Your music doesn't last, but you have to stop. In 2011, nine upper-middle-class conservatives form a guerrilla group called the "Dirty Derivatives". They take as their theme song "How to Save a Life". It's an ironic name, though, if you can guess what their goals were.
When I first came back to this time and place, I wasn't concerned about preventing the future disasters this group is to cause. I didn't see it as part of the greater story of our inevitable destruction; I'm still not sure it is; but I do know I can prevent it.
You see, the story of the Dirty Derivatives is one I took to heart as a youngster because the leader, Bucky Dunning, sounded a lot like me: handsome, almost unfairly so; charming, to a fault; angry, but for very good reasons; and oddly autistic. He'd sing the same lyrics over and over again without concern for the people around him. In the future, I thought it was a strange mental malady. But now, I realize it was The Fray.
"I found God/ on the corner of First and Amistad/ where the West/ was all but won." Just typing those words made me furious -- I know I'm condemned to singing them to myself for at least the next 18 hours. Finishing this post will take almost all my willpower now. Why the hell would they write something like this, and how in the world does the lead singer's voice make it so catchy? And why couldn't he have found God on the corner of First and, say, Delancey?
Combine a chaotic world with changes that anger the privileged, and you'll have pushback.
Sprinkle The Fray on top?
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Goldman Sachs
Dear Lloyd,
You'd be amazed how difficult manipulating currencies becomes after a nuclear holocaust. You'll be astonished by the damage explosives do to your trading floor.
Your employees will be shocked how easily their Greenwich mansions get looted. And by how quickly their children join the looters.
It's unfortunate that the leader of the uprising doesn't take your political donations. Sad that the name of your company is his No. 1 applause line.
You should be proud your company goes out heavy on the shorts. Light on the courage, though, without even a dab of national leadership.
But that was never your job, was it? You job is to make money. Ironic isn't it? That you end up making the entire system of money dissolve.
Best,
The Bloginator
P.S. I'm not even going to try to change your behavior. Only intelligent people are capable of change.
You'd be amazed how difficult manipulating currencies becomes after a nuclear holocaust. You'll be astonished by the damage explosives do to your trading floor.
Your employees will be shocked how easily their Greenwich mansions get looted. And by how quickly their children join the looters.
It's unfortunate that the leader of the uprising doesn't take your political donations. Sad that the name of your company is his No. 1 applause line.
You should be proud your company goes out heavy on the shorts. Light on the courage, though, without even a dab of national leadership.
But that was never your job, was it? You job is to make money. Ironic isn't it? That you end up making the entire system of money dissolve.
Best,
The Bloginator
P.S. I'm not even going to try to change your behavior. Only intelligent people are capable of change.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Charlatan
Dear Malcolm Gladwell,
What you are doing and have done is bad enough. But the catastrophic consequences of what you are about to do? I don't think even you can imagine.
There are times in a man's life when his persona gains leverage over his person, when the hype engulfs the man. You're not yet a demagogue, but soon you will be. And you will become the leader of an egalitarian movement that, by the Law of Unintended Consequences, secures the power of a totalitarian regime.
The Tipping Point was a nice debut for you. It got your name out there. The phrase is part of today's American culture. Never mind that the fact that it's hogwash social science, Black Magic coated in sugary language. Your thoughts are so compellingly uttered as to render them dangerous. It's a sad choice you made not to be a novelist. I think you could have been one of the all-time greats.
And Blink? To my mind, it's the most irresponsible book of the 21st century. And I can say that having read or read about all the books up to the Nuclear holocaust of 2029. Ain't no more books being written where I came from. Blink told all the W's out there to go with their instincts. It suggested first thought, best thought, no more thoughts, that the mind is smarter than the methods we created to vet our instincts. Blink was a step back in the evolution of human thought. Anything you wrote after Tipping Point was going to be front and center in the book world. And you chose to suggest that we make decisions in the blink of an eye?
Forget about Outliers. Now you're just mailing it in. Soon, you'll get bored of this social science and yearn to be a national leader. You won't think you're pursuing demagoguery, but as your latest article about the full-court press proves, you've lost all sense of reality. How can you possibly state with any seriousness that a full-court press moves an underdog's chance of winning from 0% to 50%? That statement betrays a gross lack of understanding of both basketball and statistics.
The Princeton teams of the 1990s proved how underdogs win: minimize possessions, which effects a smaller sample size, allowing for more randomness. Try to get open threes, pack it on defense in an effort to get the other team to shoot outside shots instead of pounding it inside. The Roy Williams philosophy is a direct response to that. He realized that the favorite needs to run, run, run in order to increase the sample size of possessions, allowing for less randomness. And running nets you more easy shots like dunks, layups, and wide-open threes. As much as the Princeton offense is a way to get open shots in the halfcourt, the North Carolina offense is a way to a get open shots without letting the D set up in the halfcourt. A fullcourt game benefits the favorite; a halfcourt game benefits the underdog. Why, beyond the statistics? The favorite, in basketball, is generally the more athletic team. And you can't full-court press a team that's more athletic than you. No matter what Malcolm Gladwell says.
What you do, Malcolm, gets worse and worse. Stop now, when all you've done is tell a few lies, incite a few ignoramuses, and insult the game of basketball.
What you are doing and have done is bad enough. But the catastrophic consequences of what you are about to do? I don't think even you can imagine.
There are times in a man's life when his persona gains leverage over his person, when the hype engulfs the man. You're not yet a demagogue, but soon you will be. And you will become the leader of an egalitarian movement that, by the Law of Unintended Consequences, secures the power of a totalitarian regime.
The Tipping Point was a nice debut for you. It got your name out there. The phrase is part of today's American culture. Never mind that the fact that it's hogwash social science, Black Magic coated in sugary language. Your thoughts are so compellingly uttered as to render them dangerous. It's a sad choice you made not to be a novelist. I think you could have been one of the all-time greats.
And Blink? To my mind, it's the most irresponsible book of the 21st century. And I can say that having read or read about all the books up to the Nuclear holocaust of 2029. Ain't no more books being written where I came from. Blink told all the W's out there to go with their instincts. It suggested first thought, best thought, no more thoughts, that the mind is smarter than the methods we created to vet our instincts. Blink was a step back in the evolution of human thought. Anything you wrote after Tipping Point was going to be front and center in the book world. And you chose to suggest that we make decisions in the blink of an eye?
Forget about Outliers. Now you're just mailing it in. Soon, you'll get bored of this social science and yearn to be a national leader. You won't think you're pursuing demagoguery, but as your latest article about the full-court press proves, you've lost all sense of reality. How can you possibly state with any seriousness that a full-court press moves an underdog's chance of winning from 0% to 50%? That statement betrays a gross lack of understanding of both basketball and statistics.
The Princeton teams of the 1990s proved how underdogs win: minimize possessions, which effects a smaller sample size, allowing for more randomness. Try to get open threes, pack it on defense in an effort to get the other team to shoot outside shots instead of pounding it inside. The Roy Williams philosophy is a direct response to that. He realized that the favorite needs to run, run, run in order to increase the sample size of possessions, allowing for less randomness. And running nets you more easy shots like dunks, layups, and wide-open threes. As much as the Princeton offense is a way to get open shots in the halfcourt, the North Carolina offense is a way to a get open shots without letting the D set up in the halfcourt. A fullcourt game benefits the favorite; a halfcourt game benefits the underdog. Why, beyond the statistics? The favorite, in basketball, is generally the more athletic team. And you can't full-court press a team that's more athletic than you. No matter what Malcolm Gladwell says.
What you do, Malcolm, gets worse and worse. Stop now, when all you've done is tell a few lies, incite a few ignoramuses, and insult the game of basketball.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Sarah Palin
Dear Critics of John McCain,
You don't understand what "rolling the dice" means, do you?
When John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his vice president, he was roundly criticized. She's too much of an unknown! Did they even vet her? And of course these were valid concerns, but if the question is, Did John McCain make the right choice in picking Sarah Palin? The answer is, Yes, he absolutely did.
Humans who suffer from severe cases of hindsight bias will posit this scenario: what if he had picked Mitt Romney? Then, when the economy collapsed, Mitt would have been there. And as a rich, successful businessman, he knows a lot about the economy. First off, this hypothetical dismisses the economic backbone of the Romney campaign: Four more years of George Bush policies. Assuming he could distance himself from that motto, would he have had any interesting policy ideas or rhetoric? And even if he did, would the McCain-Romney ticket have been so far behind in the polls it would have been impossible to catch up? Impossible to say...unless you grew up in an America where McCain did pick Romney. In that case, you would know.
But I'm not here to talk about what might have been. I'm here to talk about Sarah Palin. And rolling the dice. Unless you have an illness, you only roll the dice - or gamble - in a political campaign because if you didn't you would certainly lose. Therefore, the fact that McCain's gamble didn't win him the election doesn't mean it wasn't a smart move. Most dice rolls lose. But you do it because it gives you a chance to win. And Sarah Palin gave John McCain a chance to win.
Her speech at the Republican convention rallied the base and scared Chicken Little liberals shitless. McCain surged in the polls -- that fact alone means he made the right choice. He needed a surge; he got it. What happened after was just unfortunate and the typical cost of "rolling the dice". It's my personal opinion that it was the Katie Couric interview -- and that alone -- that "tipped"* the American people against Gov. Palin. But who knows?
Bottom line, unless you think the McCain strategists were morons or addicts, they made the right choice. And it was a bold one. But the "kinda like a community organizer except I had actual responsibilities" line hit right to the heart of the weakness of the Obama campaign (what was he doing after college and before law school again? How many years was it?).
In the interests of full disclosure, and to clear my conscience, I want you all to know that McCain did pick Romney when I was a child. They lost in a landslide.
* = See my next post for information about the future demagogic exploits of one Malcolm Gladwell.
You don't understand what "rolling the dice" means, do you?
When John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his vice president, he was roundly criticized. She's too much of an unknown! Did they even vet her? And of course these were valid concerns, but if the question is, Did John McCain make the right choice in picking Sarah Palin? The answer is, Yes, he absolutely did.
Humans who suffer from severe cases of hindsight bias will posit this scenario: what if he had picked Mitt Romney? Then, when the economy collapsed, Mitt would have been there. And as a rich, successful businessman, he knows a lot about the economy. First off, this hypothetical dismisses the economic backbone of the Romney campaign: Four more years of George Bush policies. Assuming he could distance himself from that motto, would he have had any interesting policy ideas or rhetoric? And even if he did, would the McCain-Romney ticket have been so far behind in the polls it would have been impossible to catch up? Impossible to say...unless you grew up in an America where McCain did pick Romney. In that case, you would know.
But I'm not here to talk about what might have been. I'm here to talk about Sarah Palin. And rolling the dice. Unless you have an illness, you only roll the dice - or gamble - in a political campaign because if you didn't you would certainly lose. Therefore, the fact that McCain's gamble didn't win him the election doesn't mean it wasn't a smart move. Most dice rolls lose. But you do it because it gives you a chance to win. And Sarah Palin gave John McCain a chance to win.
Her speech at the Republican convention rallied the base and scared Chicken Little liberals shitless. McCain surged in the polls -- that fact alone means he made the right choice. He needed a surge; he got it. What happened after was just unfortunate and the typical cost of "rolling the dice". It's my personal opinion that it was the Katie Couric interview -- and that alone -- that "tipped"* the American people against Gov. Palin. But who knows?
Bottom line, unless you think the McCain strategists were morons or addicts, they made the right choice. And it was a bold one. But the "kinda like a community organizer except I had actual responsibilities" line hit right to the heart of the weakness of the Obama campaign (what was he doing after college and before law school again? How many years was it?).
In the interests of full disclosure, and to clear my conscience, I want you all to know that McCain did pick Romney when I was a child. They lost in a landslide.
* = See my next post for information about the future demagogic exploits of one Malcolm Gladwell.
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