Hi, Tom-

I'm what you might call an anarcho-technocrat insomuch as that I support and am in fact trying to promote voluntary entities of association designed in such a way as to best pursue various constructive goals. 

I appreciate all of the thought that you've put into this e-mail; I think the best way to answer you would be to suggest that you spend a little time in IRC talking to our other participants or just listening in, and you'll quickly get a sense of why we've made certain decisions. Having said that, we also revise our procedures rather often as needed, and sometimes based on the suggestions of people who have just recently joined, so if you can make the case for some of this to the guys whom you'll find in the IRC channel, we'll adapt them. I should note that we have about a dozen experienced software developers on hand that would disagree with you on the software point, as would most everyone else who's on board. It's true, as you say, that developing software can be difficult, but obviously software is indeed created every day, and our central goals are dependent on creating a rather simple program utilizing a schematic that offers tremendous advantages, as you'll see when you look at the relevant documents. 

On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 11:08 AM, Tom Swirly <tom@swirly.com> wrote:

Very interesting material!

I guess my first reaction is that bloggers and such things will always be marginal, whatever we do, because most people simply don't read very much.  You're both clearly very literate - but this mitigates against acceptance of your ideas because people will faze out in the first paragraph or so.

I think doing software development is an awful idea! :-)  And this is speaking as an experienced software developer.  The reason is that software development is a lot like a war - it's never done and it takes more time than you think, always.

I'd go with someone else's system entirely, even if it isn't quite to your needs right now.

I do like the Skeptical Enquirer though I did let me subscription lapse (due to information overload, not lack of sympathy).

I'm also not clear as to "what your politics are".  In particular, what are your views on government?  The SE reference makes me think you're Libertarian - I come from a Libertarian orientation, I think it's a very good system as far as it goes, and I have a great deal of empathy for the virtues this system espouses, but these days I'm much closer to "Social Democratic" - I see a vital role for a competent, well-organized government in a better society, and more, I think there needs to be a strong and benevolent counterbalancing force to the corporations.

I generally think you're trying to hit too many disparate goals at once, too.  I think you should find one big goal and try to get a prominent win as soon as possible to bring yourself to a wider audience.

Have you considered simply starting an email list, for the moment?  These have a great deal of immediacy because they land in your inbox, and allow people a chance to talk things out and argue in flurries of email.  

I'm a massive geek (as in "my mail goes through my own mail server on my hosted server that serves a hundred sites!" sort of geek) and I don't actually have an IRC client on this machine, a machine I've had for a year and a half, so I'm believing that IRC is only for a small number of people these days.

I'll re-read this over the course of the day.

Thanks for doing this, though.  We really need change.  No matter what happens, even showing that there are other, serious voices who are neither D nor R has to be good!

On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 10:38 AM, Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Tom, thanks for your interest in Project PM.

Thanks too for the link to your radio station.

I am Clark Robinson, a retired lawyer from Chicago, working with Barrett Brown on Project PM.

Here is some background information on the project.  In addition to a lot of text, I have included numerous links; you do not need to read everything to understand the project.  I have marked a couple of the links as good places to start.

After looking at some of this, don't hesitate to reply with questions or information of your own.


1. Here is an updated description of Project PM, September 16, 2010 by Barrett Brown, :

Project PM was originally intended to serve a narrow purpose: to reduce the influence of those mainstream commentators who have done nothing to merit the great influence they possess over the form and content of the national dialogue. This goal itself was prompted by the months I had spent in reading over the work of such people as Thomas Friedman and Charles Krauthammer in the course of writing my next book as well as a series of articles on the same general subject. During this time, it occurred to me that a great number of our most influential commentators have gained that influence despite a demonstrable and consistent tendency towards making predictions that did not actually come true, deploying self-contradictory arguments, accidentally misrepresenting important and verifiable facts, and otherwise conducting their work in such a way as to damage the public understanding. Meanwhile, there exist other pundits whose confidence and honesty are just as easily identifiable but who nonetheless have not been granted anything close to the numerical reach of their more incompetent counterparts at such places as The New York Times and Washington Post. The problem, it seems, is that those who would shift their attention to other, better pundits if they knew about these failures have in fact not managed to learn of them, not being consumers of those information outlets which are in the business of pointing out such failures.

This problem - all the more significant for having damaged the national understanding, and thus having been at fundamental fault for some degree of the problems the nation has concocted for itself over the years - has already been remedied to a small but noticeable extent by the unprecedented increases in communicational possibilities that have come about by way of the internet. In particular, a portion of the blogosphere has proven itself effective in pointing out these deficits to a considerable audience which has consequently abandoned those pundits who have been shown to exhibit them. I think that this advantageous process can be improved upon; in fact, I’d argue that it would be ridiculous to think that it cannot be improved upon.

Project PM originated as a means to identify and implement such improvements in order to meet this aforementioned goal of lessening the influence of those whose influence plainly ought to be lessened. This was to be done by way of a very simple schematic whereby a significant number of participating bloggers would be persuaded to bring up the deficits of some or another commentator all at once and in tandem, thereby prompting attention on the part of those mainstream editors and producers who in turn would be hard-pressed not to address an issue being widely and suddenly discussed by a large array of commentators with a high level of collective notability. In this way, the blogger array may in effect take temporary control of the mainstream media’s infrastructure in order to get across the general message to its vast audience that the commentators on whom they are depending for information are incompetent and ought to be disregarded.

To this end, I began contacting some of the better bloggers (including traditional journalists who work in part through online media) and explaining that shit be all fucked up and that maybe we could unfuck it to some extent if we all got together and did our thing as described above, or words to that effect. Having recruited a couple of dozen such folks possessed of combined notoriety more than sufficient to prompt the necessary reaction, and having designed a simple schematic by which this would all be carried out, it occurred to me that a similar schematic, backed by simple software, could also be used by bloggers to greatly improve the means by which they communicate with one another. Meanwhile, we had managed to recruit an even greater number of non-bloggers possessed of various skill sets - many with extraordinarily impressive backgrounds - and we were happy to note that such people could not only be of assistance in helping to implement our main goal of establishing the blogger network, but could also be organized in such a way as to compose and pursue solutions to any number of related problems.

This expansion of purpose was prompted by our desire for Project PM to exist as an opportunistic sort of entity, taking on whichever tasks are found to be most viable in light of whichever sorts of resources and human capital have been made available to it. Although we remain light on resources, the degree of human capital we have accumulated is particularly humbling. Among the journalists and bloggers who have agreed to participate or assist, we have Michael Hastings, the author and war correspondent whose Rolling Stone piece on Afghanistan prompted the near-immediate resignation of General McChrystal; Charles Johnson, a pioneer of blogging conventions and technology who served as the co-creator of the influential but idiotic blog consortium Pajamas Media and whose gradual shift from right to center has been fraught with hilarity on the part of his allies-turned-enemies; Allison Kilkenny, a wonkish progressive whose radio program Citizen Radio, co-hosted with husband and comedian Jamie Kilstein, has become an inimitable and entertaining forum for honest-to-god policy discussions; and Dr. Juan Cole, whose erudite blogging on Middle Eastern affairs has happily translated into some degree of mainstream exposure. Among our non-blogging participants, meanwhile, we have a former editor of The Washington Post, a former CIA Directorate of Operations agent, a variety of scientists and programmers and engineers, several flavors of lawyer, various veteran political activists, and a great many people who lack formal credentials but nonetheless have demonstrated a keen understanding of the subjects on which we are focused as well as an inclination to put that understanding to fullest use.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been working with many of our participants in an effort to finalize and implement the blogger project as well as the various other sub-projects we’ve adopted so far. The process has involved an overlapping tangle of makeshift experiments in online collaboration, the launching of various discussion groups, research on emergent internet dynamics and related items of inquiry, recruitment of additional participants capable of filling in any remaining expertise gaps, determinations of legal framework, and writing all of that down just now. Having meanwhile developed a more specific idea of what we want to do and why and how, we have finally gotten to the matter of “when” and decided that now would probably work. As such, I’d like to invite you to join one or more of the following working groups by contacting me with your interest:

The Science/Journalism Improvement Project, which seeks to match freelance writers with scientists in order to encourage the production of more accurate science journalism.

The Africa Project, which is concerned with producing self-perpetuating solutions by which to improve education and standard of living in the context of Sub-Sahara, such as a program to distribute guides with plans for locally-implementable engineering techniques and to encourage the further distribution of those guides by the recipients themselves.

The Software Project, members of which will hammer out details regarding the proposed software for the Project PM blogger network.


2.  We now have an IRC channel, #projectpm, where you may join in live discussion with us.  The channel is most likely to be active in the afternoon and evening.  Here are some instructions about gaining access:

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, and it is one of the oldest communication methods on the 'net.  As such it's an appropriate venue for our talks, and to some extent, an appropriate example of a successful distributed information system (it was IRC networks that reported through media blackouts during the 1991 Soviet coup attempt and the first Gulf war).  Basically, it's a network of chatrooms all across the world.  You connect using a special IRC client, just like you used to have to have an email client to use email.   You connect to a public IRC server (in our case, irc.freenode.net), which hosts thousands of "rooms" and users jumping around between them.  Once you're connected to freenode, you join our room, which is called #projectpm (all IRC rooms start with a #).

Here are some specific instructions for those of you who are new to IRC, on either a PC or a Mac:

1) Download and install the Firefox (http://getfirefox.com) web browser if you haven't already.

2) In firefox, navigate to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/16/  and install the Chatzilla plugin. Chatzilla gives you IRC within the browser.  Firefox will prompt you to restart the browser.

3) Once the browser comes back, navigate to irc://chat.freenode.net  .  Note the irc:// at the beginning of the URL!  This is what tells firefox that you are connecting to an IRC server, instead of a website.  A new window will appear.  It takes a few seconds to connect, and it will give you a lot of text while it does so. Once it gets to 

End of /MOTD command.

Congratulations, you're connected to an IRC server! 

4) Now join our chatroom, by typing 

/join #projectpm

into the bar at the bottom of this new window, and hitting enter.  Note the "/" at the beginning: this is what identifies it as a command for your IRC client instead of just a regular message.  Your screen will display:

[INFO]Channel view for “#projectpm” opened.

And that's it! You're now in chat.  Type hello and hit enter. :)

 If you're brave, you can try this yourself with some more full featured clients.  Really what you need to know is that you want to connect to Freenode (irc.freenode.net or chat.freenode.net), and join the channel #projectpm.  For PC: I would recommend Xchat or mIRC.  For Mac: I recommend Colloquy, hands down.

3.  Here is some information about Barrett Brown's writing:

In addition to the older links below, you may read more recent writing by Barrett Brown at The Faster Times (http://thefastertimes.com/punditry/) and in the 'featured pages' at Little Green Footballs (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/226175_The_Media-Establishment_Victim and http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/226113_Charles_Krauthammer_vs._Compet).

Barrett will be publishing an new article soon in Skeptical Inquirer in which he discusses in detail the Science Journalism sub-project being developed as part of Project PM.  ( http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/ )

Barrett's next book, Hot, Fat and Clouded, The Amazing and Amusing Failures of America’s Chattering Class will be published later this year.  His first book, Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design and the Easter Bunny is no longer available in paper, but a Kindle edition is available from Amazon.


From Vanity Fair

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/06/why-the-hacks-hate-michael-hastings.html

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/01/ex-conservative-charles-johnsons-next-crusade.html

From Skeptical Inquirer

http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/a_tale_of_two_internets/

http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/internet_and_the_republic_of_skepticism_part_one/

http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/internet_and_the_republic_of_skepticism_part_two

From True/Slant

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/05/15/just-this-once-let-us-do-the-reasonable-thing/

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/05/06/the-internet-as-revolutionary-tool-the-skeptical-opportunity/

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/04/10/wikileaks-war-context-and-common-cause/

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/04/07/wikileaks-the-reactive-media-and-the-necessity-of-project-pm/

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/03/24/project-pm/  <-- then read this one

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/03/20/the-internet-skepticism-and-self-perpetuating-revolution/  <-- good place to start

From Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barrett-brown/a-proposal-for-a-minor-re_b_566400.html


4.  Here is some information about current activities at Project PM:

Software project -- we are designing a program which will support the blogger/journalist network component of Project PM

If you are interested in this part of our efforts contact Barrett (barriticus@gmail.com) or myself (robinsonchicago@gmail.com), and we will share with you a spreadsheet capturing our current design discussions, and will welcome your comments and suggestions.

Science journalism project --

This project will improve the quality of science journalism by coupling freelance journalists and scientists while utilizing media contacts to achieve publication.

 

Scientists and science-based practitioners (such as healthcare professionals and engineers) will work with freelance journalists in identifying story ideas; research; and contacting qualified sources, both for background information and quotations.

 

Participating scientists will see increased media attention to their area of expertise, publicity for themselves and their institutions/sponsors, and by-line credit if the level of contribution merits such recognition.  Also, there is the bonus of not getting heartburn reading media reports that mangle their areas of knowledge.

 

Participating journalists will produce articles of greater accuracy than the current norm. Furthermore, higher quality articles will result in an increase in published works.

Participating media experts will help get articles published. For example, they can strategize the best publications to contact, provide contact information for particular editors and/or publications, help formulate the pitch, and provide assistance in getting the piece sold.

We are enlisting interested scientists and freelancers in order to create a database with their areas of interest and expertise. Eventually, pairs will be created based on this database. Each pair will decide on the particulars of the articles to be produced and on their collaborative processes. However, unique to the Science Journalism Project is an explicit recognition that journalists and scientists don’t always work on deadlines in a similar way. Therefore, mutual respect and understanding will be necessary to keep to deadlines.

If you are interested in this project contact Barrett or myself.

Africa Development Program --

The goal of the Africa Development Project is to improve the standard of living in the non-developed areas of Africa.

Unfortunately while the world around us moves a mile a minute, there are parts of the globe where advancements are made much more slowly, such as in parts of Africa.

This has resulted in many hardships that most living in developed countries don’t think twice about such as access to drinkable water, food, and electricity to name a few.

With the help of those who have experience in matters such as these, we aim to not only raise awareness these plights, but to provide cost-effective, simple solutions to remedy these difficulties to as great of an extent as possible.

The group working on this includes people with varying backgrounds, including work in Africa and in online support of philanthropy, as well as those without such experience who are interested in learning.

If you are interested in this project contact Barrett or myself.

Other current activities:

In addition to the IRC channel, we have a website in the works; and we will soon be needing writing and administrative assistance with that.



Do not hesitate to (and I hope you will) reply with questions, and if you would like to describe your skills and interests, that would be great.

Clark Robinson
Chicago, Illinois

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>

Date: Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 10:43 PM
Subject: Fwd: Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
To: Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 11:42 PM
Subject: Re: Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
To: Tom Swirly <tom@swirly.com>

Tom-

Thanks for reaching out. Basically, Project PM is a distributed think-tank, which is to say that it fulfills the function of a think-tank but operates in a more efficient manner that is conducive to designing the best possible solutions to a variety of problems having to do with the way in which information flows. Media reform is central to our goals, although we're also tackling issues such as how to best encourage development in Africa at the lowest cost possible, or at no cost, as is the case with the pamphlet we intend to distribute to villages containing blueprints for locally-viable projects involving everything from agriculture to water safety.

I'm going to have my associate Clark Robinson e-mail you with links and other resources so that you get a more complete sense of what we're about; I'll forward this e-mail to him so that he can get reply and get a sense of what skills or relevant knowledge you may have here and thus be better able to determine which of our programs might interest you the most. Feel free to ask me any questions as well. Also, we just set up an IRC channel at irc.freenode.net, #projectPM. I try to idle in there for much of the day, as do many of more active participants. Incidentally, we have about 80 members so far and expect to be expanding quite a bit over the next couple of weeks. If you know anyone else who's clever, intellectually honest, and willing to spend a little bit of time on something that hasn't been done before, have them get in touch with me.

Let me know if you'd also like a PDF copy of my upcoming book, in which I make fun of the nation's most prominent columnists and pundits and explain how media reform can best be accomplished. 

On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 9:55 PM, Tom Swirly <tom@swirly.com> wrote:

and what is project PM?

--
    /t

http://radio.swirly.com - art music radio 24/7 366/1000

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

--

     /t

http://radio.swirly.com - art music radio 24/7 366/1000

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302