Quotulatiousness

January 30, 2017

An interesting reading on the significance of #GamerGate

Filed under: Gaming, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

At Samizdata, Perry de Havilland considers the historical footnote that was #GamerGate:

Looking back, it’s hard to overstate the cultural significance of GamerGate: it marked when the Left suddenly and unexpectedly lost control of social media, right at the point where the influence of social media actually started to matter. In a sense, it was the second wave of discontent that started with the arrival of anti-MSM blogs in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but within a very different internet environment compared to ‘The Golden Age of Blogging’ 2001-2010. As has often been the case in military campaigns, when one side becomes greatly overextended, they only realise they have lost the initiative when they seek to advance and experience a completely unexpected reversal: a result that may seem obvious and perhaps even inevitable to a historian looking back, but which was far from obvious to the people on the ground at the time.

So certain was the Left that they had won the culture war, so confident with the established media under their effective control that ‘truth’ was theirs to declare, that they gave up on any pretence of objectivity. After all, their enemies had been swept from both airwaves and print (I sometimes cannot tell the difference between the Times and the Guardian and the Economist). And so they began to manoeuvre with the assurance and arrogance of an army under an umbrella of complete air(wave) supremacy, a supremacy that suddenly proved to be illusory because opinions had moved on-line.

Simón Bolívar – V: Heavy is the Head – Extra History

Filed under: Americas, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Published on Dec 17, 2016

After so many failures, Simón Bolívar finally began to find success: Gran Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia all stood free from Spanish rule. He raced to found new governments and consolidate the liberty he’d earned, but resources had been stretched too thin.

From the Overton Window to the Overton Bubble

Filed under: Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

John Ringo posted this to Facebook, commenting on an article on the Overton Bubble:

This is seriously esoteric and worth reading (and even rereading bits) til you get it.

I’ll add one thing. An axiom a friend of mine came up with watching the fall of Saddam Hussein.

‘Crazy regimes get crazier under stress.’

The ‘Overton Window’ and that axiom explain everything going on in US politics at the moment.

I’ll add one thing that he missed as a possible end game. One I hadn’t seen until quite recently.

As he noted (deep in the article) the elites within an Overton Bubble occasionally shift conditions of ‘proper thought’ so as to find and exclude those who should not be within the ‘elite’ faction. Thus the occasional purges evident throughout history of ‘elite’ groups.

As the faction comes under greater stress, it shifts more and more, tossing more out into the wilderness.

Thus the whole issue of a ‘woman’s march’ which would only accept women who supported a narrow series of causes but was okay with pro-Islam because: Reasons. (Notably, ‘pro-Islam’ was inside the accepted ‘good’ but ‘it’s okay to be feminine and a strong woman’ types were ‘outside’ the ‘good’.)

So one potential effect I’m starting to see is so many groups who were previously ‘okay’ to the Progressive Elites are being tossed out… their supporters are getting smaller and smaller.

Think about Jim Webb, one of the Democrats who unsuccessfully ran in the Democratic Primary.

Military veteran. Moderate economically. Pro-welfare state. Pro-big government. Believer in Global Warming.

In 2000 he’d have been a viable Democratic candidate.

In 2016, he was worse than Trump.

But he’s actually just fine with most of America.

So the ‘elites’ are making ‘acceptable’ so narrow… they’re doing what the Japanese are demographically. If the Japanese don’t start breeding, hard, soon enough Halsey will be right. Japanese will be spoken only in the afterlife.

If the ‘elites’ keep tossing every group that doesn’t match their current ‘conforming’ form to the wolves…

Pretty soon ‘Progressive’ will be spoken only in hell.

QotD: Everyone has prejudices

Filed under: Business, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

I’ve told before the story of how my husband and I went car shopping and took along our best friends, both taller, blue eyed, and one of them blond. Inevitably, at whichever dealership we landed in (this was a lazy Saturday pursuit. You know what I mean) the salesman gravitated towards our friends who a) weren’t shopping for a car. b) were far less financially solvent than we were.

Racism? Oh, heck no, heuristics. Dan might or might not be as white as advertised, but outwardly he’s all white (nickname Count Dracula due to his inability to tan.) (Well, maybe the eyes give some clue to other genetic origins as in Portugal everyone assumes he’s from Macau and some level of cross breed. Meh.) And I can pass provided I haven’t been outside in a couple of weeks and don’t open my mouth. So, racism was highly unlikely. But we’re both short, overweight, dark haired, and were dressed almost terminally relaxed. Our friends fit the “double income” couple look better than we did, so salesmen gravitated to them.

Privilege? No. We got the chance to poke around at cars while our friends distracted pushy salespeople. BUT prejudice? You bet. Even though the two couples were superficially “white” you bet the sales people had an image of what “affluent” or relatively affluent (it was used dealerships) looked like, and it wasn’t Dan or I.

Sarah Hoyt, “The Privilege Of Not Caring”, According to Hoyt, 2015-05-17.

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