Re: The Other McCain's Other Persona

Information flow is fundamental to the success of every manner of human collaboration. Nonetheless, the processes by which information is gathered, handled, transferred, and acted upon receive far less attention than is warranted. The purpose of Project PM is to change this dynamic by developing new techniques with which to more efficiently conduct information.

Because the great preponderance of information crucial to the success of a representative government is transferred through the media, Project PM focuses primarily on media reform. Our first and foremost effort has been to establish a distributed media cartel made up of bloggers as well as journalists who work at least in part through online media. Rather than simply assembling this group of exceptional media professionals into an online outlet similar to those currently in existence, we are instead organizing our participants into a network which itself operates under a unique schematic designed to take best advantage of the internet as a medium while simultaneously avoiding the drawbacks common to even the best online communities.

In order to seed the network, we have recruited around two dozen bloggers and journalists whom we have identified as particularly competent and intellectually honest. Each of these individuals is encouraged to bring other bloggers into the network based on their own judgment; these new participants are then connected to the blogger who has brought them in and may likewise bring others into the network,and so on . As such, the network grows perpetually while maintaining a high average quality in terms of its participants, as is explained further below.

Upon the launch of our network, each of the initial bloggers will be connected to each other via a widget which is embedded on their respective blogs, as well as connected to those whom theyve recruited. When a particular individual composes a piece of work that he considers to be of particular merit, the individual pushes a single button which causes the article in question to be sent to all of the bloggers to whom he is connected. Each of those bloggers in turn then decides whether or not they agree that the article is worthy of greater attention; if so, they push the button and thereby send it along to every blogger to whom they themselves are connected. Thus it is that information deemed worthy of attention by some great number of erudite and honest individuals from a variety of backgrounds will tend to perpetuate through the system and gain a larger audience than they might otherwise receive.

As the network expands by way of the process described above, it is inevitable that there will be failures of judgement on the part of participants when choosing additional bloggers to bring into the network. Let us say that Blogger X, who is rather competent, brings in Blogger Y, who is only moderately so, and who in turn brings in Blogger Z, who is a giant douchebag. Blogger Z begins composing and pushing forward posts to the effect that Barack Obama was born in Tehran or that ethanol subsidies are awesome or some such thing but these posts only initially go to Blogger Y and whatever horrid bloggers Blogger Z has brought in himself, assuming he has brough in any. Blogger Y may or may not be inclined to push forward these nonsense posts, but Blogger X will almost certainly delete them immediately and is quite likely to disolve his connection to Blogger Y for displaying such poor judgement. Thus it is that the system is defended from deterioration by the high competence of the initial round of bloggers and consequently comparable competence of those brought in gradually afterwards, coupled with the nature of the schematic itself. No supervision is necessary for the network to expand while maintaining a high level of quality.

A few other characteristics bear noting. Any participant may connect to any other participant who agrees to the connection, no matter where each participant resides in the network, and thus the network is likely to evolve from the shape of a pyramid to that of a web, which is advantageous in terms of ensuring that good information does not become overly regionalized. All participants are equal regardless of the order in which they joined. Participants are free to bring on as many other bloggers as they would like, although they will find that it is to their own advantage to be selective in this regard.

The system is capped off with another widget distinct from that used by the bloggers the reader widget, a downloadable application which displays those posts which have been pushed forward a certain number of times (as set by the individual reader). The end result should be the best system of news and information filtration that has ever existed.

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 2:18 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Another thing - this is the sort of story that the project is designed to perpetuate. Look into it if you would.

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/03/24/cia-state-department-apparently-acting-on-plan-to-destroy-wikileaks/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/us/18wiki.html

On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 1:00 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
Elon-

Barrett Brown. We're going to be launching the media/blogger project reasonably soon. I had that meeting with the execs of True/Slant and they've agreed to provide promotional and other forms of assistance and will also be implementing portions of the software as well as the particular dynamics of the network across their system. Met yesterday with deputy editor of The New York Observer, who wants me to a series of articles attacking various pundits, and he's also interested in providing some degree of assistance with the project (and at any rate, I can promote it by way of my footer bios and perhaps within the articles themselves). Similar situation with the Skeptical Inquirer/Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, for which I'm now doing a monthly column focusing on information flow/media theory, beginning with a series of pieces that will make the case that this project has the potential of vastly increasing the ability of skeptics to successfully refute nonsense. Have also recruited someone who works in a high capacity at TED, a couple of lawyers,a reform-minded activist who runs an organization dedicated to changing up the Brooklyn Democratic Party machine, and a few other people with varying skill sets, as I've decided to increase the scope of the project.

Below, I've pasted a rough draft summary of the network/software and its advantages over existing entities. This should give you a better sense of how we'll be operating. Feel free to forward this to anyone you know who might be interested in joining up in some capacity, and in general, please have any such folks get in touch with me ASAP.Also, please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions; we're still deciding on certain aspects, such as software features and the role that coordinated attacks on certain outlets/commentators will play within the system and how they might be arranged.

Thanks again for participating (and for adding me to your blog roll way back when). We have a real chance of doing something substantial here, and I appreciate your willingness to give this a shot.

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn NY
512-560-2302

Project PM Network Summary

The institutions and structures that have developed over the past two decades of accelerating public internet use have had what we reasonably describe as a wholesome effect on information flow. But the information age is a work in progress, and thus there are potential improvements to be made. More importantly, there are improvements that can be made by an initially small number of influential participants working in coordination. The purpose of Project PM is to implement these solutions to the extent that participants are collectively able to do so, as well as to demonstrate the beneficial effects of these solutions to others that they might be spurred to recreate or even build upon them independently of our own efforts.

The Problems

Project PM is intended to address the following inefficiencies:

(a) Watering down of contributor quality within participatory networks: Open institutions such as reddit.com tend to peak in terms of the erudition of the content conveyed a few years after coming about, with this being due to the particular dynamics of network growth. By definition, early users are early adapters, who themselves tend to be better-informed and otherwise relatively capable in terms of the value they bring to the network. To even know of such networks early in their existence is to pass a certain sort of test regarding the potential quality of one's contributions; as knowledge of the network expands, this "test" becomes easier, and to the extent that it does, the network is less "protected" from those who did not pass such a test by virtue of the fact that they did not know of the network until knowledge became more common. Obviously, failing to be aware of some particular institution does not come anywhere near precluding one from being intelligent and knowledgable in general and thus of value to the institution, but the influx of valuable participants versus damaging participants appears to decrease after a certain level of notoriety is reached. Again, the decline in the intellectual relevance of content at reddit.com is a good example of this.

(b) Data overflow: The watering down process described above does not only result in one coming across information of relatively low quality, but also in having to contend with more of it. On reddit.com, for instance, a user who scans new submissions will find not only a certain amount of potentially useful information, but also some amount of almost certainly useless information. The watering down of contributor quality also contributes to the extent to which the latter is perpetuated within the network itself insomuch as that lesser contributors are more likely to vote up useless information, thus helping to ensure that the barriers built into the network in order to facilitate the viewing of important rather than unimportant content - in this case, a pre-established threshold of up votes necessary to bring something to the front page - will thereby lose their effectiveness.

(c) Barriers to obtaining raw data: The obvious fact of data overflow - that some data is more useful than other data - is dealt with by means of selecting certain sources of information which one has identified as being a provider of quality output relative to other sources. Bloggers and others who require a steady stream of data in order to operate have certain methods of obtaining that data, and there is of course no reason to believe that any of these methods could not be improved upon to an extent that these improvements would be worth adapting. One has RSS feeds flowing from sources one has selected (and by virtue of having been selected, the sources must have been necessarily known to the blogger in the first place); one has algorithm-based sites like Memorandum.com (which merely shows what bloggers are talking about rather than necessarily providing any insight into what they should be talking about); one has democratic or pseudo-democratic sites such as reddit.com and digg.com; and one has the fundamentally one-way outlets of television and newspapers, the content of which is decided upon by a handful of producers or editors (who themselves are working within an incidental structure that does not appear to be of much value relative to what may now be found among the better portions of the blogosphere). A means of obtaining data that improves upon these and all other methods would be of great utility insomuch as that the quality of data is of course one major limiting factor with regards to the quality of output..

The Solutions

By way of a network designed to take better advantage of the existing informational environment, Project PM can help to remedy the problems described above without significant effort on the part of participants, yet with potentially dramatic results on the efficiency of information flow.

(a) Watering down of contributor quality within participatory networks: Project PM will greatly reduce the accumulation of low-value contributors by way of the method by which contributors are brought it. The network will be established with a handful of contributors who have been selected by virtue of intellectual honesty, proven expertise in certain topics, and journalistic competence in general. Each of these contributors has the option of inviting into the network any number of other bloggers, each of whom will initially be connected only to the contributor who brought him in. Each of these new participants also has the option of bringing others into the network in the same fashion as well as offering a connection to any other participant, as will anyone they bring in, and so on. To the extent that the original participants are of value in terms of their judgement, they may be expected to bring in participants of similarly high value, and so on; meanwhile, as the network expands, participants will be likely to form new direct connections to others whom they have determined to be of particular value relative to other participants, and conversely, to disestablish any direct connections they might have established to those whose output they find to be below par. Of course, none of this precludes the network from eventually encompassing participants of low desirability relative to that of the average participant, but to the extent that such a thing occurs, its effect are largely neutralized by way of the dynamic described below.

(b) Data overflow: Information flows through the Project PM network by way of a single button accessible to each participant. When a participant either writes or receives a blog post or other informational element, the participant may "push" the item, thus sending it to all of those with whom he is directly connected in the network. In such a case as a participant pushes forward items that others may determine to be of little merit, the resulting clutter is only seen by the participant who brought such a low-value blogger into the network in the first place, as well as those whom the low-value blogger has to this point brought in himself along with those who have agreed to connect with him from elsewhere in the network. To the extent that a given participant exercises good judgment in establishing connections, then, he will only receive informational elements of value while also being able to quickly transmit them to contributors who will be able to make best use of such information. Meanwhile, below-average participants will have only very limited means by which to clutter the network, as informational elements become less likely to be pushed forward as they approach above-average participants within the network, who themselves are "buffered" from such things by way of the competent participants with whom they surround themselves by way of their connections and who, by virtue of their competence, are unlikely to push forward low-value information.

(c) Barriers to obtaining raw data: The dynamics described in (a) and (b) collectively provide for a means of information inflow that should theoretically be superior to any other medium currently in existence in terms of overall quality, both by virtue of the network's improved organizational methods as well as the relatively high competence of participating bloggers relative to members of the traditional media outlets as a whole. Accessibility to particularly valuable items of information will be enhanced further by the option to set one's widget in such a way as to display any piece of information from the network, regardless of "proximity," if such information is pushed forward (which is to say, approved of other participants) a certain number of times. This should help to ensure that, as the network expands, particularly valuable information does not become unduly "regionalized." A variant on the widget for use by readers (as opposed to network participants) displaying information that meets similar thresholds of popularity within the network would likewise provide those readers with a source of information above and beyond other existing mediums.

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 8:57 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Elon-

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly and for agreeing to participate.

At the moment, we're still getting our ducks in line and figuring out some of the specifics about how things will operate as well as getting the core software ready for when we launch. In the meantime, you can be of great assistance by talking to any other bloggers whom you believe to be particularly competent/intellectually honest and asking them to get in touch with me if they're interested in joining up as well. I've decided to wait until after the Wednesday meeting to put up the announcement article; when I do, it would be helpful if you could link to it and announce your participation, as Instaputz is read and well-respected by a lot of prominent folks like Duncan Black who might be interested in working with us or at least helping to spread the word about the project. Basically, I want to accumulate as much backing as possible in order to ensure that, when we launch our first campaign to expose a particular columnist or talking head or whatever, it will be virtually impossible for the mainstream outlets to ignore it.

Again, thanks for joining up, and let me know if you have any questions in the meantime.

Thanks,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY

512-560-2302

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 4:06 PM, Elon Green <misterbones@gmail.com> wrote:

Barrett,

Everyone's game here. What do you need from us?

best,
e

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 3:49 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Howdy, Elon-

Barrett Brown here. I'm launching a project with the intention of bringing greater attention to the failures of certain parties amongst the mainstream media, such as Thomas Friedman, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Cohen, Howard Kurtz, David Broder, and those who still employ them despite their backlog of failed predictions, poor analysis, contradictory musings, and all the rest; to a lesser extent, we'll also be going after such prominent bloggers as Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, the Powerline gang, and everyone else who gets to go on the ol' teevee despite their nonsensical and occasionally genocidal output. All of this is to be accomplished by way of an invitation-only network of bloggers who will be asked to coordinate on occasion in order to reach the critical mass necessary to prompt certain mainstream media outlets to cover a given travesty - Friedman's record of terrible predictions, for instance. As it is now, when one of us point out the demonstrable failures of some respected pundit, a couple people might link to it, but for the most part we're only reaching people who are already relatively savvy and well-informed and who thus aren't particularly susceptible to flawed commentary to begin with. On the other hand, if we take advantage of the manner in which at least some editors and reporters with the traditional pubs are likely to address a topic if it's being talked about by a great number of bloggers at once, we can use the "herd dynamics" of the media in such a way as to reach those who consume information largely from print and television - which is to say, a relatively huge number of people who would benefit more from learning that their favorite pundit has no idea what he's talking about. This will all be facilitated by software that a friend of mine is writing and which will be released under an open-source license upon completion, and which will involve significant improvements to the means by which bloggers acquire, evaluate, and disseminate important pieces of information, among several other features that we expect to be of some assistance to both bloggers and their readers.

I mentioned the project briefly in my most recent piece for Vanity Fair and will be making a more formal announcement on Huffington Post, True/Slant, and Daily Kos soon. So far I've got Allison Kilkenny, Charles Johnson (he's very reasonable now), and a few other folks on board; Juan Cole is considering joining up as well, as are a couple of other commentators I've spoken to over the past couple of weeks. I'm also meeting with the execs of True/Slant on Wednesday, as they're interested in promoting the project and perhaps adopting the software across their network, among other things. All in all, we think this is a viable means by which to help reduce the influence of those commentators who have contributed to the national decline by way of their undeserved influence over the electorate while also increasing the influence of those commentators - mostly bloggers - who have shown themselves to be intellectually honest and insightful.

If you'd be interested in getting involved, please let me know, as I'd like to have you and Instaputz as a whole on board if possible, and hopefully list you as a participant when I make the formal announcement. More details will be forthcoming when I have that piece published (I may wait till after the meeting on Wednesday to run it), but in the meantime I can answer any questions you may have, and would also like your input on any features you'd like to see from the software or any ideas you may have regarding the project in general. E-mail me back or give me a call at your convenience if you think this is something in which you might like to participate.

Thanks,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302

On Sat, Oct 24, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Elon-

Thanks for the shout-out and blog roll addition. Also, not sure if you've seen this, but it's shaping up to be a perpetual motion machine of hilarity, complete with some fellow threatening to sue me:

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2009/10/24/in-which-i-try-my-hand-at-cartooning-and-piss-off-this-fellow/

Thanks again,

Barrett Brown

Brooklyn, NY

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 3:32 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Elon-

Good point about NR and WS. He does write for American Spectator, though; it'll be interesting to see if they quietly put a stop to that at some point.

At any rate, I'm trying to drum up the critical mass necessary to get McCain thrown out of polite society, but I'm still a rather obscure person with little influence. If you know any other bloggers or pundit-types who might be interested in bringing this to the attention of more people, it would be wonderful if you could pass along this info to them; I'd be happy to send anyone as much evidence as they need - and there's tons of it as this point, thanks to the hard work of Sergey Romanov, Johnson, and a few other folks. Same offer goes to you, of course.

Just to reiterate, the main reason I'm determined to bring McCain down is that, even aside from his poorly-concealed racism, he's been doing actual harm to people who don't deserve it by way of unethical journalism practices. I spent a good portion of the weekend talking to Jonathan Farley, whom I mentioned in my last e-mail, and he's absolutely convinced that McCain's ridiculous article basically finished off his otherwise brilliant career in the U.S. (he now teaches in Austria). That McCain was coordinating with neo-Nazis while writing "news" pieces on a neo-Nazi target is, frankly, a scandal in and of itself; I'm finishing an article on this particular item today and will hopefully get it run in some or another pub with a different audience than the one I've been haranguing about this for the last few weeks. But again, I can only do so much. If the existing info on McCain's behavior could be brought to the attention of someone like Duncan Black, for instance, we could very well discredit him enough to prevent him from doing any more damage to anyone.

At any rate, thanks for having taken the time to look into this as well as for getting back to me and listening to me rave about my latest obsession; I know you guys are busy, so I really do appreciate it. Also, love the blog.

Thanks again,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 2:01 PM, Elon Green <misterbones@gmail.com> wrote:

Barrett,

Can't speak for the others, but I think this piece was just about the sharpest thing I've yet read on McCain. Unfortunately, your push-back (and, to his credit, Charles Johnson's) is necessary. McCain is a nasty piece of work and, to our increasing dismay, increasingly "respectable".

McCain has made a calculation that a smattering "ma'ams" and "sirs" and "I married the prettiest girl in Mayberrys" is sufficient to paper over his beliefs and reap the reward of thousands of Glenn Reynolds' readers.

So far, he's been pretty successful.

However: I think it says something that the National Review and Weekly Standard still treat him like a leper. Maybe they're not as stupid as we think they are. Subject to change, of course.

best,
e

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 10:20 PM
Subject: The Other McCain's Other Persona
To: instaputzen@gmail.com, gin.tacos@gmail.com

Hi, guys-

Robert Stacy McCain, the former Washington Times editor who co-authored a book with Palin biographer Lynn Vincent and now serves as a popular blogger and all-around pundit, has been discovered to have written dozens of blatantly racist forum postings as well as at least one article for the proudly white supremacist outlet American Renaissance, all under a pen name taken from some Confederate hero. Last week he threatened to go over to the offices of the Charleston Gazette and beat everyone up or some such thing and wrote that I'd get mine "in turn." Plus he accused me of "sucking Charles Johnson's dick," which probably isn't even true. And then he wrote me this flamboyant open letter in which he accused me of forcing him into a Maoist re-education camp, I suppose metaphorically.

In all seriousness, McCain has a range of proven neo-Nazi ties and, as I've recently learned, in 2002 wrote a Times piece on the black professor Jonathan Farley, who himself had recently called the Confederates traitors who ought to have been executed in an op-ed while teaching at Vanderbilt and thereby caught some flack from the local crackerjacks. McCain wrote a piece during the same period in which he was linking to neo-Nazi sites like overthrow.com and posting racist comments in forums under that assumed name - which is to say he was cooperating and communicating with the same groups that were at the time sending dozens of death threats and hundreds of racist e-mails and phone calls Farley's way.

Here's a good starting point if this interests you.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/34960_Barrett_Brown_Twirls_His_Handlebar_Mustache_in_Robert_Stacy_McCains_Direction

Thanks,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302