The Underdog
Gladwell’s latest article is a fun excursion, replete with guerrilla tactics, the press defense, and a few egregious over-generalizations. Read the whole thing here.
And then enjoy some Spoon:
Tags: Malcolm Gladwell
Will
Will writes from Washington, D.C. (well, Arlington, Virginia). You can reach him at willblogcorrespondence at gmail dot com.
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January 7, 2021
From CNN Business:
New York (CNN Business)Sheldon Adelson, the chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands and a major donor to Republican politicians, died late Monday following complications related to his cancer treatment, his company said. He was 87.
Adelson took a leave of absence from Sands last week to resume treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which his aides first disclosed in late February 2019.
(Featured image is "Some birds hanging out at the Sands Casino in Atlantic City" by iirraa is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Comment →In the wake of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by scores of President Trump’s supporters, a lone researcher began an effort to catalogue the posts of social media users across Parler, a platform founded to provide conservative users a safe haven for uninhibited “free speech” — but which ultimately devolved into a hotbed of far-right conspiracy theories, unchecked racism, and death threats aimed at prominent politicians.
The researcher, who asked to be referred to by their Twitter handle, @donk_enby, began with the goal of archiving every post from January 6, the day of the Capitol riot; what she called a bevy of “very incriminating” evidence. According to the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, among others, Parler is one of a number of apps used by the insurrections to coordinate their breach of the Capitol, in a plan to overturn the 2020 election results and keep Donald Trump in power.
(Featured image is "A radio tracking device on a Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) at the Cotswold Falconry Centre" by Anguskirk and is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Comment →From Twitter Safety:
After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.https://t.co/CBpE1I6j8Y
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021
(Featured image is "Free Bird" by Ennev and is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Comment →Fox News Shouldn’t Have Called Arizona When They Did
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interesting article, with nice examples. But isn’t Gladwell’s basic point lifted straight from Nietzsche? (David:Goliath :: master morality : slave morality)
Also, youtube embed is brokenReport
Mike –
Thanks for the heads-up. That’s an interesting point, though I think Gladwell’s larger argument is purely descriptive: underdog tactics are effective but rarely used because they’re so much more difficult to implement.Report
Yeah, you’re right… it might not be his overarching argument, but I was struck by the section what ends with “It isn’t surprising that the tournament directors found Eurisko’s strategies beyond the pale. It’s wrong to sink your own ships, they believed. And they were right. But let’s remember who made that rule: Goliath. And let’s remember why Goliath made that rule: when the world has to play on Goliath’s terms, Goliath wins.” I was totally on board with Gladwell until then.Report