Re: peretz
Subject: Re: peretz
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 1/28/10, 16:41
To: Juan Cole <jricole@gmail.com>

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ave7c/reddit_now_composed_of_vastly_less_educated/

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 11:05 AM, Juan Cole <jricole@gmail.com> wrote:
v. Exciting. Am laid up with disc problems so feel free to call
afternoons 734 747 8211;  cell.  734 223 2071

cheers. Juan
p
On Monday, January 25, 2010, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
> Juan-
> This is Barrett Brown; we spoke briefly about Martin Peretz a few weeks back, and you were kind enough to look over my chapter on that poor fellow in order to ensure the accuracy of the portions that involve his wacky attacks on you. I wanted to let you know about a certain project that I announced briefly in my latest piece for Vanity Fair on Friday and which I will be explaining more formally and in further detail this week in The Huffington Post, True/Slant, Daily Kos, and a few other outlets. I'll let you know when that piece appears so that you may better evaluate the project in question, but I wanted to give you a heads-up in advance.
>
>
> The project, which we expect to launch in April, will involve two components. One is a free web application that's currently being developed by an old friend of mine who recently headed up Hearst's Digital Paper project before moving on to the financial sector (and who will soon be quitting to pursue this full-time); briefly stated, the software will provide an improved means by which websites in general and blogs in particular can "talk" to each other, transmitting information and making it easier for political commentators, for instance, to obtain, evaluate, tag/characterize/redirect, and disseminate items of information. Currently, and due to the blogosphere and even the internet as a whole being in relative infancy, all of this is done rather crudely and inefficiently by way of RSS feeds, sites like Memeorandum, blogrolls, and the like. This will be a fundamental improvement on that haphazard sort of methodology, and will otherwise include a number of other features, including several that have been suggested recently by a few other bloggers and freelance writers with whom I've been discussing this. The second component will be a sort of distributed, decentralized network of bloggers and others who produce or just relay content. These need not ascribe to any particular ideology, but must be of reasonable intellectual honesty and must also agree that the media at large suffers from extraordinary structural deficits that must be fixed largely from the outside, and who will be admitted into the network on a case-by-case basis by way of invitation from an existing participant (at least, this is the working plan on that front, subject to change based on whatever advice I receive from initial participants and others with whom I'm currently consulting). By and large, the purpose of all of this is to increase the effectiveness and reach of the blogosphere, a task which is easily doable, while also pursuing the more difficult but increasingly viable task of bringing pressure on the traditional media outlets to make some changes in the way in which they operate - to provide better science reporting, for instance, and to cease employing those pundits such as Thomas Friedman who are demonstrably incapable of fulfilling their duties in a competent manner.
>
> At this early point, I've recruited about a dozen reasonably prominent bloggers including the repentant former conservative Charles Johnson and the increasingly-visible and very progressive Allison Kilkenny - people of vastly different ideologies, and in some cases people who have made personal attacks on each other in the past and continue to do so today (I've even managed to win over a couple of people who were openly denouncing me just a few days ago by convincing them of the necessity of this project). I expect that I'll be able to bring on far more in the near future after I make the formal announcement of the project later this week and as I begin recruiting in earnest, and of course some of those whom I've recruited are already talking to their online colleagues about joining up as well. Once the project gets rolling, I will no longer be in charge; the system will combine the AI of the software and the collective input of our contributors in order to perpetuate itself.
>
> I would be honored and appreciative if you would consider associating with this project; obviously, your status, your relative longevity as a blogger, and particularly your expertise in Middle Eastern affairs and related subjects would be of great value to this project, which would not require any real time input on your part. Rather, I would want you to be attached in the short term as an informal advisor - for instance, identifying other bloggers and academics specializing in ME topics whose input and participation would increase the quality of the information that will be distributed by means of the software widget upon its release in April. Long term, my goal is to vastly increase the influence of certain bloggers in particular; in the epilogue to my upcoming book (which I have attached), for instance, I identify you and Glenn Greenwald as bloggers who, given more prominent roles as commentators, would be of great benefit to the public understanding of constitutional issues and ME subjects, respectively; I need help in identifying and recruiting other bloggers and academics specializing in other fields whom we would similarly promote in the near-to-mid future. Additionally, your association with the project would help me greatly in convincing others to participate as well; I myself am known mostly to the skeptic/pro-science community due to my first book and my few appearances on cable news outlets like Fox in opposition to intelligent design and breaches of the Establishment Clause, but otherwise am not particularly prominent yet, and am depending largely on the notoriety of folks like Johnson and the credentials and expertise of people such as yourself to ensure that we are able to bring on as much talent as possible as we go forward.
>
> At any rate, thanks again for having taken the time to hear me out; I hope that you will give all of this some thought. Give me a call if you'd like to discuss this in further detail or if you have any questions at all.
>
> Regards,
> Barrett BrownBrooklyn, NY512-560-2302
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 9:37 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Actually saw that piece when you first wrote it
> Glad you liked the chapter, and thanks for taking a look. Incidentally, I just learned that you came to prominence largely by way of blogging, which is interesting because the dynamic I'm proposing as the solution to our nation's information distribution crisis is almost entirely dependent on the blogosphere's ability to take talent that might otherwise be unduly constrained by the structure of our media - a certain sort of person is likely to jump through the hoops to become a traditional newspaper columnist and a certain sort of person is not, and there's certainly no guarantee that the former personality is going to be better than the latter to any extent. And having gone through the work of people like Friedman, Krauthammer, Cohen, etc., and then compared them to the output that comes from you, Greenwald, and others that have gained relative prominence by way of the internet, I think I can show that the dynamics of the internet are obviously more conducive to bringing the better commentators to the top than are the dynamics of the mainstream media (and this may be obvious to those of us who are familiar with the blogosphere, but a surprising number of otherwise well-informed people simply have no idea of this). The other solution I'd propose would involve new internet-based structures by which a sort of elected body of bloggers would unify in order to promote the most important stories and ensure that they don't fall through the cracks; this wouldn't necessarily be dependent on ideology, either, as libertarians, greens, moderate republicans, progressives, anarchists, and whatever else might all agree, for instance, to raise awareness about such things as drug legalization. If you're familiar with sites like reddit, I think that such an apparatus could be modeled partly on that.
>
>
>
> Anyway, keep up the good work and happy New Year. I've attached a piece that I've come across recently and which might interest you if you're into media theory.
> Thanks again,
>
> Barrett BrownBrooklyn, NY512-560-2302
>
> On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 7:58 PM, Juan Cole <jricole@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, Barrett.   I enjoyed it.  No particular criticism; you nailed it.
>
> You might get a kick out of this:
>
> http://208.17.81.135/opinion/feature/2009/01/08/gaza/index.html
>
> cheers  Juan
>
> On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 3:45 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Just shared the document with you via Google Documents. Thanks again.
> Barrett BrownBrooklyn, NY512-560-2302
>
> On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 11:54 AM, Juan Cole <jricole@gmail.com> wrote:
> sure!    cheers  Juan
> --
> http://www.juancole.com
> author, "Engaging the Muslim World"
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> http://www.juancole.com
> author, "Engaging the Muslim World"
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http://www.juancole.com
author, "Engaging the Muslim World"