Re: Erik and new scientist Jonathan Dursi

Summary

In 2003, Thomas Friedman won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. In 2005, Friedman was invited to join the board of the Pulitzer committee. Our nation is killing itself from within.

Most every industry contains within itself a system of negative feedback by which to ensure that those who fail in their efforts are discouraged whereas those who succeed are encouraged. The most notable exception is the opinion media, which is itself among the most crucial and fundamental of all industries, being fundamental to the manner in which the public thinks - and thus votes, donates, and convinces its fellows, with the cumulative process thereafter being translated into action on the part of the greatest superpower to have ever existed. Thus it is that one of the most influential institutions in the world - the institution of the American punditocracy - is the least accountable. Once a pundit is made, he is rarely unmade.

Thomas Friedman is one of the most influential individuals to work in the most influential of industries, having written a popular New York Times column for well over a decade, having graced the various network news and cable networks for a similar period of time, and having written several bestsellers which are themselves read and respected by a large swath of the nations decision makers right on up to the current United States president. That Thomas Friedman has made a large number of terrible predictions while not elsewhere having made any particularly astute predictions, that his assertions sometimes directly and hilariously contradict assertions he mas made elsewhere, and that other columnists and even bloggers of far lesser influence have exhibited a far superior track record without having won any comparable acclaim is among the most obvious of indications that the United States is incapable of managing and distributing the information it requires to perform its role as a global superpower with reasonable regard for the consequences. It does not help matters that he is famously read by the current U.S. president.

To the extent that we actually examine the output of the most influential and widely-read of what a hippie or Nixon might term to be the "establishment" pundits, we find the same extraordinary rhetorical and informational failures perpetrated by the majority of them. Charles Krauthammer has managed to get entirely and profoundly wrong every U.S. military conflict of the past twelve years along with a smattering of foreign engagements for good measure. Having opposed the surge before a year later supporting it and attacking those who opposed it, Krauthammer even missed out on the conservative consolation prize. Despite such predictive failures along with dozens of easily-discovered self-contradictions and errors of fact, the columnist has grown only more influential over this period and is now commonly counted as being among the finest of commentators.

The picture remains grim or hilarious - depending on ones sense of humor - even as we expand our view of it. Richard Cohen remains a respected staple of The Washington Post despite mounting evidence that he is unqualified for such a role by intellect and temperament. William Bennetts mediocre partisanship and routine delivery of demonstrably incorrect information on topics ranging from Prohibition to the present day have not prevented CNN from drawing on his talents for the benefit of historical election-night coverage that one might prefer consist largely of the competent. Martin Peretz continues to do his part in making anti-Arab bigotry acceptable by way of his purchased stewardship of The New Republic even as he earns further contempt from many of his own writers and others who share his views but can't help but notice the bizarre manner in which he seeks to advance them. And then, there are those less respectable pundits with whom we need not bother to criticize but with whom we nonetheless ought to concern ourselves in the literal sense of the term.

There are two bits of silver lining to a situation that is all the more serious by virtue of not being widely acknowledged. For one thing, the communications age has barely begun to make its presence felt in comparison to the new solutions it will soon bring thanks to those who have decided to take advantage of them. Secondly, the pundits who have caused all the aforementioned trouble are largely douchebags whose profitable forays into douchebaggery are just as profitably outlined, as the author has discovered over the past few years. This second piece of good news is, of course, a subtle hint.

Marketing

I have a number of methods by which to market the book from my end, some more conventional than others. My first book, Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design, and the Easter Bunny, was blurbed by Alan Dershowitz (Flock of Dodos is in the great tradition of debunkers with a sense of humor, from Thomas Paine to Mark Twain.), Matt Taibbi ("Here's the problem with America's born-again wackos: only a gifted comic is capable of describing them, but no one with a sense of humor can stomach being around them. That's why there are so few books like Flock of Dodos.), Cenk Uyger, (Jesus Christ and lesbian monkeys in the same book. Brilliant. `Smart' and `funny' in the same book. Genius.), and others while also receiving universally positive reviews (except from those attacked in the book, who seemed not to have enjoyed it).

The book in question, meanwhile, has received advance blurbs from author and war correspondent Michael Hastings ("A hilarious, brilliantly crafted, full-on verbal assault on America's pundit class. Brown shows us just how lazy, stupid, and corrupt almost of all our nation's most beloved columnists have become. I'm now fully convinced that this entire generation of over-published bullshit artists deserve to be tasered in the face, one at a time, preferably on live television.), a former Newsweek contributor who is best known for his Rolling Stone article which in turn led to the immediate resignation of General Stanley McChrystal in 2010. Hastings is a longtime colleague and a founding member of my distributed think-tank Project PM. The manuscript has also been championed by bestselling author and former covert CIA analyst Barry Eisler, who will be citing an argument about Russia made therein in his next thriller novel in addition to serving as an informal advisor to myself and PM. Producer Robert Green, a former fact checker for Christoper Hitchens, is also working with me to ensure that the book and the ideas therein take hold; we are also producing videos for Will Farrels production company as well as a feature film based on a treatment Ive been asked to write.

Im a contributor to Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, Skeptical Inquirer, and D Magazine, and my work has also appeared in Skeptic, The Onion, New York Press, Nerve, National Lampoon, American Atheist, and dozens of other outlets. My work has been linked to by Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Greenwald, John Cole, Allison Kilkenny, and other prominent and not-so-prominent bloggers and journalists.

Project PM, which I founded in summer of 2010, is made up of about 150 scientists, journalists, authors, and other media figures who are intent on taking a more active and technology-driven stance against the media structure described above while also developing similarly information-based methods by which to solve a variety of other problems. Upon formal launch in early 2011, PM will consist largely of two different networks - a blogger network and a citizen network - both of which operate under the same fundamental schematic that I've designed for the purpose. More information can be provided on request; suffice to say that the manuscript has been instrumental in bringing together many of our participants and will benefit from serving as the central manifesto around which this group is organized.

Aside from whatever useful bits of notierety I've gained through my early support for Wikileaks and my work with key figures in the Anonymous movement, I have also appeared on a number of media including Fox News and Russia Today, recently served as an advisor to Virginia Democratic Senate candidate Wynne LeGrow, have long acted as director of communications for the Godless Political Action Committee, and have otherwise been involved in a variety of efforts that will be useful in bringing attention to my work in general in and this book in particular.

On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 3:26 PM, barri2009 <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm not sure how to convey that in summary but marketing section should manage that. Agent has read friedman chapter and will presumably convey style to publishers.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
From: Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2010 15:26:54 -0600
To: Barrett Brown<barriticus@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Erik and new scientist Jonathan Dursi

Further thought: should the proposal also convey that the book is stylistically interesting? The book is not a plod through the failures of the subject pundits.

On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 3:11 PM, Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com> wrote:

Still have houseguests, tonight cocktails & meal with them, so I won't be at IRC meeting.

A couple of quick reactions to proposal:

Before I had read the book, I was somewhat puzzled by the emphasis on high error rate of predictions [in statements you had made about the book], me at the time wondering if being mostly wrong is inevitable for writers foolish enough to engage in predicting. But rather, of course, it is emblematic of their distorted/inadequate/ideological understanding of the subjects they write about. Point being, the book is not primarily a tally of erroneous predictions, but maybe a reader of the proposal below might react the way I did.

The last paragraph and particularly the douchebag sentence: maybe its my age; I don't attach a specific meaning to to douchebag or -baggery, to me it's general badness. The meaning of the paragraph seems more hinted-at than expressed.

Will send more thoughts tomorrow, if I have them.

On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 1:20 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Okay, thanks.

Here is the first portion of the proposal - the really difficult portion that I had trouble writing for some reason. All that's left is the marketing section, which I can have done today as it's mostly just me bragging about stuff, which is something that comes a bit more naturally. Let me know if you can see any obvious changes that should be made; this merely goes to the agent, who will likely provide his own changes.

In 2003, Thomas Friedman won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. In 2005, Friedman was invited to join the board of the

Pulitzer committee. Our nation is killing itself from within.

Most every industry contains within itself a system of negative feedback by which to ensure that those who fail in their

efforts are discouraged whereas those who succeed are encouraged. The most notable exception is the opinion media, which is

itself among the most crucial and fundamental of all industries, being fundamental to the manner in which the public thinks -

and thus votes, donates, and convinces its fellows, with the cumulative process thereafter being translated into action on

the part of the greatest superpower to have ever existed. Thus it is that one of the most influential institutions in the

world - the institution of the American punditocracy - is the least accountable. Once a pundit is made, he is rarely unmade.

Thomas Friedman is one of the most influential individuals to work in the most influential of industries, having written a

popular New York Times column for well over a decade, having graced the various network news and cable networks for a similar

period of time, and having written several bestsellers which are themselves read and respected by a large swath of the

nations decision makers right on up to the current United States president. That Thomas Friedman has made a large number of

terrible predictions while not elsewhere having made any particularly astute predictions, that his assertions sometimes

directly and hilariously contradict assertions he mas made elsewhere, and that other columnists and even bloggers of far

lesser influence have exhibited a far superior track record without having won any comparable acclaim is among the most

obvious of indications that the United States is incapable of managing and distributing the information it requires to

perform its role as a global superpower with reasonable regard for the consequences. It does not help matters that he is

famously read by the current U.S. president.

To the extent that we actually examine the output of the most influential and widely-read of what a hippie or Nixon might

term to be the "establishment" pundits, we find the same extraordinary failures perpetrated by the majority of them. Charles

Krauthammer has managed to get entirely and profoundly wrong every U.S. military conflict of the past twelve years as well as

a smattering of other nation's engagements. Having opposed the surge before a year later supporting it and attacking those

who opposed it, Krauthammer even missed out on the conservative consolation prize. Nonetheless he has grown only more

influential over this period and is now commonly counted as being among the finest of commentators.

The picture remains grim or hilarious - depending on ones sense of humor - even as we expand our view of it. Richard Cohen

remains a respected staple of The Washington Post despite mounting evidence that he is unqualified for such a role by

intellect and temperament. William Bennetts mediocre partisanship and routine delivery of demonstrably incorrect information

on topics ranging from Prohibition to the present day have not prevented CNN from drawing on his talents for the benefit of

historical election-night coverage that one might prefer consist largely of the competent. Martin Peretz continues to do his

part in making anti-Arab bigotry acceptable by way of his purchased stewardship of The New Republic even as he earns further

contempt from many of his own writers and others who share his views but can't help but notice the bizarre manner in which he

seeks to advance them. And then, there are those less respectable pundits with whom we need not bother to criticize but whom

we nonetheless ought to concern ourselves in the literal sense of the term.

There are two bits of silver lining to a situation that is all the more serious by virtue of not being widely acknowledged.

For one thing, the communications age has barely begun to make its presence felt in comparison to the new solutions it will

soon bring thanks to those who have decided to take action. Secondly, the pundits who have caused all the aforementioned

trouble are largely douchebags whose profitable forays into douchebaggery are just as profitably outlined, as the author has

discovered over the past few years. This second piece of good news is, of course, a subtle hint.

On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 11:11 PM, Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com> wrote:

sent background to dursi, also to ault.

erik, was intending to send different set of material along with ideas about revamp of the League--but I did not send him any material after he told you he was not interested in coordinated blogging.

ault is on the caleb spreadsheet but dursi is not. there are people on the science spreadsheet who are not on the general one; need to fix that

On Sun, Dec 26, 2010 at 9:21 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Did this get taken care of? (Obviously I'm going through my hundreds of e-mails tonight)

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 7:32 PM, Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm moving around now, checking in via shitty mobile connection occasionally; I will be back home by end of day tomorrow. I will then work to get thoughtful sets of materials to Erik and J. Dursi -- I know Erik has a set of skills that would be extremely valuable to Project PM, and Dursi looks like a powerhouse, also.

Clark

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302