What Else Would CNN Show from ZA?

What it's like to be one of South Africa's 'underground astronauts'https://t.co/1dbBJZFS2A

— Lee Berger (@LeeRberger) July 4, 2021

Anti-White-Supremacy?

Anti-racism resources to support Asian American, Pacific Islander community #StopAsianHate https://t.co/4dQ94hbUhi

— Common Future (@commonfutureco) March 17, 2021

The MSM Will Survive Conservatives

Must see TV. The media should be brought to account at every opportunity. https://t.co/fq3KjhNJ17

— Patrick Deneen (@PatrickDeneen) February 14, 2021

Victory of the Oligarchs?

Don't Trust Fake News

Privileged to have been able to record this excellent interview with award-winning independent journalist @mtaibbi on the dramatic loss of public trust in our news media. A must-watch discussion about a critical topic https://t.co/640Kw4wlr1

— Adam Taggart (@menlobear) December 3, 2020

BS Artistry

A genre that is mostly dead, with the last stage being its transformation into agit-prop for feminism.

The biggest stars of country music like you have never seen! Watch "Country Strong" - the exclusive ABC News Special on the night before the CMA Awards - premiering Tuesday night at 10|9c on ABC. #CMAawards pic.twitter.com/SrmqihIXbP

— 20/20 (@ABC2020) November 6, 2020

The 1619 Project and the Riots

Yep. That is obviously its goal. Here's my correction.https://t.co/OxCFZonLYU

— @KevinGutzman (@KevinGutzman) June 2, 2020

The Errors of Liberalism

via Rod Dreher - Amanda Ripley, Complicating the Narratives:

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I’ve been a journalist for over 20 years, writing books and articles for Time, the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal and all kinds of places, and I did not know these lessons. After spending more than 50 hours in training for various forms of dispute resolution, I realized that I’ve overestimated my ability to quickly understand what drives people to do what they do. I have overvalued reasoning in myself and others and undervalued pride, fear and the need to belong. I’ve been operating like an economist, in other words — an economist from the 1960s.

For decades, economists assumed that human beings were reasonable actors, operating in a rational world. When people made mistakes in free markets, rational behavior would, it was assumed, generally prevail. Then, in the 1970s, psychologists like Daniel Kahneman began to challenge those assumptions. Their experiments showed that humans are subject to all manner of biases and illusions.

So even though all human beings are rational, it does not mean that they exercise rationality equally or in the same way. And we should not ignore the role that emotion, both in good and bad ways, can affect our judgment and reasoning.

Researchers have a name for the kind of divide America is currently experiencing. They call this an “intractable conflict,” as social psychologist Peter T. Coleman describes in his book The Five Percent, and it’s very similar to the kind of wicked feuds that emerge in about one out of every 20 conflicts worldwide. In this dynamic, people’s encounters with the other tribe (political, religious, ethnic, racial or otherwise) become more and more charged. And the brain behaves differently in charged interactions. It’s impossible to feel curious, for example, while also feeling threatened.

In this hypervigilant state, we feel an involuntary need to defend our side and attack the other. That anxiety renders us immune to new information. In other words: no amount of investigative reporting or leaked documents will change our mind, no matter what.

Intractable conflicts feed upon themselves. The more we try to stop the conflict, the worse it gets. These feuds “seem to have a power of their own that is inexplicable and total, driving people and groups to act in ways that go against their best interests and sow the seeds of their ruin,” Coleman writes. “We often think we understand these conflicts and can choose how to react to them, that we have options. We are usually mistaken, however.”

Once we get drawn in, the conflict takes control. Complexity collapses, and the us-versus-them narrative sucks the oxygen from the room. “Over time, people grow increasingly certain of the obvious rightness of their views and increasingly baffled by what seems like unreasonable, malicious, extreme or crazy beliefs and actions of others,” according to training literature from Resetting the Table, an organization that helps people talk across profound differences in the Middle East and the U.S.

Can journalism be salvaged with the lessons/strategies that Ripley puts forward? Not the MSM, I don't think, and it shouldn't. The press is an instrument for shaping opinion, not just reporting fact, and an instrument that the few or the elites would rather have under their control, and if they mean to produce conflict, they will produce conflict. Would there still be promotion of conflict in a small-scale political community? First, information would not be through someone making a living reporting the news, though it may be second-hand or third-hand or fourth-hand rather than first-hand. But in the case of serious disputes, this would not be addressed by "public opinion" or the swaying of "public opinion" to one side or the other, but by the community, either through a designated authority or some other recognized intermediary. The modern press is parasitical on oversized population centers and rarely fulfill the task that they claim to be serving.

She Needs to Grow a Pair

What happened to fempowerment? Let's hold her to the same standard as a man: no complaining or crying or pleading for attention if someone makes a comment about your ethnic background, based on the fact that you are an outsider. Suck it up and move on, because as a beneficiary of the Hart-Celler Act, you have no right to demand acceptance.



A white knight.

What a stupid idiot

South Carolina beachgoer demands Asian-American CNN reporter ‘get out of his country’ https://t.co/2Y8fahqW46

— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) May 26, 2020

Rod Dreher Responds to Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair: "Call it the Tucker Carlson Wing of the GOP" The American Conservative Watns to Be the Atlantic of the Right

Dreher: The Culture War: Why We Still Fight

But we should never, ever allow ourselves to be gaslit by liberals or libertarians who tell us that nobody cares about this stuff anymore, so we should just drop it. 

Nor, for that matter, should we allow ourselves to be gaslit by figures within Religious Conservatism, Inc., who insist that we are within one election, and one Supreme Court appointment, from “victory.” It’s not true, and it was never true, and believing that the culture war was primarily a political and legal conflict was a massive strategic error of an entire generation, from which we have yet to recover. Going forward, the most important work of the culture war will be mounting guerrilla resistance within a culture whose dominant institutions were long ago captured by the other side.

Related:
The New Right, the Benedict Option, and a Second Look at Waco by Arthur Bloom
What the biggest Clinton-era law enforcement scandal can tell us about conservative challenges ahead.

Coincidentally, I later found this tweet, written by someone associated with Catholic Herald and posing as a moderate I suppose:

You: Have you read The Benedict Option?

Me: No but I watched the live-action remake. pic.twitter.com/C8NySIbnjd

— Zac Mabry (@ZacMabry) April 26, 2020

Peter Hitchens on the UK Lockdown

Related:

In the Land of the Blind...

New York Times Columnist Jessica Lahey @jesslahey dropped some parenting bombs on us. Her book, "The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed" is in keeping with some of our favorite looks on parenting :) https://t.co/1Vv8Gwck7J pic.twitter.com/EvroNhHbWW

— dax shepard (@daxshepard) April 16, 2020

Great interview with Jessica Lahey ⁦@jesslahey⁩ on the importance of a growth mindset, desirable struggle, and the magic of “yet” (as in, I can’t do this *yet*) — Armchair Expert https://t.co/qXFJ4x1st3

— Steven Strogatz (@stevenstrogatz) April 17, 2020

Jessica Lahey, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed

Laying the Smackdown

John Ioannidis does not get that model uncertainty WORSENS possible outcomes under exponential growth & should lead to MORE reaction.
Dangerous ignorance.
Here is a derivation from Jensen's ineq. pic.twitter.com/XGUtqlR2py

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) April 11, 2020

More elegant.
It is hard to live on a planet where the most cited person in epidemiology, John Ioannidis, doesn't understand exponential, hence multiplication. Yet he tries to make policy. pic.twitter.com/iZadn4eaUK

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) April 11, 2020

Wrong. Levantine coast had 5 additional Greek areas. Plus Berytus and Baalbeck spoke mainly Latin owing to Law school and Roman resettlements. https://t.co/SoQcAibA3N

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) April 11, 2020

The Stupidity of the MSM

That NYT?

+Ran articles about irrationality of worrying about the pandemic
+Opposed the travel ban
+Now blaming the administration for not having stiffer travel ban https://t.co/4NNOpkeO1V pic.twitter.com/czrGEeI6Lu

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) April 6, 2020

The argument by the @WHO imbeciles & journo fellow travelers that masks "can give a false sense of security" is interesting. Let's apply it to:
+seat belts
+airbags
+helmets
+door locks
+condoms
+circuit breakers
+parachutes
+bulletproof vests
+fire alarms
+scholomorochs ...

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) April 7, 2020

Condoms may be an exception, as the ignorant may use them thinking that it will protect them from all STDs.

Taleb at Work

"Evidence based" means that she recommended in her Forbes column in late February that people wear no masks. Yes, NO masks. Because absence of evidence is not evidence based.
It is hard to share the planet with such dangerous people. https://t.co/iKVU52M7Cd

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) April 5, 2020

I am amazed that an error that eludes "evidence based" "scientists", nonprobabilist statisticians, Pinker-style naive empiricists... is explained very simply by Mike to his kids. https://t.co/lXsStELc6Y

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) April 5, 2020

Department of hindsight: the NYT is now blaming mobility. Yet they were publishing crap saying it was not rational to panic when Yaneer, Joe, and I were advocating what looked like an "overreaction".https://t.co/5MOhTJeeyA

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) April 5, 2020

"Experts" Advise Against Wearing Masks

Some health experts questioning advice against wider use of masks to slow spread of COVID-19
The coronavirus question: To mask or not to mask

This is the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada and head of the Public Health Agency of Canada, Dr. Theresa Tam. She sounds like she has a Canto/HK accent. I don't care about her credentials -- but it isn't too much to ask someone with her supposed intelligence to learn how to speak English like a native. She is a reminder of how meritocracy has been subverted through immigration by the state or its elites to undermine national identity.



And a recent Twitter thread on the use of masks.

Chris Martenson has a critique of her "expert" recommendations:


I note that she is also a member of the Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee for the WHO Health Emergencies Programme - another strike against WHO. Another cog in the alliance between WHO and China?

And of course the MSM in Canada is simply parroting the opinions of these "experts." We experienced the same thing in the US, with the CDC, but now the official opinion may be turning towards a more pro-mask-wearing stance.

NEW: CDC guidance on masks expected to change in next 10 days. Americans will be advised to wear masks in everyday life. Current recommendation is for high-risk groups only.

— Matt McCarthy (@DrMattMcCarthy) March 28, 2020

Statist BS from a secular state:

Parenting while #physicaldistancing can be stressful. Take a moment for yourself. It’s important for your #mentalhealth. Try meditating, working out or taking a bath. #COVID19 #stayhome pic.twitter.com/jkVTxSZujD

— Health Canada and PHAC (@GovCanHealth) April 1, 2020

2/4 #PhysicalDistancing can put a strain on our mental health, ↑ feelings of isolation & loneliness. It helps to remember that while #TogetherApart, we are all joined as Canadians in a collective effort.#COVID19 #WeWillGetThroughThis #cavabienaller

— Dr. Theresa Tam (@CPHO_Canada) April 2, 2020

Updated:

IYI bureaucrats opposed to masks used (bogus) arguments abt the protection of the wearer ("not perfect", etc.)

They didn't think that since it ALSO prevents (more effectively) ASYMPTOMATIC sick pple from spreading it, there wd be yuuge systemic effect.

PS: @WHO is a fraud.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) April 2, 2020

Alt Lite

Matt Walsh at Baylor University On How The Left Is Taking Over The Culture

Fr. Rutler Keeps Up With the Lingo

I bet he does read a lot everyday.

Infamous Scribblers: Virtue Signalers on the Warpath by FR. GEORGE W. RUTLER

CWR: Reuters’ misrepresentation of Francis’ remarks on Trump will fuel further distrust by Carl E. Olson
We need essential media coverage that can be trusted, but it’s increasingly hard to trust mainstream media outlets to do such basic journalistic work.

"Guilt by association."

Incidentally, when the MSM found out the first interviews that James Damore did were with Stefan Molyneux and Dr Jordan B Peterson, they were quick to characterize both men as being alt right/far right, even though they are more accurately characterized as libertarian/classical liberal.