First Praxis, information-based developmental health project, launched by Cambridge researcher

Barrett Brown

I am the founder of the distributed think-tank Project PM and a regular inactive to Vanity Fair and Skeptical Inquirer. My work has also appeared in The Onion, National Lampoon, New York Press, D Magazine, Skeptic, McSweeney's, American Atheist, and a couple of newspapers in the U.S. and Mexico as well as a few policy journals. I'm the author of two books and serve as a consultant to various political entities and private clients.

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12 Responses

  1. Emma says:

    Anyone interested can also email me at emilieduchatelet8@gmail.com. (Kenneth can you put my email address on your blog post :))Report

  2. Kenneth Lipp says:

    I can.
    First of your posts close enough to my field for me to understand, Barrett. Light a brighter candle, and chase back the darkness.Report

  3. Emma says:

    KL if you log in to this site before posting then people can link directly to your blog by clicking on your name. (provided you have added the website to your profile) I have flu. Just sayin.Report

  4. Kenneth Lipp says:

    If I do what? Where? I vaguely sense that I would pleased with your suggestion, but don’t really know what it means doing. I get that it involves the computer. I’ll try to figure out what you’re saying, but I’m hitting escape and unplugging if some site starts asking me hard questions.Report

  5. Mia says:

    Has this blog just turned into a recruiting website for Barret Brown’s various projects? That’s a decline. It’s as though all the old (and worthwhile to read) writers have given up completely.Report

    • E.D. Kain in reply to Mia says:

      Mia, everyone writes about whatever is interesting to them at the time. And some writers take breaks for a while when they have nothing to say.Report

    • Kenneth Lipp in reply to Mia says:

      @Mia

      Hi, Mia. I’m sorry all you got from it was passive-aggressive, it might turn out to be a powerful thing. Maybe not, but your snarky question is not much help telling me why.

      Are you asking if my blog was conceived and is maintained so that it can maintain exposure for “Mr. Brown’s various projects (I don’t think more than 2 projects), mentioned in several posts. Over the course of a week or two? You have a right to your opinion of course. I would just hope that you might consider the multiple postings that have occurred might be–

      1.Admittedly promotional, in that they are intended to promote what they purport.
      2. Just a few current of many other posts which all together make up my blog

      My latest post is about obstetric fistula, which Barrett officially denies, at last word, having invented.
      http://cultureisaweapon.blogspot.com/2010/12/fistula.htmlReport

      • Barrett Brown in reply to Kenneth Lipp says:

        She meant that this blog seems to be a medium that’s dedicated to promoting my projects, presumably because I’ve made a couple of posts about them in order to recruit those who are interested in participating in things like this. I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to this sort of thing as we proceed.Report

    • Kenneth Lipp in reply to Mia says:

      Barrett and Mia, after some reflection, I would like to revisit the original question.
      In fact, Mia, what I think you may be so turned-off by is economics, and while that’s certainly noble, I can’t argue against the word noble. I did side-step your question, because it did not force an answer, and from your tone I caught no sign you were here to get one; but since it’s free, why not try it out anyway-
      In order for information which I deem meritorious to be valued as such—as well as to increase my personal leverage—I have taken advantage of the internet, a vastly interconnected system of distribution and promotion. Allying myself with like-minded bastards like B. Brown, as well as participating in broadcast dialogue with many other bloggers, and dropping a few names occasionally which are more than I can carry, I mean to receive a benefit. This benefit is without argument my impetus in any engagement, and as this goes for everyone, I think at some level, I find it much healthier not to pretend it isn’t there till after Xmas, or is a burden forced upon us as a necessary goblin of capital.
      This pattern occurs at all strata of information motility.
      I’m guilty of wishing, under my keystroke, for perhaps some tighter regulations to accessing the world wide web. It is quite true that most anyone in the West, certainly in the US, who has sufficient motor function can and probably will get a blog and then have unfettered freedom to make a scene and “speak” his “mind.” We don’t limit that access, however, in a society that protects the right to dissent above all else (which we don’t but should). We compete against poor information with good, but even were we to so desire, we are not in a position to pull the strings of life
      Researchers, journalists, social activists, and others compete with intimidating complexity and asymmetric transmission as a rule. There are in fact narrower distinctions drawn each day across disciplines and professions, an elucidating but drawn-out synthesis to resolve our heuristics, and it’s getting blurrier before more focused .These reasons and more are why those of us with ideas to share are vigilant for opportunities to associate with others, to increase the frequency with which our ideas are entered into contention and contribute to same’s fitness to be selected for in ensuing generations.
      We add to the batter the merit I mentioned earlier (or erudition as in Barrett’s network. There, I slipped one in), and call it fecundity, which is the principle involved in peacock plumage and moulting, and I think “strut,” but it goes from there to get pretty sexy and technical.
      I promote ideas I judge to have quality and as part of various bias systems which bolster reciprocity, I am committed to integrity in my advisement and transmission of data, and I should not have evaded an immediate discussion of this deceivingly intuitive pattern.

      I am not ashamed to have traded a something for a something else, and though we may use one another, and can’t stop yet, we can look each other in the eye and acknowledge it.Report

    • William Brafford in reply to Mia says:

      Not completely.

      I have lost almost all interest in politics these days, though.

      -wrb (old but of dubious worth)Report