Counter-Currents
  • Archives
  • Authors
  • T&C
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
  • Webzine
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • Mailing List
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Comments feed
    • Podcast feed

LEVEL2

  • Webzine
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • Mailing List
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Comments feed
    • Podcast feed
  • Archives
  • Authors
  • T&C
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
Print
April 13, 2017 3 comments

Big Data, Big Mistake?

Milo Roth

Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica

648 words

In the aftermath of Trump’s election, there was nothing worrying about seeing the already infamous pro-establishment mainstream media propping up the Cambridge Analytica narrative, which attributed his victory to his campaign’s use of the predictive models developed by the firm, which was also credited with having helped Brexit to succeed. This line was advanced in order to blame their own failure on such mythical (or at least mythically represented) beings as “meta-data” or “micro-targeting” – making it out to be like some kind of Harry Potter story, which was much more convenient than admitting that many Trump voters made their choice not in spite of the gigantic media bias toward Hillary, but because of the bias. From their schizophrenic, often moronic point of view, the Big Data narrative was, after all, little more than a less paranoid version of the Russian hacking fairy tale.

But there’s a basic fact about Trump which quality hair-dying and attractive trophy wives tend to consign to oblivion, and which I was reminded of by a recent (and otherwise, not totally convincing and all too psychological) piece in The Duran: Trump is seventy. He never writes e-mails, only recently bought his first smartphone, and, though he’s been on Twitter for at least four years, he keeps using it with the rabid zeal of newcomers to the digital dimension. This in itself, of course, means next to nothing. History and literature are full of chaste yet very skilled brothel keepers, and of teetotallers running hugely profitable bootlegging operations.

But what if? What if Trump, even though he clearly understood that his surprise victory was the American equivalent of Brexit, in spite of Bannon’s advice, in spite of all the frenzied tweeting – what if Trump, because of his age, really doesn’t get it? What if he underestimates the Gutenberg-like paradigm shift underlying his victory? What if Trump believes that he owes more to the Cambridge Analytica skulduggery than to Alex Jones, Ramsey Paul, Milo, ZeroHedge, and so on put together? Americans tend to divinize technology and ignore cultural dynamics. The transition from the late (audio-visual) Gutenberg galaxy to the era of bilateral, zero-cost, online information is probably not that impressive to them, as it entails no radically new hard tech (neither did the Gutenberg press, by the way . . .), while the complicated mathematics of psychometric campaigning, well-marketed with the rhetorical spice of “Big Data” (as if big data is essentially more than a lot of small data put together), is a good candidate for the pantheon of worshippers of technique.

In other terms: what if Trump actually is a charlatan who happened to often speak the truth, and knew that it is the truth, but did not actually believe that a majority of the voters would be able to recognize it as such? This would explain, with no added conspiracy theory, the apparent frivolity of his recent Syria U-turn. In that case, you don’t even have to make him out to be a complete idiot for buying the story about Syrian children being murdered by Assad’s forces. Supposing that he does not value his (underestimated) Alt Right, online freedom-fighter constituency more than his neo-con/hawkish supporters, sacrificing the former to satisfy the latter makes perfect sense, since the latter also includes powerful business spheres, the support of which he will badly need to realize his domestic economic policies.

If this hypothesis is right, then the mid-term elections will probably help to sober the God Emperor up out of this Cambridge Ethylica. By then, anyway, he will probably have noticed that there is no good compromise with the hawks: once you start caving in to their blackmail, they just keep asking for more, and more, and more. So there might indeed be further Trump surprises ahead, though not necessarily premeditated ones. Let us just hope that none of those surprises includes a nuclear war.

Related

  • He’s Back!
    Hitler does Friday the 13th

  • Killing Us With Kindness:
    You Betcha!

  • All the Hitlers

  • A Cause for Hope

  • David Will Defeat Goliath

  • They Admit “Our Democracy” Is Rigged

  • The Dark Side of QAnon
    Part Two: The Friends We Made Along the Way

  • Stephen Miller, Rightist Pioneer

Tags

2016 US Presidential ElectionDonald TrumpSyria crisis

Previous

« Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 175
Greg Johnson & John Morgan
Martin Scorsese’s Silence

Next

The Weaponized Nonsense of George Lakoff »

3 comments

  1. Driving Mr. Twitter says:
    April 13, 2017 at 5:55 pm

    >”He never writes e-mails, only recently bought his first smartphone, and, though he’s been on Twitter for at least four years, he keeps using it with the rabid zeal of newcomers to the digital dimension”

    The Clintons similarly confessed to being Luddites who rarely used email or digital technology. Later it was revealed, via arrest docs on billionaire pedo Jeffrey Epstein, that Bill had 21 phone numbers. In their 2016 investigation of Hillary, the FBI found she used 13 devices registered to two numbers; this was after Hill told the public in 2015 she “only used one device for calls and email.” And remarked “Like, with a cloth?” about scrubbing her illegal data server.

    Huma and Chelsea juggled her tech for her (which neatly allowed her plausible deniability). But I don’t buy that Bill/Hill are how-do-I-work-the-remote Boomers. That is projection to conserve energy and be relatable. It’s a common to mistake older people at this power level are out-to-lunch; this benefits them, adds more camouflage. No one at the top in any field, politics being most vicious, is not hyper competitive, scarily informed, and equipped with cutting edge tech.

    Trump is so advanced his camouflage would make The Predator blush. This mental image we have — from orchestrated videos/photos of his cluttered, computer-free office desk — that Trump stogily embraces paper communications — the irony is that it’s his digital mass projection. His entire life is a master projection and brand. Even his Barnum persona, the vodka, the steaks, is camouflage.

    “If you can make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere.” I heard this Trump quote as a kid. There is a reason why elite/media Jews, who are genetically gifted at concealment of motives, beliefs, and money, clearly are in awe of him. Some even gasp. He is better at their game than they are. He is inserting Greater Israel into the American Dream, embodied by Jared and Ivanka, and their children (another “happy accident”).

    Meanwhile, we’ll be debating and speculating about his sanity, tech-savvy, and everything else. I bought a MAGA cap and voted/memed for him. But now I’d bet: We’re the art in his last deal. A 70-year-old golfer was embraced by 4chan, then trolled 4chan. As Jared smirked.

  2. Thorweald says:
    April 15, 2017 at 9:27 am

    It could be that his ego is so big that he thinks he knows better than us what we want.

    I hope he understands that running a business is different from being a leader of the most powerful country on earth. It’s always tempting for American presidents to start a war abroad for popularity when things aren’t going too well domestically. The US military is so technologically advanced and so big that it’s easy to fight wars without soldiers actually invading.
    The ramifications of hasty wars can go on for decades though…

  3. Roy Rogers says:
    April 15, 2017 at 1:04 pm

    I disagree that Trump was never on board to begin with. I believe he would have preferred not to go into Syria.

    He invaded Syria as part of a quid pro quo agreement with the neo-cons to get healthcare reform passed. Trump cares more about his “legacy” as president than about his principles. He was loath to be known as a president who “failed” to pass healthcare reform, so he compromised on his foreign policy ideals.

    He bowed to the neo-cons over a stupid healthcare bill that probably isn’t significantly different from Obamacare and still would lump together whites with parasitic blacks and hispanics.

Comments are closed.

If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.

Note on comments privacy & moderation

Your email is never published nor shared.

Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.

Recent posts
  • We Are Derek Chauvin

    Robert Hampton

    11

  • Pressing the Snooze Button on the Ziological Clock

    Jim Goad

    10

  • Seneca on Keeping Cool

    Dabney Hixson

    1

  • The LGBT Cult Invades Krasnik

    Hewitt E. Moore

    2

  • Earth Day Special

    John Morgan

    1

  • Verdict on America

    Greg Johnson

    62

  • Irreconcilable Differences:
    The Case for Racial Divorce

    Greg Johnson

    10

  • Humorous Masquerades:
    The Rise of Anglo-Franco Melodrama

    Kathryn S.

    2

  • Tonight’s Livestream:
    Greg Johnson & Fróði Midjord on Network

    News Item

    1

  • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 337
    Greg Johnson, Millennial Woes, & Fróði Midjord

    Counter-Currents Radio

    6

  • Peak Redpill

    Nicholas R. Jeelvy

    17

  • Darwin & Conflict

    Morris van de Camp

    3

  • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 336
    Interview with Jared Taylor

    Counter-Currents Radio

    10

  • The Worst Week Yet:
    April 11-17, 2021

    Jim Goad

    16

  • The Searchers

    Trevor Lynch

    24

  • Fundraiser Update, this Weekend’s Livestreams, & A New Way to Support Counter-Currents

    Greg Johnson

    3

  • Two Nationalisms

    Nicholas R. Jeelvy

    45

  • A Robertson Roundup: 
    Remembering Wilmot Robertson
    (April 16, 1915 – July 8, 2005)

    Margot Metroland

    15

  • Remembering Dominique Venner
    (April 16, 1935 – May 21, 2013)

    Greg Johnson

    11

  • I’m Not a Racist, But. . .

    Jim Goad

    45

  • The Father

    Steven Clark

    5

  • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 335
    Dark Enlightenment

    Counter-Currents Radio

    11

  • Are We Ready For “White Boy Summer”?

    Robert Hampton

    33

  • Can the Libertarian Party Become a Popular Vanguard?

    Beau Albrecht

    17

  • Every Phoenix Needs Its Ashes

    Mark Gullick

    24

  • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 334
    Greg Johnson, Millennial Woes, & Fróði Midjord

    Counter-Currents Radio

    2

  • If I Were Black, I’d Vote Democrat

    Spencer J. Quinn

    14

  • The Silence of the Scam:
    The Killing of Dr. Lesslie

    Stephen Paul Foster

    7

  • Proud of Being Guilty:
    Fighting the Stigma of Lawfare in Sweden & Winning

    HMF Medaljen

    6

  • The Halifax Grooming Gang Survivor

    Morris van de Camp

    22

  • Get on the Right Side of the Paywall

    Greg Johnson

    12

  • The Worst Week Yet:
    April 4-10, 2021

    Jim Goad

    13

  • Forthcoming from Counter-Currents:
    Jonathan Bowden’s Reactionary Modernism

    Jonathan Bowden

  • Remembering Prince Philip

    Nicholas R. Jeelvy

    16

  • Remembering Jonathan Bowden
    (April 12, 1962–March 29, 2012)

    Greg Johnson

    7

  • Today’s Livestream:
    Ask Counter-Currents with Greg Johnson, Millennial Woes, & Frodi Midjord

    Counter-Currents Radio

  • Paywall Launch, Monday, April 12th

    Greg Johnson

    10

  • Galaxy Quest:
    From Cargo Cult to Cosplay

    James J. O'Meara

    13

  • Biden to Whites: Drop Dead!

    Spencer J. Quinn

    22

  • Politicians Didn’t Invent Racial Divisions

    Robert Hampton

    7

  • London: No City for White Men

    Jim Goad

    51

  • Republicans Should Stop Pandering to Blacks

    Lipton Matthews

    18

  • Quotations From Chairman Rabble
    Kenneth Roberts: A Patriotic Curmudgeon

    Steven Clark

    6

  • Remembering Emil Cioran
    (April 8, 1911–June 20, 1995)

    Guillaume Durocher

    5

  • An Interview with Béla Incze:
    The Man Who Destroyed a BLM Statue

    Béla Incze

    15

  • Heidegger’s History of Metaphysics, Part Six:
    G. W. Leibniz’s Will-to-Power

    Collin Cleary

    12

  • The Importance of Survival Skills

    Marcus Devonshire

    22

  • The Oslo Incident

    Greg Johnson

    2

  • Mihai Eminescu:
    Romania’s Morning Star

    Amory Stern

    1

  • Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World & Me

    Beau Albrecht

    21

Recent comments
  • Wow, a white man as stupid & foul as the blacks who want to abolish the cops.
  • anybody like this idiot writer who thinks cops stand between and genocide from the blacks is a...
  • Yes, it's frivolous, and arguing about subjective taste is a fool's errand. But here's my take,...
  • At the risk of seeming frivolous, can Mr Goad please explain how Eddie Cochran was better than Elvis...
  • Point taken.  I place race first as the cause of conflict but have come to accept the importance of...
Editor-in-Chief
Greg Johnson
Our titles
  • White Identity Politics
  • Here’s the Thing
  • Trevor Lynch: Part Four of the Trilogy
  • Graduate School with Heidegger
  • It’s Okay to Be White
  • Imperium
  • The Enemy of Europe
  • The World in Flames
  • The White Nationalist Manifesto
  • From Plato to Postmodernism
  • The Gizmo
  • Return of the Son of Trevor Lynch’s CENSORED Guide to the Movies
  • Toward a New Nationalism
  • The Smut Book
  • The Alternative Right
  • My Nationalist Pony
  • Dark Right: Batman Viewed From the Right
  • The Philatelist
  • Novel Folklore
  • Confessions of an Anti-Feminist
  • East and West
  • Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Will Come
  • White Like You
  • The Homo and the Negro, Second Edition
  • Numinous Machines
  • Venus and Her Thugs
  • Cynosura
  • North American New Right, vol. 2
  • You Asked For It
  • More Artists of the Right
  • Extremists: Studies in Metapolitics
  • Rising
  • The Importance of James Bond
  • In Defense of Prejudice
  • Confessions of a Reluctant Hater (2nd ed.)
  • The Hypocrisies of Heaven
  • Waking Up from the American Dream
  • Green Nazis in Space!
  • Truth, Justice, and a Nice White Country
  • Heidegger in Chicago
  • The End of an Era
  • Sexual Utopia in Power
  • What is a Rune? & Other Essays
  • Son of Trevor Lynch’s White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • The Lightning & the Sun
  • The Eldritch Evola
  • Western Civilization Bites Back
  • New Right vs. Old Right
  • Lost Violent Souls
  • Journey Late at Night: Poems and Translations
  • The Non-Hindu Indians & Indian Unity
  • Baader Meinhof ceramic pistol, Charles Kraaft 2013
  • Pulp Fascism
  • The Lost Philosopher, Second Expanded Edition
  • Trevor Lynch’s A White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • And Time Rolls On
  • The Homo & the Negro
  • Artists of the Right
  • North American New Right, Vol. 1
  • Some Thoughts on Hitler
  • Tikkun Olam and Other Poems
  • Under the Nihil
  • Summoning the Gods
  • Hold Back This Day
  • The Columbine Pilgrim
  • Taking Our Own Side
  • Toward the White Republic
  • Reuben
  • The Node
  • The New Austerities
  • Morning Crafts
  • The Passing of a Profit & Other Forgotten Stories
  • Gold in the Furnace
  • Defiance
Distributed Titles
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
Copyright © 2021 Counter-Currents Publishing, Ltd. Big Data, Big Mistake?

Paywall Access





Please enter your email address. You will receive mail with link to set new password.