This Blog: Stardate 47634.44

Posted on by

Site Update

It has been a while since I did an update on where things are with the site and other miscellaneous things related to the blog. Since we are heading into the long holiday weekend, it feels like a good time for one of these catch up posts. There’s also the fact that most of my posts the last few weeks have been on more serious topics so a little break from the doom and gloom is a good idea. I’m not into the happy warrior stuff, but life is for living and you should not spend all of your time on the dark side of the gloom.

As far as traffic, the average is right around 100,000 unique non-robot visitors per month and 1.5 million page views. The strange thing I’ve noticed is traffic will slow for a while and then tick back up, like the tide coming in and going out. I’m not really sure why that is. I know my habit is to visit a site daily until I find something else for a while. I then drift back to the regular rotation of sites again. Maybe that’s true of most people and that’s what I’m seeing in my traffic. Perhaps the lunar cycle has something to do with it.

The refresh of the site is still on the drawing board. I’ve done some of the prep work, but real life has sidelined this project recently. The plan is to implement a drop down menu for links, post collections and so forth. I’m also going to roll out donations, as that is something you’re supposed to do. I’m told that alternative media needs to foster the donation culture, since we don’t have billionaire grifters on our team. I’m a bit skeptical about it, but if it covers the cost of running the site that’s a good thing.

Comments have ticked up steadily and you can see a community forming in the comment section. I think this is a good thing as the hate community needs places for like minded haters to congregate without be harried by screeching harpies from the Cult. Just as important, there has to be a place for the right side of the curve to debate with one another without the sort of mindless hooting you see in the Breitbart comments or on twitter. I frequently hear that the best part of the blog is the comments and I take some pride in it.

Questions

Someone asked me the other day if I would ever consider doing an “Ask Me Anything” sort of thing. I’m generally open to anything, but I don’t really get Reddit or Voat so I have no idea if it is something I’d like. I do get questions via the miracle of e-mail most days and I try to answer them. I get some of the same questions every week, so I thought putting them and the answers into a post may be useful. I’ll give it a test run now and maybe make a feature out of it going forward. That way I don’t have to learn about Reddit.

Q: Why don’t you write about Israel? Do you support Israel?

Me: I get this every week from someone. Judging from the e-mails, my guess is it is mostly Zionists. I’ve never had a sane conversation with an Israeli or Arab about Israeli or Arab-Israeli relations. As a result, I think it is an unanswerable riddle so there is no point in me thinking much about it. Israel is a civilized country, so I wish her and her people the best. Otherwise, I have no opinions on Israel or Arab-Israeli drama.

Q: Why do you hate libertarians? Why don’t you learn something about libertarianism before commenting?

Me: I don’t hate libertarians and I learned all about libertarianism in the 80’s. That’s the thing. I’m not a 30-something. I’m a 50-something. The young guys in the hate community will tell you that they came to the dark side through the Ron Paul campaigns when they were in the 20’s. For Gen-X types, our path was most often from the Left. My people were all conservative Democrats who held populist opinions on economics, but conservative opinions on social issues. We were the so-called Reagan Democrats of the 80’s.

As young guys, my generation flirted with libertarian ideas because they are easy and appeal to young people, but also because they were one leg of the Reagan coalition. Young people tend not to appreciate social conservatism so libertarian economics, particularly its anti-communist rhetoric, was appealing. The collapse of the Buckley Right and the Reagan coalition in the 90’s taught a lot of us that you don’t win a culture war with pie charts about tax policy. Libertarianism is mostly worthless in this fight.

Given the choice, I’d choose to live in the libertarian paradise over most any other form of social arrangement, but that’s never going to be on the table. The only way to get anywhere near close to it, means getting the culture right and that means getting the demographics right. It also means accepting all sorts of compromises on the economic and political front. If a commie is my ally in the demographic fight, so be it. If a libertarian chooses to be my enemy in the culture war, then I will be his enemy.

Q: Why don’t you do other sorts of media?

Me: After I did Grace & Steel, I got asked this a few times. I don’t have anything against doing these things. I have turned down two interview requests from liberal outlets claiming to be doing pieces on the alt-right. I believe in supporting the media that supports me and doing everything I can to destroy the media that hates me. As a result, I’ll gladly help those on our side where I can. I’m not trying to build a media career so I’m not putting any effort into getting on other platforms. I’ll help if asked.

Q: Why do you hide behind a pseudonym?

Me: I’ve had this domain for roughly 20 years so when I started the blog, I just put it here out of convenience. The story behind this is that in the early days of the internet, ISP’s would assign you a user name. I always got assigned some variation of “zman” and it was a bit of a joke with friends. As a gag, I registered the domain and started using it for an e-mail address. Everyone I know, knows me by this domain and as a result, they know about and read this blog. If I were hiding, I’d have registered a new domain.

Someone who knows about interwebs marketing and branding told me that it was a good idea to stick with it, as it makes it easy for people to find the site. Put “z blog” in a google machine and I’m right at the top. Given the amount of traffic that comes via web searches, I think they were right so I’m sticking with the concept. David Goldman did a similar thing when he wrote for years under the pen name “Spengler” for the Asia Times. It has turned out to be a good gimmick that I landed on by accident so I’ll keep it going.

70 thoughts on “This Blog: Stardate 47634.44”

  1. I love the blog but have made it a practice to really rarely read the comments. I’m posting this without having read the other 69 comments. I will try to explain why this is the case in hopes of improving the blog.

    It might be the computer I use to follow these (a Macbook with OSX Yosemite), but most of the comments are cut off and you have to click “read more” at the end of the first paragraph to get the whole thing. I suspect this is the blogger software. Usually half the comments you have to do this to get the whole thing. My reading style is to scan the entire comment, and then if I think it is worth my time, go back and read more slowly to get the argument. I can’t do this having to click on “read more” the whole time. So I just skip all of them.

    Would it be possible to change the settings so that more than one paragraph appears before you have to click “read more” to read most of the comment?

  2. Your blog is a great site, Zman. I read it everyday, and those commenting seem as sharp as you. It’s as much their site as yours.

    Do you read Richard Fernandez at PJ Media? If so, what do you think?

  3. Can you please make the Text Color = black??
    I am still having to squint all the time to read the grey text.
    Thanks

    • there addons to chrome (or whatever browser you use) that can alter the color for you, without the site doing anything.

  4. “The young guys in the hate community will tell you that they came to the dark side through the Ron Paul campaigns”

    Ron PAUL! RON PAUL!!!

    I just love how this plastic frog has fallen off his gold candidate standard and is now humping and pumping and dumping survivalist food. Sort of poetic.

  5. regarding your site re-design. if you really wanted to have fun (and i think that you do) you could have a kind of simulation of the roman senate (or the scene on your home page header), with each member here assigned a “seat”, with cgi rendering of a human form. then replay the comments like a debate, with text to speech s/w.

    also, you could have live debates with people speakjing through their avatars in the senate chamber.

  6. That you work full time and do four or five thought-provoking essays a week is amazing to me. What I admire and respect more however is that you exchange ideas with your commenters. There is a lot of brilliant and sometimes wild stuff going on in those threads. That is where the real learning and growing is.

  7. I just enjoy the banter. It reminds me a lot of high school and my early 20’s. It also reminds me of Rantburg before the powerskirts showed up and demanded that we all stop cursing.

    The Middle Eastern problem goes back to when the Akkadians and the Chaldeans first started displacing the Sumerians. Little defensible terrain, limited fertile land, and important trade routes mean chaos. Read Josephus, the Anabasis, the history of the Crusades,… hell, read any history of the region. It’s a broken record.

    • Without the Jew enemy in common, the Arabs would have not even the veneer of brotherhood to keep them off each other’s throats. It was never any different.

  8. Great stuff, zman. You’re always worth reading, and the commenters are great too. Thanks for taking the time to write down your thoughts.

  9. The “Stardate” thing calls me back to Steven DenBeste’s USS Clueless.

  10. >refresh of the site is still on the drawing board

    I just hope it wont be a javascript heavy monstrosity, or even worse, optimized for mobile, pure horror!

    Maybe just go back to your 2014 design?
    It used the “veryplaintxt theme by Scott”

    Pretty slick:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20140609005018/http://thezman.com/wordpress/

    The “Read more »” in the comments is also still bothersome…

    >I have no opinions on Israel or Arab-Israeli drama.

    What about the undue influence of Jewish power in the US?

    They seem to be the tip of the spear of everything you are noticing.

    • Yup, it’s weird how the smart people always end up running everything…

      • Intelligence is an asset, no doubt of that, but there are times when it’s a mistake to conflate “shrewd” with “smart”, think I.

        • There is one and there is the other. Put them together in the same person and combine it with ambition, and away he goes, off to run his part of the world.

  11. The ancient part of our brain function is reactive and quick, and it kept our ancestors alive in a world of routine existential threat and extreme hardship. We now live in a much different world and the modern part of our brain function is analytical and slower (and it enables longer term prediction and the avoidance of future danger). Consequently, when danger is imminent, we react. And alternately, when we repose in relative safety, we think.

    Today we are predominantly engaged in the latter activity, but we sorely miss the fitness selection mechanism of the former. In other words, we need an environment where robustness is favored by selection, not diminished.

  12. I’ve come to enjoy your almost daily insights – keep it up.

    Libertarianism:
    Reagan was running for President when I was a Freshman in H.S. He was the first guy I saw who would speak honestly about big government, taxes, and the evil of communism. So I researched him and learn that he came from the “Goldwater” side of the Republican Party. So I researched Barry Goldwater – and found my political home.

    Seen, read, and learned a lot since then but nothing has moved me very far from that brand of libertarianish conservatism. Can’t get past the illogical stupidity of purists like Gillespie and his nonsense on open-borders. But I’ve always believed our Federal Government is orders of magnitude too big – particularly on the civilian side.

  13. ZMan, I read you on the ferry home from San Francisco. I imagine you speaking the words on a radio broadcast/podcast, aided by a tumbler of scotch. Many sharp comments, too. Makes the commute enjoyable. If you create a donation mechanism, as I think you should, I’ll kick in.

  14. I don’t usually comment here. Too “snappy” compared to other sites. Folks don’t recognize names so they’re instantly on the defensive if you use logic instead of automatically agreeing with them. I’d say it’s similar to lib sites except that you don’t get insta-banned if you disagree with the average commentor. I regularly come here because unlike a lot of other sites there’s regular original content that is neither ad-spammed nor banal (Ahem…RWN…cough).

    • I’ve only ever banned three people, I think. In all three cases, it was a lunatic filling up the comments with nonsense. Otherwise, people are free to work out their differences on their own.

      What I find somewhat amusing is that I have regular readers who are hard core Zionists and regular readers who are hard core white nationalists. I have trad conservatives, libertarians and liberals. I don’t know what that says about me, probably nothing. I think it is just the result of the ongoing ideological and cultural realignments.

    • I see that people here actually respond to the matter at issue, rather than calling the other commenter an idiot. Refreshing.

    • maybe what you call logic is actually parroting what you have read at some loon site? i am willing to bet hard money that you in fact haven’t got the first clue about actual logic. here is an article you can get someone to explain to you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-order_logic

      sounds like what is really going on is that you are butthurt because you are not getting petted like you are used to. maybe you are a cuck?

        • sorry Dutch, I am just tired of people whining and complaining because they aren’t getting ego stroked. also have low tolerance for cuckery; it’s just the K in me, coming out. maybe it’s just all the libertarian babies that have been mewling around here lately.

          • It’s all good. I appreciate the brevity of your wit. We all drone on sometimes. If it takes longer than four sentences, it better be a darn important comment.

        • good old modus ponens 🙂 been awhile since i heard/read that term. thanks for the link!

      • Yep, Mike, I was going to type out a long harangue about KH but decided against it. I like reading Zman’s stuff and he took the time to write this article to celebrate. Good job Zman.

  15. All large scale human institutions are bureaucracies and all bureaucracy is inherently dysfunctional. The root of this dysfunction appears to be human nature. The larger the human institution, the more bureaucratic it is.

    I have seen this principle in operation my entire life. NASA has failed to develop the technology to enable large-scale space colonization. The Tokamak (ITER) fusion program has failed to commercialize fusion. All of the medical research by NIH and what not has failed to develop effective cures for cancer and aging. These government-funded programs have failed, despite (or perhaps, inspite) the billions poured into them because they are all bureaucratic. Something like 90% of all medical research is bogus.

    Only private efforts to do these things can work, as we are seeing with Space-X, the various privately-funded fusion concepts (Tri-Alpha, General Fusion, etc.), and the SENS Foundation, which is making headway in its efforts to cure aging. Having been involved in some of these, as well as my own professional life, I have seen this principle time and time again. Bureaucracy does not and cannot work. Only targeted private efforts to accomplish anything can work.

    Since all non-libertarian world-views are based on the efficacy of large scale social institutions, they are, by definition, based on the belief of efficacy of bureaucracy. Thus they have no possibility of working and no possibility of being “correct”.

    It is based on my personal experiences as well as the above that I have BY DEFAULT become MORE of a libertarian today, in my 50’s, than I ever was when I was in my 20’s.

    Institutions and organizations exist exclusively for the accomplishment of specific goals. Different organizations for different goals. the organization you create for the purpose of developing the bio-engineering to cure aging will necessarily be different than one you create to develop fusion power, or to develop low-cost access to space. The organization that is created exists to achieve the goal it was created for, nothing more. I am not interested, and have no use for any human organization and institution that is not focused on the goals I want to achieve. They are utterly worthless to my future self. Thus they, and the philosophies that underpin them are meaningless to me.

    • I’ll just note that the steady human progress since Diocletian stands counter to your claim that all large scale social institutions have no possibility of working.

    • every institution has a lifecylce, and this is well understood. what you are describing is the terminal phase, akin to an organism that has grown old and bloated. the early phases can be very productive, and even the middle phases see progress.

      you might want to keep the manhattan project in mind, before repeating your opinion to others.

      • The Manhattan Project was a special case that proves the rule. It is the ONLY counterexample to my point. I stand by my point. I reinforce my point by citing the human genome project. The government version of this was expected to cost 3 billion dollars and take 30 years. It was done privately in less than 10 years for 10% the cost.

        I actually agree with you guys (and have said so many times on Vox Day’s blog) on substantive issues like immigration, HBD, Islam, and the liberal-left (I am one libertarian who, nevertheless, thinks that immigration should be stopped again for another 40 years). Trust me when I say I’m right there with you guys on these issues.

        However, you guys really go off the deep end with your obsession with archaic “feudal” notions like denying women the franchise, somehow coercing people into having kids who don’t want them (what a bone headed idea), or even preventing people from moving to different parts of the country (or living overseas if they choose), or going into certain professions even if when they have the cognitive ability to do so. You guys ought to know as well as I do that these kind of restrictions on personal and professional life choices will never fly. I honestly do not understand why you guys obsess over such non-sense. Maybe you guys play too many computer games that take place in a medieval setting.

        This also makes clear you utterly fail to understand why so many of us voted for Trump and will consider any successful effort to remove him from office for any reason whatsoever to be an illegitimate coup.

        In short, we are sick of the authoritarianism of the liberal-left, in how we run our business and make our money as well as personal life activities. In what we can think. In what our kids are taught in school, etc. What on Earth makes you guys think that we are about to accept any kind of authoritarianism from the right? Intelligent, competent self-starter types (in the Heinlein sense) have absolutely no use for any concept of authoritarianism in the sense that is bandied about in alt-right /traditionalist blogs. You have to be dreaming (or hallucinating) to think that there will ever be any kind of authoritarianism from the right that will last more than about 2 seconds.

      • aging isn’t a disease, it is a feature; i.e. intentionally in the dna. so “cure” might not be technically correct. however, it is very feasible that the mechanism that causes aging can be turned “off”, and perhaps even rewound a good deal. at that point, a lifespan in hundred’s of years may be reachable. perhaps teapartydoc can add some insight here…

        • It depends on your definition of disease. If your definition of disease is limited to that caused by infectious agents, then no, aging is not a disease. However, if you define any condition that causes a reduction in the functionality of one’s physiology, then of course aging iis a disease.

  17. Congrats on all your success. I don’t comment that frequently (work issues mostly), but I for one come for the articles and stay for the comments. You’ve got one of the best , and most actually *diverse*, groups around. Good show.

    • what if we don’t care about the legal case for israel? any videos for that?

    • That’s why my eyes glaze over whenever this comes up. Arabs will look at that and reject everything including the choice of editing and lighting. Israelis will claim it closes whatever case they think it makes. Rinse. Repeat. The endless conflict is what has come to define the people of the Levant. Therefore, there can be no end to the conflict. It is an unsolvable puzzle.

      • Watch it, it is the legal case. It is not a video who is right or who is wrong.

        • Legal case?

          Does this mean if Israel loses a lawsuit somewhere it can be abolished by court order somehow?

          Uhm, I think not. Your whole a idea about a legal case for a nation-state is just silly.

      • Read a good bio of Kemal Ataturk several years ago–more out of curiosity after 9/11 on how the Turks built a secular state (and kept it until recently). Funny thing in the chapters covering his life as young Army officer in the years leading up to WWI, most of the Turks’ effort it the Levant was spent trying (with limited manpower) to peel the exact same groups off each other that are fighting today. Some things never change.

        Thoroughly enjoy going hooky in the office and visiting here.

      • A conceit of our time is that there is a good answer for every question. Arab/Israel, case in point. Paying for health care is another one.

        • That is so true. When I was a school boy, we were assigned a task of writing a paper for history class just using the newspaper archives. It was fun reading the old help wanted ads.”Wanted: Two Irish for painting.” I stumbled upon a story about the Levant from 1948. I was amazed that is was just like the stories I was seeing in the current papers. That was the end of my interest in the topic.

      • Back when I was in high school the “peace process” was in full swing. I tried to convince my dad that real, lasting peace was on the way. He told me “Ryan, the Israelis and the Arabs have been fighting since long before I was born, and they’ll still be fighting long after I’m dead.”

        Related: I think a useful definition for adulthood is that moment in your late 20’s when you look back on your teenage years and realize that mom and dad were right about everything.

    • The legal case for Israel is the same as every other country in the world. “We conquered this space, it’s ours. If you try to take it from us, we’ll kill you.”

      That’s how the Anglo-Saxons came to rule Britain, the Russians took over a huge swath of Eastern Europe and Asia, and how Americans came to control our swath of North America.

      • Since WW2, we seem to eagerly provide a soapbox for those specifically approved butthurt people (such as the Palestinians) to cry us a river. I blame the UN.

        • Unless you are a German who was expelled from Prussia, or a Finn kicked out of Karelia – then tough shit.

      • We stole it from somebody else before you stole it from us. For other examples see also Serbs, Islam, The Amerindians, acquiral of “sacred lands”.

        • Or, as Senator S. I. Hayakawa said of Hawaii, it’s ours, we stole it fair and square. Sure wish we could give Puerto Rico back though.

          • Spain wouldn’t want it back. They are having enough financial difficulties of their own, not to mention the grief they are getting from the Catalans.

        • As I’m sure most of you are aware, most Hollywood treatments of the Indians, at least in the last 40 years or so are extremely dishonest in their depiction of Indian societies. However, in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, there’s a parley between General Miles and Sitting Bull. When Sitting Bull launches into his “the sacred Black Hills” shtick, Miles cuts him of with a (and I quote from memory) “BS! You were run out of MN and WI by the Chippewa, and you in turn ran the Crows out of South Dakota. Now we are running you out…” A rare moment of truth from Hollywood…”

Comments are closed.