Todd's Mischief Blog

 All they have left...

Risk vs. Control  Gitabushi says: “One notion I'm working on today is how to demonstrate that although Socialism as sold as a reduction in risk, it actually increases it.” I think the way to demonstrate it is to actually side-step it. Tangent for another day, but as societies advance, they feminize. We are there. In simplest terms, a feminized culture acts more like a woman than a man. WARNING: I WILL BE SPEAKING IN GENERALITIES! Women more than men bristle at the idea of being controlled. You can get men to go to war to shake off the yoke of oppression, but not much less. You can get women to upend their entire personal lives because someone in it may be vaguely "controlling" them. So, the way to sidestep the risk discussion (which is ideal for a masculine conversation) is to explain how socialism is more controlling than free markets (we must dispense with the Marxist term "capitalism"). This should be easy. The only hurdle is gaining a platf

Dear Readers,  I apologize in advance. This post attempts to preserve what I regard as the highlights of a rather long Twitter conversation that involved a lot of participants (not all of them represented here) and cross-posting. I did my best to put things in something of a logical order that followed the general path of the conversation, but it is messy.  Yours, Todd Thanks to @PintSizePolemic , I saw something interesting. The Overton Window is widening. The range of acceptable discourse is broader now than it was when I was a kid. This is a minor conservative victory.  Quote tweet Replying to  @PintSizePolemic I think about this a lot. (green lines added by me) Can't be completely accurate, because conservatism has adopted a lot of positions that were unthinkable even to liberals in 1994, but at least it's a consistent approach over the years. source: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/interactives/political-polarization-1994-2017/  It certainly puts to rest the notion th

 

  @drrollergator says "2022 NEED TO MAXIMIZE THE 10 YEAR PRESIDENT THING"

Many people are stuck on grade school levels of telling truth from lies. Which means they accept whatever is told to them by an authority they trust (like). They haven’t knowingly caught on to the trick that most events can be seen as both true or false depending on how you look at them. For example, say Politician A issues a blatant misstatement of fact. If the scapegoat outlet reports the statement, it gets flagged, because it is spreading a falsehood. If the mainstream outlet reports the statement, it slides, because it is just covering the falsehood.  It’s a very simple trick that most people can do without even realizing they’re doing it. It’s just motivated reasoning. If you think so-and-so is a liar, you will interpret anything so-and-so says such that it is a lie. This gets even easier when people use idioms, hyperbole, sarcasm, and other rhetorical flourishes, as most people are wont to do. In fact, people rarely speak literally about anything. At root, all language is metapho

As a marketing professional, one thing that has bothered me is how absolutely abysmal messaging has been in relation to the COVID response at all levels. The White House, I understand. The concerted effort to undermine everything the current administration says—by the press and by professional bureaucrats—has been a constant since the moment this president took office. But consider this. The first and hardest hit place in the US was New York City, home of Madison Avenue. The best, most talented and well resourced persuaders on the planet are in  I mean, come on! The whole nation is convulsing over mask mandates and yet the glossy PSAs declaring " Wearing is Caring " or some such pithy slogan are nowhere to be seen. What I'm saying is, the buy-in approach—the carrot as opposed to the stick—was discarded at the outset. I see no evidence it was ever really tried. WHY? The charitable side of me says the players involved didn't think of it. The uncharitable side says they

I’ve long recognized that what we term the left is not, in fact, on the left of anything, but on the periphery of whatever shape socio-politico-cultural whazzits occupies.  What Zero shows ( in this thread ) is something of the “why” the Left is (pardon me) centered on the margin. (The geography of this space is perplexing.) There is a tactical component I had not appreciated. The margin is both confusing and confused. The margin is paradoxical. It is comprised of the highly unique cases that defy conventional categorization. They don’t fit in. That’s hell for social creatures. They long for a category. Easy marks for any ideology just looking for members. Now, every ideology thinks it’s the best ideology and should therefore displace all other ideologies. That is, every ideology thinks it should be at the center. The problem for ideologies that suck is that they can’t recruit. Crap ideologies then must recruit from the margins and find ways of expanding the margins, that is, getting m

(Hint: Not the way anyone's been doing it)  Whether you approve of wearing a mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19 or oppose it, there is no disputing that mask-wearing has been poorly promoted. From mixed messages to outright intimidation, it could've gone better. It didn't have to be this way, but it looks like we’re stuck with it, because a better approach wasn’t taken from the beginning. Off the top of my head, I count 3 crucial missteps with regards to encouraging mask wearing. 1. Fauci's flip-flop. The potential for consensus on mask wearing was mostly destroyed by the nation's preeminent physician himself when he initially came out against the wearing masks. Fauci continues to undermine hope for consensus favorable to masking by asserting he was right to discourage masking early on. 2. Negative incentives. Appeals to volunteerism (do your part) encourage participation whereas mandates (do or else) encourage resistance. In my opinion, the worst way to promote

Joe Biden is an exaggerated meme version of Donald Trump.  Which is crazy considering Donald Trump is an exaggerated meme version of a President. Democrats have yet to figure out how Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. When they look at Trump, they see an unelectable mess. They can't wrap their collective heads around it. Because Dems don't know how Trump won in the first place, they have no confidence they can beat him.  All Dems can figure is, even though they don't understand it, Trump must be what swing voters like. Being so in the dark, they think their best bet is to simply copy Trump. When Democrats look at Trump, all they see is an old, white man who has lost his marbles, tells lies, says racially awkward things, gets handsy with women, is a foreign puppet, picks stupid fights, and doesn't take his job seriously.  So what do the Democrats do? They put up an old, white man who has lost his marbles, tells lies, says racially awkwar

by John Hayward  Follow @Doc_0 This article originally appeared as a  thread on Twitter . Reproduced here without permission. Hopefully we will be forgiven. The cult of scientism is just the latest incarnation of totalitarianism, which remains appealing despite everyone being at least vaguely aware that it's repugnant and dangerous. The key to totalitarianism's appeal is that it provides a sense of power and validation to adherents. Everyone knows totalitarianism is bad, but few can explain what it really means or recognize it when they become involved in totalitarian ideologies. They tend to confuse it with authoritarianism, which usually develops alongside it, but totalitarianism is a menace unto itself. Totalitarianism is best understood as the politicization of everything, and putting it that way makes it instantly recognizable in today's America. Cancel culture, chicken sandwich crusades, the Church of Global Warming, and now mask mania and Black Lives Matter are total

Good convo in the DMs. Want to preserve the highlights. (My fellow conversant wishes to remain anon.) (ongoing, check back for updates) There is a lot of psychology behind masks, much of which hasn’t been thought through. The people in charge do not know what they are playing with. Getting people to wear masks is an easy psychological trick. We inherently crave security/safety. As long as we can obsess over the Masks, we feel a certain amount of control over this coronavirus, even though it is largely out of our control. However, there are side effects: (1) Masks disassociate people from themselves . This is ancient knowledge. Mask wearing as a part of ritual goes as far back as recorded history. The mask wearer put one on in order to become the thing represented by the mask. We still have an annual mask ritual today, Halloween. And we still wear masks for the same reason: To Become Someone Else. This isn't exactly something we have a choice in. Though I think ancients were more so

A collection of Tweets from July Whenever I see anyone making a “Both Sides” argument, from now on I will say "You can't spell Both Sides without B.S." ☆☆☆ It is my contention that 41° is the perfect latitude for all seasons. ☆☆☆ The major shortcoming of the "follow the science" attitude is that if something is shown to work, but the mechanism is unknown, it gets treated as though it doesn't work. ☆☆☆ One day I’m beaten over the head with “scientific theories are more than just guesses, man” the next day I’m slapped across the face with “that’s only a theory, bro, nobody really knows.” ☆☆☆ "We should dox cops and go after their families!" "Hey! Why aren't the cops wearing name badges?" ☆☆☆ "Resist!" "Punch a Nazi!" "Bash the Fasc!" "Abolish the police!" "Take the streets!" "Riot! Loot! Burn!" "It’s just property!" "End America!" "This isn’t working.&q