simple definition for the medium. The whole system is dependent on it.
Maybe you are correct we are cogs. Like look at those harmless, goofy potheads with their grand idealism. The wa Mandy treated me, like look at that cutie lefty man child I should protect from Rauhauser .... or maybe he works for him!
That's the weird stuff I'm talking about.
Did you see Ron hooked up with Anthony Weiner?
I lost my train of thought.
I had big plans for a response.
I simply might not have it in me any longer to evolve as a writer and alas, some may be better off reading elsewhere.
The medium is everything.
On teacher lesson plans they forced us to fill out, there was always a big box for medium.
The medium could be my being a blowhard.
It could be rewarding the "kids" with a relevant movie.
(continued)
"They created the medium to enshrine the message for all time. Today that message is breaking down thanks in large part to the social media, a competing medium wherein the idea of polarity and extremism, herdism and avoidance of compromise and interaction with opposites is baked in and to the extent these processes infect the body politic are doing real damage to the political process."
The medium is HAL 9000 or Big Brother or all those left wing hippy academic ideas that have been proven correct. The word capitalism is a funny one. That one the MEDIUM does not want to lose.
There is reason to be a little optimistic. Though I truly imagine Bernie or bust is the truth. Whatever time is, it will pass. If it's Hillary, we're done. It will be more of the same. Bernie has a sense of urgency. Bernie is one of us. He read all the books we did but like us was not up to snuff to become an old-school scholar. He obviously got good at politics.
This Biden/Bernie/Hillary relationship with Republicans could be a turning point. Bernie needs to stick around 10-15% behind nationally and fight harder in Iowa and New Hampshire. He absolutely has to crush the next debate. It also behooves him to slide in more of those anti-Hillary remarks into his interviews.
He has to make it clear as punch that while he won't refer to Hillary as a buffoon, he will infer it. He is clearly not a sheepherder and is definitely working his butt off in an "in it to win it" fashion.
This one I rattled out and won't even proofread.
Hillary Clinton is getting her ass chewed out by some wingnut on live t.v.. You'd think OJ killed his wife and was on some slow speed chase. This is compelling t.v. for something I have no clue about. Most of the bumps lately are for her because of things like this. We need some juicy scandal not wingnut fabricated to stick on her. She's made of teflon. She can take a pounding.
I meant to say I have a Celtics game on soon and dinner to attend to, but I like having this stuff on in the background. Hillary's holding back from screaming out stfu wackadoo Breitbart right wing fascist uptight loser on wrong side of herstory. Both sides suck is my call. I also heard Hillary never sweats, so there is no indicator there. She is getting grilled. I wish I had a clue. If I had to guess, she was probably quite a moron as secretary of state. These wingnuts are no better than Chafee, Webb, and O'Malley taking up space and wasting our time. They need to cough up some good proof or find something good on the Clinton Foundation. The enemy of our enemy can definitely be our friends, but if they are putting lipstick on a pig hoax, this is the kind of crap letting Hillary stop the political death spiral bleeding.
Something's Happening 1967
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFNo-w_3LJU
"A documentary chronicling the "youth movement" of the late '60s on Los Angeles' Sunset Strip and San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district."
I don't think you've ever been shy about your age. Sorry if this is getting too personal, but I imagine you weren't old enough yet to partake in the time slot for this documentary.
So you were basically still a kid in school when the hippies emerged. They were your older siblings, so to speak.
I was Generation X. We were the ones who were too young in the 70's to truly have experienced it. Immense and sudden medium changes are fascinating.
I could see socialism working in this country. It would be amazing. You'd have to fire everyone across the board in police, military, and school administrators. If you took the greatest 100 leftier-than-thous and put them into total political power, this mess could be cleaned up very quickly.
Bernie is the omen that America needs a political revolution. And I'm also willing to double down on "chemtrails." And the "conspiracy stories." Maybe in 50-100 years a whippersnapper can document how prescient both of us truly were. Maybe someday we will be entered into some sort of greatness category. Maybe there will be two whippersnappers who claim they are our reincarnations.
What was the question?
Yes, I did not come of age in the sense of roaming the streets and being among the counterculture until 1969. I was a sophomore-junior in HS. Hippie purists often define the Summer of Love proper (1967) in San Francisco as the sum total or at least the zenith and beginning of the end of the movement that started a few years earlier as a sort of appendage to the Beat Movement of the 50s which also was based in SF. Hippies were Beatniks into rock n roll instead of jazz/literature. Once the media discovered Haight Ashbury and the tour buses came rolling through the hippies started moving on.
Some trace it back to the Merry Pranksters/Ken Kesey LSD experiments that included the Dead as house band. These took place in 1964-67 I believe.
LA had an offshoot of the Hippie culture in Hollywood Laurel Canyon/Sunset Strip.
One of my best friends had an older sister (hot) who quit high school and ran away to Hollywood when she was like 16. She met a guy and they eventually moved to the Big Bear mountain resort area northeast of LA in the San Bernardino mountains.
You may be familiar with this area as the scene of capture/suicide of that rogue LA PD cop a few years ago. Dorner I believe his name was.
Anyway, my friend' sister was really cool. As she got a bit older, in the mid 70s or so she reconciled with her parents and started hanging out wit us. Her boyfriend was a Jesus look alike (Italian painting version) and he was actually a carpenter too. We used to call him "The Christ" behind his back.
They seemed world weary and bored with life, jaded but not affectational and stuck up like many hippies. Hippies were mostly spoiled middle aged college kids or dropouts, primarily white. I never had much use for them. It was clearly a phony movement for the most part. I was a barrio white rat, working class and mostly into the political scene at the young age. Hippies were apolitical, more into the utopian commune as opposed to communism.
By the early 70s long hair on dudes and dope smoking was a regular feature of a majority of high school and college age kids at least in California. Were we hippies? In a broad brush sense yes but not to the mid 60s purists.
Sadly, both of these two died within a few months of each other from heroin overdoses. I guess some too pure junk had made its way into Big Bear and they ended up victims. Late 20s both of them.
Peter Coyote the movie actor of the 80s was a Digger, which was sort of the Haight service community organization that got people fed and sheltered when they showed up in summer of 67.
I recall Coyote penned a critical response to the infamous Matt Stoller Salon piece in 2012 that I also excoriated in FDL. Stoller is an idiot who has now been thoroughly discredited by Bernie's inside the party campaign. If he is still being published anywhere I haven't seen it.
Coyote is or was a good actor, I guess. Leading man type.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers_(theater)
"middle class" not "middle aged".
Hillary has definitely escaped the negative feedback loop. At the risk of re-starting a stale argument neither wants to have, I must note that Silver was 100% correct about this. I still disagree with them about Bernie's ultimate chances. However my 50-50 did come with the caveat that he win NH and Iowa (or at least come very close in Iowa). This is based on zeitgeist theory. It also assumed that Hillary would keep gaining weight, er I mean remain stuck in negative footprints.
I stand by the 50-50 until we see what happens in those primaries. Momentum is a huge part of zeitgeist theory and the momentum in silly season is short lived and meaningless until the votes start being taken.
Silver himself said this week we are in the top of the second inning. Our mistake could have been in counting Bernie's recent momentum gains as being 6-7th inning that is more meaningful than reality suggests at this early stage.
Frankly, these hearings helped Hillary more than the debate by far. The Republicans are udder morons.
Yes analysis to be credible must contain caveats. Otherwise you speak from fantasy land. The world is knowable but the future I unknown.
I enjoyed this piece. Perhaps it is f]of the mailed in entry genre but I like when you get away from the personality attacks and go theoretical.
Maybe that doesn't draw the eyeballs but I think it shows you in a much better and more intelligent light, especially when you get away from repeating the paid fake/useful idiot schtick. I think that could be retired with only occasional useage when the shoe obviously fits in a meaningful way.
In a broad sense everyone everywhere is one of those at least part of the time. Bernie himself looked like one during the debate. Clearly, he is batting for Team Demotard.
Weiner is a shmuck but I could do me some Huma.
That has to be some type of beard marriage, similar to Bill and Hill. I suspect both may have a taste for the ladeez.
Strictly platonically of course. And I could be wong.
Hard as it is to believe, not everything is about sex, even though Freud was correct IMHO that at base everything IS about sex and or the repression of same.
My belief is that Freud's greatest works especially Civilisation and its Discontents booth underpins and undermines social theorists who came later. He renders social theory rather banal because he understood that it all comes back to the individual at the end of the day.
I think that is one of the reasons he is so hated. Everybody in that field is obscured by his genius and no matter how brilliant they can never succeed him no matter what they come up with.
This is similar in respects to Einstein and physics, religion and Gautama, philosophy and Nietszche.
Some people just nail it right out of the gate and pretty much own the genre foever and ever.
We will always disagree about the importance of the social media to some degree.
You say we as lowly individuals stand apart and I say balderdash. Brilliant as we can be at times we are still circumscribed within the polarized bubbles which is the intent (the conspiracy) of the medium itself.
You wish to qualify and I agree that we can can do at a certain level within our milieu but the chances of breaking out and rising above the medium is impossible.
Content at the end of the day is meaningless.
The real effect that counts is the polarization that divides the masses into ineffectuality and mutually assured meaninglessness on both sides.
At the end of the day the action must be physical and material and the conspiracy helps to ensure that will never occur.
The truly terrifying prospect is that the medium will soon be AI and robotic warfare. Humans will be in the Brave New World milieu of irrelevance as described by Huxley eons ago.
No I am no longer proffreading so apologies. Hoepfully the drift will still come through the ugly botched prosity forelry known as mispelicism.
Yes, there is an inner battle in the thinker/comic's mind that shapes the schtick. If one goes to the wrong Lenny Bruce clip, for example, they may end up asking where's the comedy? Like with Bill Maher and Jon Stewart going all serious.
Proofreading is for loooosers or for main entries. I have dropped expectations and pressure on myself for online writing. If I can nail greatness in a sentence or two, I am happy. The whole piece or most of it doesn't have to be outstanding. But if I can deliver one solid paragraph, I reach my goal.
Content in general is meaningless. There are exceptions, however. Bernie versus Hillary seems to represent that content doesn't matter.
Take Hillary. She could have deliberately killed a cat as a teenager which would have shown she is a psychopath. The medium directs we the people to admonish her for denying the event. But as soon as she admits she killed the cat, that it was wrong, and that she has evolved. we are all back in her camp 100%. This is the psychology of medium which is dominated by the power elite which is not a reflection of society but rather a manipulation of said society.
The manufactured zeitgeist is saying wow, what a great week and month for the Queen-elect. Content, schmontent. So in that respect, you are correct.
I know what you mean with the phrase silly season. They use that one for the NBA when there are windows for trades. If speculating about politics at this point is silly, then imagine all the looooosers on sports forums making trade suggestions. My suggestion to them is to stfu.
Ron said fuck you to you, donkeytale, too, both of us and not just our good imaginary friend Anthony Weiner. Then he deleted it. But it's screenshot above for your drama flamefest pleasure. Maybe he made an unforced error attacking yourself. I vindicated you as being a regular guy internet addict. There's a lot of vindication to go around. Maybe Ron will evolve, quit the Hal Turner gig if that's what it is, and evolve like Hillary.
LOL. OK, no problem. I did see where Ron was recently published in a conservative law journal with his attack on Hilliary schtick.
So good for him. I'm sure his mood will improve if he gains regular free lance work.
As for your arguments vis a vis the Media influence I would say your examples simply bolster my arguments.
The media didn't play the people during the Iraq War run-up. They reflected the people, who were also duped by the Bush Administration ("medium") who provided false information. Congress was also duped.
Don't forget, an overwhelming majority of the Amerikkkan sheeple supported the incursion, just as they initially support all Amerikkkan war-making misadventures.
So yes, the media reflected the sheeple
Alex Jones? LOL. Seriously?
You might as well mention Rush since he actually has a sizeable audience (I think) who do echo his thoughts.
Or does his popularity stem from the fact that he echoes their thoughts? It is symbiotic, DT said again. But it is an echo chamber and those sheeple aren't making any headway except to their impending graves.
These are pure infotainers of a distinctive sort, true but they are not the "Media". Just like Orson Wells, whose great Halloween trick or tweet in 1938 or wtf you cite as one example from 77 years ago that supposedly proves your contention?
C'mon man. I have this one nailed. Besides this an old argument of the fake left going back years. I have mucho experience parrying these thrusts. Basically, what you are saying is you want the media to reflect you and when it doesn't you blame them. Sigh.
Alex Jones lives in a well-paying bubble funded by his relatively few internet junkie admirers in CT paranoia. It takes 58 million or so votes to be elected presidit.
I'm pretty sure 99.9% of those voters have no idea who Alex Jones even is much less are swayed by his schtick.
You're making a botch out of my comments from the other thread. In the olden days, you would be referred to as a gink for doing so. Yet, it's okay. You were obviously just checking in with a mailed-in comment that you perhaps felt would be definitive. That's fine. It's what Hillary is up to. It's called a coronation. You want to be coronated as King Contrarian.
I do like that you have caught onto the word bubble. It is an amazing one and it's a bit confusing why we have never used it before. Hopefully it has become circumscribed into our shared schtick part.
Maybe Ron is mad at you from one of those troll wars entries in which you attacked him for being creepy in real life in regards to Aaron Worthing Walker.
I imagine you've yet to read Ron's entry on his meeting up with Anthony Weiner. I don't blame you. While it's easier to believe Ron simply has anger management issues, he's just been a little too close to big arsed Hal Turner internet projects. And while there is doubt about whether he is a paid fake or useful idiot, it is likely that most rational people are not going to want to risk anything by visiting his blog.
You're good at political chatter. I am fascinated by Bernie's moves over this last week. It looked like everything had become kosher in the coronation universe. Hillary was becoming LeBron who along with Dwyane Wade (David Brock?) began whooping it up against Dallas before the fat lady had sung.
That is where my head is at right now. The Maddow event is very soon. I know you are very busy, so I forgive you for not responding proper to my comments from yesterday.
I may be an amateur political analyst, but heck yeah, it is fun to do.
In addition to attacking Hillary for being a numbnut, Bernie has also hired a polling company to figure out how to reach the Black man.
One thing I have noticed throughout the years is that elections tend to tighten no matter what. The natural evolution of Bernie versus Hillary should follow that same path.
And I see that Iowa has meant squat for electing Republicans. I am not sure how that works for the Democratic Party side. So the Ben Carson good news is meaningless. Right now it is still Trump's nomination to lose.
I think Carson is too soft-spoken. He used those words. Months ago I referred to him as milquetoast. Trump likes to use the phrase low energy. It was also fun to see that Shreb Bush's brain is near ready to explode. He responded to a reporter with blah blah blah. I mean literally or figuratively or whichever the fock is the word for actuality in essence.
I don't think Bernie needs to win S. Carolina, but like you said about Texas, Bernie has to still fight for some respectability in those dumbass states.
I'd rather talk about the election than our malformed debate on the media's influence on social reality. Maybe I will write up a full entry in the future fleshing out better my angle on the latter. I don't know why you go out of your way to protect media people who are scumbags and idiots.
Oh, I think it was S. Carolina where the latest steroid raged pig terrorised a black person, this time a teenager in a high school. It has gone viral. I'm surprised none of these cops are ever found dead. Not that I would have anything to do with that because I am a peaceful dude. If that had been my daughter tossed around by someone beneath human predator cop and I figured my life sucked or whatever, I would track him down and he would be dead.
Okay, now I see that there is a new poll saying Carson is actually beating Trump 26-22 nationally with Rubio at 8%. Bush and Fiorina (sp?) are at 7% each. Hmmmm.
Those are low numbers for Carson and Trump. The media probably invented the Trump dominance. While Bernie was getting short-changed for deserved attention, Trump was getting in essence free advertising.
Even you said somehow Iowa and NH are more important than the sum of their parts. You said if Bernie did well for them lily-whiteness to the side, he would pick up votes from sheep across the land being influenced by said voting.
Granted the relationship is symbiotic and obviously with the BubbleBoy freak society emergence, we the people certainly have influenced like never before... through a commando keyboard movement.
These are all baby steps, however, as we have come to agreement for the most part about how an infotainment oriented political society congregating on the new primal medium is limited without real power through voting and hitting the streets. Time is running out though. The differences between Bernie and Hillary are immense. We need Bernie like there will literally be no tomorrow otherwise.
The internet has certainly heightened awareness. That is not enough.
We have a week and a half to go until the Maddow forum. I am going to predict Bernie makes up solid ground in this upcoming month towards the end of it. Then we will be two months away from opening day voting at the Iowa Caucus.
Even though Iowa is lily-white progressive, I think that is a true battleground. It's almost a must win, imho. I stand by my earlier guarantee of Bernie winning New Hampshire. No way in hell Hillary wins NH and I think she loses Iowa too.
She is Sonny Liston. Ben Carson got some kind of major shift in the polls. Bernie is due. It's probably like some graph with ups and downs. Hillary got the last momentum. I have a good vibe, good political mood status.
Skimming your comments I have no real issue. We have a genuine disagreement on the media's influence. I think you frequently confuse the media which by definition is "a" medium for being "the" medium. True, McLuhan's useage focused entirely or almost entirely on media, however he also had a broader view in mind and we are living in the splintered media age vastly different from his mass media age.
I admit to falling into the absolutism of fried internet discourse too often when I know (and preach) that little is absolute and the middle way of Buddha is pointedly anti-absolutist.
Still, the media is an easy scapegoat that to me refelects more on lazy thinking.
Most Amerikkkans blame the media, but far more Republitards than Demotards do.
I guess it came up in tonight's debate which I skipped. I did read the 538 coverage which made me glad I skipped it. Not sure whether I will watch the next Dem thingie either, I'll try but no guarantees.
Debates I guess do matter to some degree, however not that much.
Trump hasn't been helped by his strong debate performances in rounds 1 and 2. Fiorina hasn't been helped by her strong showing in 2.
There is really no consensus on what constitutes a strong showing anyway and several can have strong showings. They matter, I guess, on the margins and mostly to the marginal figures.
With Biden out Bernie will stay around for the long haul He's well positioned as the leftier than thou alternative and who woulda thunk even four years ago that a LTT alternative would be running this strong nationally and raising so much cash, especially as a Demotard?
But yes, HRC hung went the distance in 2008 even though she quickly fell behind by SC and Nevada and never really seriously threatened. And yes, that is preceisly where Silver made his political bones.
I guess he was already well-known as a baseball stats guru, or wtf, and it was to his benefit that he used anonymous coward status at DKOS. When his Obama predictions that were against the conventional wisdom held up and he outed himself as already well-known in baseball geek circles it only enhanced his aura which led to him into the big time.
I agree with your take that social media is not entirely meaningless but I tend to believe the participants overrate its virtues in a weird sort o ethnocentric way.
But as I always say, the real action to move the change cheezewhiz is by nature going to be in the streets or nothing will get done.
The Amerikkan political system (medium) is designed to be self-reinforcing and tending to the center.
That is a disconnect seemingly today as the polarities are gaining more adherents than ever, but the system is also more dysfunctional than ever, or at least in my lifetime, which unfortunately for me is a long time.
I will disagree that the differences between Hillary and Bernie are "immense".
Of course that is just rhetoric signifying nothing. You didn't quantify it or give perspective/context.
The differences between Bernie and the GOP clown herd is immense.
Precision matters in rhetoric. I know you are simply bloviating here so no biggie but I also think the talk that Bernie is now going on the offense is a bit overblown.
I still believe he is friendly with Hillary on a personal and political level but he must exploit differences or he won't catch up. I really think the opposite: yes, there are differences but they are not immense. And Hillary being the consummate elastic phony may benefit politically (if not morally) in relation to Bernies more rigid ideological stances which are in my opinion both more moral and more righteous than hers for sure.
Bernie is the culmination of ten years of my bloviating for which I have paid a high price in the whiteysphere. I'm all in.
However, I refuse to delude myself. Hillary has inherent strengths that Bernie will have to overcome and that will mean momentum building victories in the first lily white primary/caucuses leading to stronger than expected showings in the next round of more diverse states.
That is the part of my historical troll schtick where he so far fails the test: he cannot win the nom as the candidate of lily whiteness.
To date, and the polls may change if wins Iowa and NH, he is still getting trounced in SC and (I think) Nevada.
He hasn't gotten a Corny bounce.
West is irrelevant that much is clear. Score another prescience point for your twuly.
I'm done. Little time these days but I'll be punching my DFQ2 time card faithfully from time to time. Real life intrudes and that my friend is a very good thing.
Social media is a good thing in moderation but it is also an addiction, a distortion and overall a waste of time.
I wonder if McLuhan fully pondered its dystopian tendencies and the real degradation of too much cyberspace on the individual psyche?
[overuse of the word "time" alert]
Of course I disagree that the media invented Trump. More like Trump invented an approach to using the media, and he's been adept at this since the 1970s. Again, symbiosis at work but Trump is nothing if not a free publicity machine.
He is using the media which uses him. Look at the Nielsen ratings for the first two GOP debates as a case in point. HUGE numbers. 20 million plus viewers. I'm guessing at least half were tuned in because of Trump.
It seems he is moderating his schtick as he goes along and according to the bloviators wasn't as much a factor tonight. The system is moderating him and he is now behind his outsider competitor Carson, whose looks and quiet personality are appealing in counterpoint to Trump's ugly ass and mind even as his positions are uglier than Trump's overall. He is the friendly fascist to the max. Interesting to see if Trump keeps sliding into Iowa.
Trump's relationship to the media isn't dissimilar to Muhammad Ali.
Whatever one thinks of Trump his business success was not created by the media but he used the media in such a way that it enhances his success and created a persona that has led him very far in politics, a lot farther than anyone could have dreamed possible a few years ago.
Yes, and the times make the man. That is a truism I believe with all my wicked heart.
The times also mad Ali to a large extent, perhaps even moreso than Trump.
Of course Ali was a great champion, the greates of all time while Trump is not even close to being the greatest bidness man of even today.
But he is a masterful self promoter and colourful persona I his own right.
And please, I am not "defending" Trump or the media. It is what it is. I calls em as I sees em. Period.
OK, I read Bernie "going on the offensive" and it seemed very mild, mostly his mouthing criticism without naming names, a rehash of well known schtick to which she has already responded like she voted for the Iraq War and the TPP trade agreement (both of which the phony has now recanted.)
Honestly, this is a good sign that he is making these objections known as it shows again she is wishy washy but is hardly a knockout punch. And already people have factored this into their thinking.
Will it impact the polls? I would say only if he keeps hammering away at her and there is also the risk if he does that people will say wait, he's changing tone and going negative when he said he wouldn't.
Cuts both ways potentially.
The fundamentals haven't changed for the Bern. He needs to win over a good percentage of the minourity contingent to make this work
First and foremost, I agree that not wasting time on the internet is a good thing. I believe that both of us can make the best use of our time by letting loose with our own schticks and not relying as much on the symbiotic nature of said schticks.
Forces outside of our control have helped both of us in spiritual advancement. I am impressed you did not force the donkeytale schtick onto The Guardian. Pffugee closing shop did help you personally. I was writing with two guys on a backwater Celtics forum. That too closed shop and that has helped me. It was fun. It was a great waste of time. Sometimes we are not mature enough to cut back on our own and when a joint slows down or closes, it's kind of making the healthy decision for us.
Maybe when we have our rare venomous spats, we are really subconsciously responding to the need to do other things. So while it may appear we truly are going at it, some other process is taking place.
I'm glad you answered your question for me of what are the immense differences between Bernie and Hillary. Yes, it comes down to that she is phony baloney. She isn't even the real fake meat. She also contains various toxic elements including aspartame. Bernie is fresh air and mountains to go with tasty maple syrup.
Old votes should matter. Even Biden and Obama don't seem to like or trust Hillary very much. It makes no sense to me why Warren has yet to endorse Bernie. What is she waiting for? Is she angling for a cabinet position ad doesn't want to potentially burn a coronation bridge?
The Young Turks showed that you darn well better watch the debates if you expect to understand the followup coverage.
I believe I could undermine your support for a media that doesn't manipulate results consciously or subconsciously, but tat would be a project. And it might be one I attempt.
I did not watch the debate last night either. For one, it was game one for the Celtics. But more than that, I still believe it's all about Hillary versus Bernie, not Hillary versus Trump or Carson. I also knew it would be boring after the successful nature of the Democrat's debate. The Democrats have forced the Republicans to act a bit more like adults.
They just might not have it in them. Kasich and Jeb are livid that their campaigns are not catching on despite their being perhaps the most "normal" of Repugnants.
I think Ted Cruz might move into the slot once Carson/Trump works itself out.
Kasich or Jeb? They need to get some votes quickly or forget about it.
Maybe because of Hitler people think a madman is one who froths and outright sounds like a lunatic. Carson's actual words show that he is batshit insane, the Black man's version of Aaron "drawing Mohammed" Walker. Trump is insane, but like you say we are now used to his brand of insanity and we collectively like it. You're fired! I never followed it.
Jim Webb could have easily become the next president if he could have read the tea leaves better. Same with Chafee. Or ooopsies, over our lifetimes everything political got very wicked bizarre. The old-school Eisenhower Republican has become non-viable like a Ralph Nader troll. They are Kung-Fu Carradine without a home.
Bernie has found his slot just in time at age 74. Hillary is a dying breed. Like Bill Russell winning his last title, that balloon game. He was obviously wrapping up his career but had time to win it all one more time.
I think Bernie versus Hillary is the only thing holding together the majority interest of a nation. One needn't be some KosKop to know the Republicans are deeply disturbed and subhuman.
(continued)
Hillary is Lucy with the football. Who do you want holding that ball as you approach to kick off?
Bernie is in it to win it and has shown himself to be over many decades an all-star professional politician. He and Hillary won the first debate and solidified that they were numero uno and numero dos (and with herself sitting for half a day at the hearing) because they are not goofy like Chafee or a Colonel Flagg lunatic in Webb. Wasserman Schultz has made sure Lessig got no place in the debate sun.
Bernie has had to prove he isn't the crazy uncle in the attic which would have put him in that kind of light. Like when Perot's vp asked who am I and why am I here? It's like finding out a top draft pick sucks or has a low ceiling. It's all about ceilings. It is now about time. The silly season must now be on the back nine. Bernie needs to pull a Nick Faldo or wtf and keep getting his pars and occasional birdies, while Hillary the Shark Norman needs to do what we have always said she is, a loss waiting to happen.
Maddow is extremely left wing and obviously voting for Bernie. There will be no debate. Each candidate will approach the podium and get grilled individually by Rachel, Rachel which I see was a 1968 movie directed by Paul Newman. But I digress.
The Republicans are boring and their field too big and chaotic. People seem done with watching them.
There was definitely something fishy about that new monmouth poll implying the coronation is back on verified schedule. I'm sure Hillary got a nice bounce. The question is how real and big was it? Too much of the media simply reports the polling numbers without explaining wtf actually made up the poll. They should only be polling people who plan to vote in Democratic Party primaries and caucuses. That's where Silver should be working on explaining the nuts and bolts of these various polls. Maybe he does and I missed it. I see him more involved in calculating the alleged future power players in the NBA. Maybe he is waiting and waiting for that precise moment to again look like a genius prognosticator.
It's down to Hillary and Bernie. I don't mind O'Malley still in it because he has been going after Hillary like a pit bull. So it will be Maddow and those three. The three will not interact with each other. It is Maddow as the Godhead for one night and I will be prescient and say this format fits snugly into a pro-Bernie "reverse the coronation curse" run for the highest seat in the land. God bless Bernie Sanders, Rachel Maddow and the American people.
(I'm done.)
Hey, Bernie's getting a lot of the young people vote. Maybe there are Bernie votes that are unlikely to be acknowledged by skewed polls.
This is from Bernie himself:
Check it out. He hugs a young person. You know, my friend, Bernie in Seattle reached out to shake the hand of the "BLM" ex-Palin supporter or her co-hort. I am not conceding any coronation. Every vote counts. We must count every vote.
https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/659704799756029953
I will give Hillary some credit for seemingly being more active in a Lincoln-Douglas great train debate or wtf. What about Freddie Douglass? What about his prime. Our buddy Fieldnegro (yes, we both connected with him, yourself more from MLW days) has three months to wtfu and feel the bern.
This is worse than the three months it took waiting for the NBA to start. Some have it worse than others like Brooklyn and Jim Webb. I don't think we have been Bernie homers with our optimistic analysis I would take over 538's schtick. Zeitgeist sniffing is everything. Or else Nate would have called this race over already and never mentioned negative feedback loops.
Chafee and Webb being gone is great for Bernie's odds. I think you might be underestimating the importance of the debates coming up as potential game changers. Maybe Nate Silver is dipsy doodling around like Rondo taking twenty seconds off the 24 second clock before shooting his load.
This a process. It is a beat. It is a season. Maybe someone needs to take a closer look at so-called polling methodologies. I guess it makes sense that Silver is waiting out the silly season. It is to his credit he basically told Enen to stfu because of negative feedback loops. It's not like anything has changed with Hillary except for that she flip-flopped to manipulate the impression she is a progressive unlike Bernie who can get things done. It looks like you might have bought into it or the idea that Americans are too stupid to realise the truth. Hmmmm. It's the media pushing the garbage coronation process, yet you say they mirror it. The Maddow forum is a Friday night and you can always watch it I bet on replay. It'd be nice for you to critique it and the followup coverage and look at the subsequent polling #'s at the end of November into mid-December. I think that is when a true Nate Silver with balls should be able to call the race at that point.
What would have to change? What are we talking about? Iowa? New Hampshire? Nationally? What is going on here in truth? But don't expect to find any holy grail prognosticators or social theorists or whatnot with great schticks.
That is how the medium is used to manipulate results. I think you said something about baked in results.
Quickly, this is what bores me about our debates:
"I believe I could undermine your support for a media that doesn't manipulate results consciously or subconsciously, but tat would be a project. And it might be one I attempt."
First, I do not "support" the media. I just stated that above. You are now again miscomprehending like a Fairleft would.
And whether the media manipulates is not really the question. Of course it manipulates. And is manipulated too.
The media is what it is. It doesn't elect presidits any more or less than our parents' influence determine our ultimate fates.
This is boring extremely unoriginal and cannot be validly argued. The answer is always yes and no.
The point is only loosers blame the media. The media will always be with us and it will always mostly suck.
So be it. They aren't harming Bernie or helping Trump. Yes, the general thrust is they overvalued Hillary's debate performance but so did a lot of people. Silver got this one right. Big deal. Debates wont decide the election and neither will the media's spin of the debates.
Donkeytale said again
The Young Turks are the media too. You happen to value them because their spin agrees with your bias.
Who cares???? I don't. I'm voting for Bernie. Maybe because my dad was a union guy from a union background in the unionized Midwest. There are tons of influences. Boring. Please lets stop this nowhere struggle. I promise to drop Silver. We can agree to disagree. K? Thanks
You're the guy who praises Obama. You are the sheep herder. You are the KosKop. Reading blowhard contrarians is what's boring. Maybe you would rather find some person you obsess on named fairleft and play contrarian with him. I don't really have much use for it. I googled and there are a million results for media manipluates voters. Here's one.
http://eml.berkeley.edu/~ekaplan/wbpaper.pdf
I only skimmed the top. It is too long and I understand everything anyway. They said they could prove this when cable companies got broken up. That left some areas having Fox TV and others not. Fox News created Republicans.
If people keep being told something over and over, they sometimes believe it. It's similar to bad parenting which leaves their kids with no self-worth.
People are having it hammered into their heads that Hillary is Queen and this has already been determined by fate. How else to explain fieldnegro? Why doesn't he ever cover the differences between Hillary and Bernie? It's probably because he has been told by the media this is a Hillary victory.
You're the one who lets Teach for America slide on by as a topic. There's never any evolution to your schtick. It's all some weird fixation on Ralph Nader, some numbnut named fairleft, and me.
A chimpanzee can google and say "see this proves my point. LOL.
Show me the beef, Fairleft.
LOL.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/business/the-narrative-frays-for-theranos-and-elizabeth-holmes.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&module=MostPopularFB&version=Full®ion=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article
She stays relentlessly on message, as a review of her numerous conference and TV appearances make clear, while at the same time saying little of scientific substance.
The natural human tendency to fit complex facts into a simple, compelling narrative has grown stronger in the digital age of 24/7 news and social media, said Frank Partnoy, professor of law and finance at the University of San Diego, and author of “Wait: The Art and Science of Delay,” which explores the perils of hasty decision-making.
“We’re deluged with information even as pressure has grown to make snap decisions,” Professor Partnoy said. “People see a TED talk. They hear this amazing story of a 30-something-year-old woman with a wonder procedure. They see the Cleveland Clinic is on board. A switch goes off and they make an instant decision that everything is fine. You see this over and over: Really smart and wealthy people start to believe completely implausible things with 100 percent certainty.”
Sorry that was a cheap shot. But this isn't fun or challenging intellectually.
This is 2012 all over again. Been there done that.
Ciao.
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