Just because.
let me run a couple numbers past the people who say i’m “INSANE !!!111ONE! BLOGGING ROXXORS!!! WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD!!!”
Here’s the thing. Blogging- at least conservative blogging- is pretty much an echo chamber. Anyone who feels otherwise is deluded.
But let’s take a look at the cold hards so everyone willing to learn can understand what I understand.
In the last presidential election, Dorkchopface got a little over fifty eight million votes. Wingnut head won with almost 67 million. Just about eight and a half million people pushed wingnuthead into the Oval Office.
So 8.5 million. let’s throw out the rest of the morons, and just focus on those eight and a half million.
Those were the people who needed to vote for mcpain to give us democrat light, as opposed to democrat sigmoid colonoscopy, which is what we got.
yes, I know the electoral college doesn’t work that way, but I’m not going to deal with this bullshit state by state, the final poiit will remain the same.
I don’t knw the actual numbers, but I can illustrate this easily by broadening the scope to the best case scenario. Follow along:
Let’s say there are 10,000 decent conservative blogs. I’m not talking about little shitboxes like this, I mean real powerhouses.
let’s assume they each get 10,000 uniques a day. That’s most likely an overinflated number, but I’ll let it stand. That’s a total readership (assuming that those 10k uniques return to the same sites every day) of 100,000,000 or one hundred million eyes. eyes.
Those hundred million eyes are not all unique, of course. Most people who read blogs read more than one, so let’s assume that’s 50,000,000 people out there, let’s assume they each only read two blogs.
if you look around blogs, you’ll find that the comments tend to be left by other bloggers. Just doing stats on my site, it’s about 80% of people that have their own blog are reading my blog. Granted, not everyone who reads comments, but even if we cut that number in half to 40%, it means that 20,000,000 of the 50,000,000 are already in at least tacit agreement with the principles of the blog owner. So there’s 30,000,000 left. And those, if they’re reading the blog to begin with, they probably also agree with the principles of the blog owner. So let’s say 75% of them have no need of convincing. This leaves us with 7,500,000
Those who are NOT convinced are there, commenting all over the place, spilling their bile and bullshit wherever they go, the internet trolls. Let’s say those are half of the remaining readership.
So 3,750,000 people that maybe aren’t convinced or are on the fence.
For every conservative blog running on it’s own, there are probably a half dozen liberal blogs being funded externally.
Now, let me talk about something you should know, but might not know.
Most everyone is an idiot. Most people, left to their own devices, would starve in a week, turn to crime, or be out begging other people ot fix their lives for them. If I said 20% of people were worth the powder it would take to blow them to hell I would probably be outrageously generous.
So let’s assume that of the remaining 3,750,000 people, there were 20% that
a: Were capable of learning, and
B: Were capable of looking at both sides of a discussion and arriving at the correct conclusion any substantial portion of the time.
That gives us 750,000 people who could be swayed to the side of right.
Assuming we factor out the miserable public education system, the effects of the constant megaphone of mass media, if all 10,000 conservative blogs busted thier asses all the time, maybe we could get these three quarters of a million people to yank their heads out of their asses at once. And then where would we be? Those bloggers would have spent an inordinate amount of effort attempting to sway a portion of the populous smaller than the margin of error, a numerically insignificant number of people.
But.
There aren’t 10,000 conservative.libertarian type blogs. They don’t have 10,000 readers each. There aren’t 20% of the people that have the brains God gave a duck. If they had, they’d already BE conservatives/libertarians. If you took my totally wild ass guess completely fictional numbers out of the above equations and put in the ACTUAL numbers, you begin to see the total and utter futility of using the internet and the blogging platform to accomplish anyt kind of a sea change in the minds of the nation.
it’s just not going to happen, folks. if it did, I would be surprised: Guess what? I’m never, ever surprised.
No, we shouldn’t stop blogging. Blogging is a great way to share ideas and become acquainted with one another, and that’s wonderful. I think we all ought to do more, and become more acquainted with one another.
Don’t think you’re gonna change minds, though, because you probably won’t. And even if you do, you cannot possibly have enough of an effect to make any kind of a difference.
We all know the hard things that have to be done to turn this around. The men and women who brought us this nation didn’t do so by yapping at one another, they took up arms. Oh,they made their intentions clear, but they did what they could to enforce their will, too.
You can disagree all you want, it’s a free country. Come back when you can prove me wrong in any way.
Voting, yapping, blogging, none of those things is gonna drag our bacon out of this holocaust. Sorry if you’re deluded enough to think so.
15 comments Og | Uncategorized
So then, other than using some form of nitrocellulose (or cordite), how do we fix things?
And I’d rather not use either of the first two.
Nice post. Og … nevermind all the numbers.
When is the last time you changed your own mind? How did it happen?
When was the last time that a cherished opinion or view of your own was discarded?
I’ve done it. Not often. But it has happened. Brought about with personal suffering and pain. Humility and humiliation. Plus acceptance that I had been wrong. Ouch. Weren’t fun.
I blog for me. Suspect that’s the same for most who do. Don’t expect to change anyone’s mind. But networking … that’s good stuff.
Lastly … fellow curmudgeon … anyone that believes in the awesomeness of everyone, just hasn’t worked with the general public. There are examples of exceptional humans around. But they ain’t what I’d call a majority.
We need to take the 8 million out and, well you get my drift.
I am not big on the convincing end of the stick as my wife thinks the big O is OK. However, she does not like the Wisconson union getting the big pensions for their members.
Personally I the the Big O thing is her trying to prove she is not racist. Being 100% german that goes with the territory. (She is american by birth, but both sides of her birth people are 100% german.)
I do not need to vote for an obvious idiot to prove anything.
I am waiting for the law suit to strip the O of the presidency as he is a natual born BRITISH subject. Get after that, Art.
Paul … 8 mil, eh? Final Solution-ish, ain’t it?
Regarding convincing, I was trying to affirm Og’s point that people don’t change their minds much by personalizing the question. Each of us cherish our own ideas. We each seek reaffirmation. The “echo-chamber” thing.
Trying to change others minds is like trying to teach a pig to sing … It’s a waste of your time, and just annoys the pig.
I watched O reach terminal velocity in Illinois.
The O had the holy glow of annointment by the back-room fixers and grifters. Anyone remember Tony Rezcko? Anybody talk about the WH Daley? Shit … the whole mess is like watchin’ turds circling the drain … O to the White House … Rahm to Chicago … just round n round they go. You think it’s the voters that make that happen?
Don’t hold yer breathe on that Birth Certificate Lawsuit. Ya really think THE LAW is an encumbrance to politicians? That’s their cudgel. C’mon … the law is for the little people.
The origins of Chicago corruptions notwithstanding, what bloggers do IS valuable.
We are at least CAPABLE of drawing the line in the sand, beyond which you hear that anticipated, syncopated metallic screech as millions upon millions of gun safe doors all open at once.
In the O’s second term, there WILL be a line in the sand drawn, and when the O fails to back down and crosses that line, there WILL be insurrection.
That’s THIS pundit’s view.
So much for my hopes of taking over the world just because I have a blog…way to be a buzz kill…
The blog Sipsey Street and Davids ‘War on Guns’ could, hopefully, bring down an administration.
Mike and David are doing good work and have alerted CBS, Fox, and other news outlets outside of blogs.
Og, the new media is important.
Got rid of a peter waver didin’t.
Great, Now I am Hitler. I would at least let them run. :-)
No, I am more for killing the safety net. There are WAY to many people living large from government handouts.
Who knows, who would have thought some lawyers would get the ATF in trouble. It could happen.
*I am waiting for the law suit to strip the O of the presidency as he is a natual born BRITISH subject.*
A moot point for many reasons, and a sign of one of the biggest problems. Millions of self-proclaimed “conservatives” have wasted the last four years stewing about a(nother) non-issue, rather than working to expose the roots of real corruption in Washington. I see two reasons for this. First it’s more fun (and easier) to play with convoluted conspiracy theories, than it is to study real issues that can make a difference. Second, that’s EXACTLY what the back-room power brokers want us to do. Washington LOVES cable news; it keeps us divided and screaming at each other. If we would all just STFU, and read the FACTS that are readily available on the ‘net (without editorial filters) we might be able to make some useful noise. Whether anyone would listen is of course, another matter.
What everybody needs to understand is that there are almost no true conservatives or true liberal in Washington; there are career politicians, who will sacrifice ANY principle or ideology in order to accommodate the the money-people who can keep them in office. We cling desperately to whichever sleazebag mouths the words we like, because we’re terrified of the words mouthed by “the other guy.” All those words are lies, but they serve a useful purpose: they keep us distracted and they divide us.
Some bloggers cut through the bullshit, but most perpetuate it. And Washington thanks them.
I don’t think blogs will do the convincing, either.
I posted a while ago about a liberal I knew and liked who stopped talking to me because he couldn’t refute what I said, and it caused a conflict with what he felt.
What brings people to change is trauma.
Lose a job, your home, a child, you may question how you got there.
We need to be able to explain that.
Personal blogs (not the professional) are a support group so that we can encourage and inform each other.
Now Savage is borrowing without credit from Og.
I’ve proof that Michael Savage “borrowed” from me once before, and I suspect he’s done it again. But there’s always something missing, something that takes what I’ve said off into a less significant consequence.
Well, I was just skimming through his Friday Podcast and heard at 24:45 this 15 seconds:
This is a milder version of what Og has been trying to convey. Savage wouldn’t dare take it a far as Og, nor give Og any credit whatsoever.
Look, I’m not endorsing Og’s position because it is too fatalist, and I’m not prepared to give up until my dying breath. But I will give you a good reason to heed Og’s perspective. It is to alert you that there are people who you’ll speak to who might deflate you on your course of action, and even justify your paranoia.
Do what you know needs be done, and don’t let the ignorant yoyos deter you, not even those whom you once respected. You never know when they’ll have had some wool pulled over their eyes and thus disappoint you terribly. Or worse, you find that they have been turned into a pod people.
Heheh.
Sometimes, ya just gotta get out that pointy stick and go for the ocular organ.
Skip:”The blog Sipsey Street and Davids ‘War on Guns’ could, hopefully, bring down an administration.” Your innocence is so cute.
Suz: I don’t know who you are, but, yeah.
Wow… Thats alot of math you did there, og. ;)
I don’t expect to change anyones mind, Og – especially older people. I would think that if I was able to change anyones mind easily, that the person either did not have an opinion or did not have much information about the subject.
Delibrate and successful _action_ requires being an informed person. That requires communication. Its no small wonder that Germans went after the lines of communication in the conquest of Poland prior to WWII.
Don’t underestimate yapping, Og. Without it, even a seargent or general will fail on the battlefield.
As you said yourself “Blogging is a great way to share ideas and become acquainted with one another, and that’s wonderful. ” Sharing of ideas does shift ones opinion a bit- especially if it is information you don’t get everyday (Its not a seachange, of course, but it can be a shift, nevertheless). With the MSM chokehold on information finally starting to loosen, we can finally choose our own headlines and what matters to us.
“Wow… Thats alot of math you did there, og. ;)”
And, apparently, you didn’t understand any of it.