Post Category → Miscellaneous

Truth leakage

One of the links in a recent post examines US liberal’s attitude to Trump  (“Liberals look at Trump and populism, but see only their prejudices“) . The author identifies a wonderful bit of journalistic leakage from John Cassidy writing in the New Yorker:

The rest of his essay is the usual horse-race malarkey that fascinates journalists and hides the important issues that he opens with — such as this astonishing statement…

“skeptical of … free trade, and military interventionism. … ending free trade, protecting Social Security, and providing basic health care.”

Is Cassidy describing Trump or Sanders?

As Curtis “Mencius Moldbug” Yarvin observed in “An Open Letter to Open Minded Progressives“:

“Often, as with politician, journalists speak the truth in a fit of absent-mindedness, when their real concern is something else.“

So true. I make it a sport now to pick up the accidental metadata of truth leakage from journalists. Another fun game is one suggested by Edward Snowdon…

See also:

The Murray Gell-Mann amnesia effect

The natives are restless

As the political centre distorts under popular pressure from  left and right-wing populists, it is worth considering at least one factor in this story: The lies and guarded, PC speech of the elites (mostly “Bullshit” formal variety) makes political extremists look authoritative for stating obvious facts that mainstream political narratives have deemed unmentionable (although the old Overton Window is being disintermediated by the internet too, see Seth Godin’s tweetstorm via Stratechery.)

Venkatesh Rao explains it in “Be Slightly Evil“:

“We give people authority even when we don’t like them and are not afraid of them if they possess valuable information or skills.

There are many such “authority-earning” skills, but one of the most important is the ability to see reality as it really is, in minimally-deluded ways…[and] to see and convincingly frame realities in ways that turn matters of opinion into matters of fact.“

Whilst elites are denying obvious problems and pandering to special interests, they are allowing skilled extremists to present themselves as the only ones who see reality as it is and therefore the only one competent to lead.

Just look at what Trump did to the over-engineered, scripted and memorised soundbite bullshit which is the hallmark of public political speech. It is now political liability, a badge of insincerity and duplicity.

The problem of course is that thoughtful politicians who weigh their carefully chosen words will be seen to be inauthentic bullshitters.

See more:

  • The Right struggles to understand Trump and populism – Fabius Maximus 
  • Liberals look at Trump and populism, but see only their prejudices – Fabius Maximus
  • The propagandists have won: What Fox News and the pornography revolution have in common – Salon