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Blogging Case Study: Vox Popoli

Sam Scott examines the blog from a professional perspective:

Despite the lack of traditional Internet-marketing practices, Day’s success seems to result from a focus — perhaps unintentionally — on what could be called the two big Cs: content and community.

Since anyone can now start a website or blog, a lot of Internet content is, as a popular SlideShare notes, crap:

Whether Day is discussing the Trinity in Christian theology, the latest economic news, U.S. foreign policy, or changes in the publishing industry, it is obvious that he is a well-informed authority on the issue at hand in addition to being an engaging writer in general. The posts and resulting discussions are in-depth, complex, and often at an academic level — a fact that attracts readers with similar interests and intelligences who likely avoid websites such as BuzzFeed. In short, it is a site that focuses on the quality of the content rather than the quantity. Very few people agree with Day all of the time — a fact that he has told me he acknowledges and likes — but it is the content and discussion that the visitors seem to value.

As a result (perhaps indirectly and even unintentionally), Day has fostered a niche online community of readers and what is termed “brand advocates.” The regular commenters know each other by handle, and their resulting discussions on Day’s original posts routinely lead to hundreds of comments on each one. (In addition, Vox Popoli hosts, among other things, an annual fantasy-football league.) In keeping with the high-level tone of the blog, Day does not hesitate to delete the posts of so-called “trolls” and then ban them.

In the end, Vox Popoli is an example of the primacy of content and community over direct marketing in terms of blogging. Quality marketing will not help a blog whose content is trite, superficial, unoriginal, or poorly written and whose managers do not take the time to foster a community over the long term.

As part of his case study, he also conducted an interview with me.

SS: You discuss various topics including economics, science fiction and fantasy, religion and theology, the publishing industry, and politics. How has such a variety of topics affected the popularity of your blog? Would you generally recommend that a blogger focus on a specific, niche topic or on many different topics? In your experience, what are the positives and negatives of focusing on a single, niche topic and audience versus being a more “general interest” blogger?

VD: I think the unpredictability of it, and the way the discourse is constantly flowing from one topic into another, has helped maintain interest in it. The variety of topics means that more people have a reason to swing by, even if every post isn’t of interest to them. Some are there for the econ, some for the fiction discussions and book reviews, and some for the intellectual community. I think the question of focus has to depend upon the blogger. If you’re a legal expert, that should be your anchor. I’m a dilettante, so I know a little about a lot. That works for an eclectic blog. It probably won’t work so well for specialists who know a lot about a little.

The positives of going deeper is that you can get more substantial. And, obviously, if it’s in an area of intense interest to a lot of people, you can build a very large blog, like Mike Shedlock or the Calculated Risk guy. But the downside is that you can’t fake it. If you don’t really want to focus on one thing to that extent, you will fail. And if your one topic is not of interest to a lot of people, you’ll never build much of an audience.

SS: Have you ever focused on trying to generate advertising revenue? If so, what were the results? If a blogger would want to maximize advertising revenue, would you recommend aiming for this goal in general — and if so, what tactics would you recommend specifically? If not, why is advertising revenue not a realistic goal for bloggers?

VD: No. I get a modest amount of ad revenue, but I’ve never actively pursued it. I’m too controversial for most advertisers anyhow. If you want ad revenue, be a mommy blogger. They seem to be the most in demand.

The barbaric nature of Pink SF

I will soon have to write a post delineating the many differences between Blue SF, which is classic SF of the sort written by Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Herbert and the other SF greats of the past, and Pink SF, which is the modern offense against literature committed by gamma males and snarky shambling shoggoths and inevitably features one or more of that quasi-literary abomination known as The Strong Female Character.

In a very long and powerful essay, John C. Wright explains that the Strong Female Character is not only an offense against literature, but an intentional crime against civilization itself:

Anyone reading reviews or discussions of science fiction has no doubt come across the oddity that most discussions of female characters in science fiction center around whether the female character is strong or not.

As far as recollection serves, not a single discussion touches on whether the female character is feminine or not.

These discussions have an ulterior motive. Either by the deliberate intent of the reviewer, or by the deliberate intention of the mentors, trendsetters, gurus, and thought-police to whom the unwitting reviewer has innocently entrusted the formation of his opinions, the reviewer who discusses the strength of female characters is fighting his solitary duel or small sortie in the limited battlefield of science fiction literature in the large and longstanding campaign of the Culture Wars.

He is on the side, by the way, fighting against culture.

Hence, he fights in favor of barbarism, hence against beauty in art and progress in science, and, hence the intersection of these two topics which means against science fiction.

It’s pretty easy to determine how infected an SF writer is by the Pink SF disease. If his work features women in the futuristic Armed Forces serving on an equal basis with men, it’s Pink SF. If her work involves having sex with animals and corpses, it is Pink SF/F.  And if any female character ever physically bests a bigger, stronger, faster male character without supernatural powers or technological enhancements, its Pink SF.

And if it involves soldiers bantering about providing each other with the sort of services that resulted in a man being beaten to death in the Roman legions, it is most definitely Pink SF.

The real story of JFK’s assassination

And in retrospect, it is so obvious:

 Jackie
oughtn’t watch. Yet she waited, heart in wild rhythm, for The Kennedy
Conspiracy Theories to begin. Anniversaries of the incident were hard,
the ten years intervening barely helped. She would finally watch. Jackie
set aside the stack of papers from her latest volunteer committee. She
made her way across the plush aquamarine carpet and pushed the intercom
button.

“I’ll have lunch now. In my sitting room…The
usual Thursday diet plate will be fine. What’s on Ari’s calender?… In
Paris until Monday. Okay, then. Consuela? Bring a pitcher of dacquiris,
too.”

Jackie opened the drapes. The cold steel and
concrete of Fifth Avenue below looked nothing like Dallas in March. That
unpleasantness belongs to a different time and place. It doesn’t matter
anymore. She lit a cigarette with the big ceramic table lighter,
inhaling deeply.

When the maid left, Jackie turned the
television’s volume knob up. Words and images veered in and out of her
focus. The Warren Commission. Lee Harvey Oswald. The KGB. Castro… Did
someone else show up as well, with an agenda of his own? Everything
afterwards was a blur. She only remembered her silly hat.

Fred on the limits of human knowledge

And the utter implausibility of evolution by natural selection, among other things:

Humans today are a puffed-up and overconfident species. We know everything, we believe, or shortly will. We have a sense of near-omniscience equaled only by that of teen-agers. For do we not have have smart phones and Mars landers and PET scans, and do we not all speak wisely of DNA? We are, if not gods, at least godlings on the way up. If you don’t believe this, just ask us.

It was not always so. A thousand years ago, mankind cast a small shadow on the earth and lived in a dark and mysterious world. Little was known, about anything. Gods of countless sorts walked the earth. Spirits inhabited sacred groves. Lightning, the moon, the stars were…what? We had no idea. This brought humility.

We now believe that that nothing is or can be beyond our powers. A contemplative skeptic might advert to a few remaining details: We don´t know where we came from, why we are here, where “here” is, where we are going, or what we ought to do. These are minor questions. We only think about them when we wake up at three a.m. and remember that we are not permanent. We are kidding ourselves.

When people become accustomed to things that make no sense, they begin to seem to. Though we no longer notice it as we peck at tablet computers and listen to droning lowbrow shows about the conquest of nature, we still live in a weird and inexplicable universe, an apparently unending emptiness speckled with sparks of hydrogen fire. It is wicked mysterious. More things in heaven and earth, indeed.

We are not as wise as we think. I reiterate Fred´s Principle: The smartest of a large number of hamsters is still a hamster.

It’s a long one. Read the whole thing. It encapsulates why Darwinism, even in its neo-synthesized form, is caught up in crisis and is being increasingly rejected as unconvincing pseudo-science by the secular and the religious alike.

Of rhetoric and Game

Badger points out how the vicissitudes of human psychology tend to elevate the rhetorical effectiveness of those with little ability to argue at the expense of the logically and dialectically correct:

Like the mistaking of kindness for weakness that plagues today’s nice guys, there is some element of the human mind that frames lengthy and incessant counter-argument as a position of weakness and insecurity. He who masters pithy, concise (and indirect and ambiguous, I might add) communication commands a stronger image of rhetorical confidence and state control than the bloviating firebrand whose logical appeals may indeed be without equal.

It is extremely rare the wordsmith who can write (or speak) at length without the perceptible loss of audience attention, credibility and alpha points. While there are publically-known exceptions, the fact that they are known and notable underlies the exception.

I suspect this is why what I think of as the “high-low” approach is unusually effective. It helps anchor one’s more intellectually flighty sallies and secures them against rhetorical dismissal by those who can’t follow them.

There is a massive difference in perception between being the recipient of a breathless, circuitous infodump and being the recipient of a long lecture after the lecturer first coldly informs you that this is going to be a long, detailed, and painful experience because you are so woefully ignorant that there is simply no other choice if you are not to be left drowning in the swamp of your stupidity.

Another factor here is that simple binary thinkers tend to view multiple reasons as being somehow contradictory even when they reinforce each other. After all, if reason X is correct, then reason Y is at best unnecessary, and therefore to mention it must be indicative of a weakness in X. This is, of course, profoundly stupid, but has a rational foundation in that people who have no case do tend to take the spaghetti approach and throw out everything they can in the hope that something will stick.

However, when each reason is not perceived as an alternative, but rather a hammer blow driving home the previous point, the perception of weakness disappears. Granted, fair or not, this tends to be viewed as cruelty, but the sad reality is that in a fallen world, a man often benefits more greatly from being viewed as cruel, and therefore strong, than as kind, and therefore weak. Kindness is not weakness, but far too many people, women in particular, perceive it to be so.

Paul Krugman and the Permanent Slump

The Greatest and Most Important Living Economist is reduced to wild conjecture in a vain attempt to explain away the fact that no amount of stimulus is working as expected anywhere in the world.

[I]f Mr. Summers is right, everything respectable people have been saying about economic policy is wrong, and will keep being wrong for a long time. Mr. Summers began with a point that should be obvious but is often missed: The financial crisis that started the Great Recession is now far behind us. Indeed, by most measures it ended more than four years ago. Yet our economy remains depressed.

He then made a related point: Before the crisis we had a huge housing and debt bubble. Yet even with this huge bubble boosting spending, the overall economy was only so-so — the job market was O.K. but not great, and the boom was never powerful enough to produce significant inflationary pressure. Mr. Summers went on to draw a remarkable moral: We have, he suggested, an economy whose normal condition is one of inadequate demand — of at least mild depression — and which only gets anywhere close to full employment when it is being buoyed by bubbles.

I’d weigh in with some further evidence. Look at household debt relative to income. That ratio was roughly stable from 1960 to 1985, but rose rapidly and inexorably from 1985 to 2007, when crisis struck. Yet even with households going ever deeper into debt, the economy’s performance over the period as a whole was mediocre at best, and demand showed no sign of running ahead of supply. Looking forward, we obviously can’t go back to the days of ever-rising debt. Yet that means weaker consumer demand — and without that demand, how are we supposed to return to full employment?

Again, the evidence suggests that we have become an economy whose normal state is one of mild depression, whose brief episodes of prosperity occur only thanks to bubbles and unsustainable borrowing.

It’s really quite remarkable what lengths reasonably intelligent people will go to in order to hold onto their conceptual models while ignoring the obvious. The idea that “population growth” is responsible is obviously ridiculous in light of the vast number of people out of work; older people consume considerably more than younger people with no money do anyhow.

The mainstream economists are flailing around with no answers, completely ignoring the fact that this is the very problem of excess credit that was predicted for decades by those whose models take it into account. We’re not mysteriously trapped into a normal state of mild depression, we’re simply choked with debt, government interference, and debt-based malinvestment.

The debt has to be cleared from the system. There are two ways out. Hyperinflation or debt-default. The latter is the better, wiser, and safer choice.

Destroying the working class

A capitalist betrays class unconsciousness in writing to Zerohedge on behalf of his employees about the way Obamacare is transforming the working class into the subservient class:

My company, based in California, employs 600. We used to insure about 250 of our employees. The rest opted out. The company paid 50% of their premiums for about $750,000/yr. Under obamacare, none can opt out without penalty, and the rates are double or triple, depending upon the plan. Our 750k for 250 employees is going to $2 million per year for 600 employees.

By mandate, we have to pay 91.5% of the premium or more up from the 50% we used to pay. Our employees share of the premium goes from $7/week for the cheapest plan to $30/week. 95% of my employees were on that plan.  Remember, we used to pay 50% now we pay 91.5% and the premiums still go up that much!!

The  cheapest plan now has a deductible of $6350! Before it was $150. Employees making $9 to $10/hr, have to pay $30/wk and have a $6350 deductible!!! What!!!! They can’t afford that to be sure. Obamacare will kill their propensity to seek medical care. More money for less care? How does that help them?

Here is the craziest part. Employees who qualify for mediCAL (the California version of Medicare), which is most of my employees, will automatically be enrolled in the Federal SNAP program. They cannot opt out. They cannot decline. They will be automatically enrolled in the Federal food stamp program based upon their level of Obamacare qualification. Remember, these people work full time, living in a small town in California. They are not seeking assistance.

People constantly seem to be surprised to learn that politicians lie. I’m a little surprised to have to so often remind grown men and women that sometimes people say things that are not true. And they say things that are not true on a regular basis.

The American people were told that they had to bail out the banks to prevent the economy from collapsing. That wasn’t true. They were told that the various measures to stabilize the housing market were to help mortgaged homeowners. That wasn’t true. They were told that the Affordable Care Act was to help the uninsured and make insurance more affordable. That wasn’t true.

Are you starting to notice a pattern here? The reason provided by politicians to justify their actions are seldom related to the real motivations. This is particularly true when the reason given is “helping people”. While it is true certain people are being helped, it is almost never the people who are identified as the official reason.

Mailvox: studying Christianity

LC asks for reading recommendations to learn more about Christianity:
I read your book, The Irrational Atheist, and I have been reading
your blog for a few months now because I find most of what you say
interesting and some of it comforting. I was raised by Christian
parents. I am young, 21, and have recently gone through a questioning of
my faith.  I have re-committed myself to my beliefs and living in a way
that has resulted in a good life. I have realized that I still have the
faith of my childhood and my understanding of Christianity and the
world in general is very limited. I always have respect for your
arguments because you know what you’re talking about and back up your
assertions. Can you please give me some direction on texts to study
other than the Bible to increase my understanding of Christianity and
religion in general? 
First of all, remember not to get too caught up in the theological extrapolations. No matter what you end up reading, it is always worthwhile to periodically circle back to the original source. Don’t neglect reading the Bible in favor of various men’s interpretations of what the Bible says. In the end, theology is nothing more than philosophy derived from the Bible and it is no more intrinsically reliable than any other logical derivation.

I would start at the beginning. If your understanding is limited, begin with The Chronicles of Narnia. As we saw in the debate with Luke of Common Sense Atheism, the average grasp of Christian concepts don’t even rise to the level of Narnia. Then read The Tower of Geburah by John White. Once you’ve read the children’s fiction, move onto simple theology like Mere Christianity by CS Lewis and Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton. As a general rule, it’s hard to go too far afield on a foundation of Lewis and Chesterton. I would also recommend the very short, very simple, but intriguing A Defense of the Revelation by Leonhard Euler, who happens to be one of the most legendary mathematicians in history. And my friend Greg Boyd’s Letters to a Skeptic is also recommended.

Once you have a grasp of the theological basics, you may be ready to read up on the actual history of Christianity and some of its leading thinkers. The first volume of the Cambridge Medieval History series, The Christian Empire, is tremendously informative and the epub is freely available for download online. St. Augustine’s Confessions are worth reading for their influence on Western thinking and a good summary of Thomas Aquinas is a necessity as well. I haven’t read it yet, but I have heard very good things about Edward Feser’s Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide and I intend to review it as soon as I finish the Cantillon.

Any other reasonable recommendations would be welcome. Please note that this is not the right sort of post to either indulge your particular theological peculiarities or exhibit how esoteric your reading happens to have been. We’re talking Christianity 101, not 503.

A remarkably short-sighted verdict

It would appear that the jury-packing was more successful on the second go-round, as CJ Grisham was found guilty after only a single juror voted guilty the previous time:

The jury in the gun rights trial of Fort Hood Msg. Christopher Grisham has found him guilty of his misdemeanor charge. After just two hours of deliberating, the jury ultimately found Grisham guilty of interfering with police duties when he refused to turn over his AR-15 rifle to Temple police officer Steve Ermis this past March.

In the hours leading up to the verdict, dozens of Grisham’s supporters and pro gun rights activists stood vigilent outside the courtroom awaiting a verdict in the case, and shortly after the decision was announced, Grisham spoke out giving his reaction to the jury’s ruling and where he goes from here.

“What this jury just told the people of Bell County is that the police officers around here can walk up to you and take your personal property,” Grisham said.  “They can take your firearms, and they don’t have to have a reason for it.  They don’t have to tell you the reason for it.”

Throughout the trial, supporters of the Temple Police Department and the officers involved in the incident were also present in the courthouse, and many have taken to officer Steve Ermis’ Facebook page to post their supportive messages backing the Temple Police Department and its officer.

If the police in Bell County think this inexcusably stupid verdict is going to give them carte blanche to seize weapons at will, well, expect a lot of dead police officers. And their moronic supporters will be surprised at how fast the cowardly bullies with badges are going to be fleeing in a panic the first time someone stands up for his rights the way the Americans at Lexington and Concord did.

Never forget that the police are total pussies. They strut around and talk a brave game, but the moment they realize that the other side views them as fair game and that they neither outnumber nor outgun the opposition, they often show less courage than the average unarmed citizen.  I don’t say this on the basis of my imagination or even the poor performance of police units in military history, but based on the recent observation of their behavior under fire. Or not actually under fire, as the case may be.

An Associated Press report published Friday says help was delayed for
more than 30 minutes for the Transportation Security Administration
agent who was fatally shot at Los Angeles International Airport earlier
this month. Gerardo Hernandez, 39, was working at a lower-level passenger
check-in station on the morning of Nov. 1 when a gunman pulled a
semi-automatic weapon out of a duffel bag and opened fire.

Two law enforcement officials cited in the AP reports said paramedics
waited 150 yards away because police had not declared the terminal safe
to enter. It would be 33 minutes before airport police would put Hernandez, who
was about 20 feet from an exit, in a wheelchair and take  him to an
ambulance, said the officials, who were briefed on the investigation and
spoke on condition of anonymity because the probe was still ongoing.

For all but five of those minutes, there was no threat from the suspected gunman, 23-year-old Paul Anthony Ciancia; he had been shot and was in custody, officials said.

Molon labe, motherfuckers. As Tom Kratman wrote: come and take them.

Accounting for the Unaccountable

Does the Rule of Law survive in America circa 2013? What happens when no one is watching the watchers? We’re about to find out, as House Republicans are reportedly getting serious about trying to hold Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder accountable for some of his many alleged crimes.

From Reuters: “Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to introduce articles of impeachment against Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday, in the hopes of removing a cabinet member they say has lied to Congress as well as failed to uphold federal law…. According to an outline, the first article is based on “Operation Fast and Furious” a bungled attempt to build cases against major gun traffickers who supplied firearms to Mexican drug cartels, while electing not to immediately prosecute low-level traffickers even as they bought 2,000 potentially illegal guns.”

Read the rest at Absolute Rights. Also on the topic of the Obama administration, you may be interested in a previous post there concerning Obama’s Strategic Retreat from Obamacare, in which I conclude:

Obama is not backing down. In fact, Republicans would have been much
wiser to force Americans to live with the law imposed upon them by the
incompetent Obama administration; a year of complete chaos in the health
care system, complete with millions of policy cancellations, would have
likely led to a Republican takeover of the Senate and a powerful
majority in the House.

Instead, they have bought Obama another year to work the media and
sell its lies to the American people. By staving off the collapse of
Obamacare, Republicans are helping ensure that they will have to refight
the battle in a year’s time against an enemy who will presumably have
learned a few lessons from the initial failure.