For Bigots Everything Is Black and Wright

The most intellectually undemanding job in the world is being a Bigot It is also a classic example of that good old marketing stalwart niche marketing or selling your products, services & ideas to a very particluar and tightly defined group of people with similar characteristics. Ironically the term NICHE is particularly appropriate in this context, think of its as NICE corrupted by 'H' for hate in it.

Reverend Wrong isn't even doing anything creative or original and like every lazy thinker and Demagogue before him he is an example of H.L.Mencken's definition:

"one who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." It is of course possible to substitute 'gullible' in the place of idiots.

For the Bigot our social world comes in neat easy to understand packets. There are no complexities, no subtleties no dilemmas no contradictions, no blurring of boundaries and no compromises. The Bigot is simple so they world they see is simple, the world problems they notice are simple and their solutions are simple as well.

And the technique he uses? Not charisma, buffoonery, or any of the general explanations of his style...it is how he makes sense of the world. He is what is know as a Splitter someone who notices only differences. In extremis this has to be an immature mind-set. Children make sense of their worlds by noticing differences and pointing them out. Spotting patterns that connect is more sophisticated and intergrating the two approaches more sophisticated too. Try it out yourself. See who is a Splitter and I bet you'll find they are the most pedantic, dogmatic, bureaucratically, unimaginative minded people you know.

Exploding Myths About Blogging

Well I have to say that after a little experimentation



What I can't fathom though is how it seems to generate a significant amount of visitors more than say more conventional conventional 'blog awarenness' routes. One of the commitments you have to make when joining the BE community though is spending time (approximatley 20 seconds)browsing blogs that might not have any interest for you. The benefit in browsing is that you get BE credits that you can use to buy banner impressions (it took me ages to fathom that you need a Flickr or Photo Bucket account to hold your banner -doh!) to promote your blog.

There is a community aspect to BE although it seems quite clunky compared to say Blogcatalog or My Bloglog. That said there are some interesting 'games' all with the purpose of collecting or winning BE credits.

I'd be interested to hear any views about Blog Explosion. Am I being gullible? Is there a catch that I'm missing?

Stuck In Bloggings Revolving Door

Where does being stuck in a revolving door lead? My experience of blogging often seems like I'm just going around in circles. Chasing the 'long tail' and being constantly confronted with the fact that I can't catch it!

In terms of 'creative' output I've probably generated an equivalent number of 'items' to the Beatles or the Rolling Stones in a much shorter period. Not that I'm claiming my posts compare in brilliance. What is interesting is the point at which the creative gold seam finishes? Is there a finite limit to what anybody (no matter how talented) can create?

Presently I'm pondering on what a blog 'DOES', it started out as an investigation so it was means of exploration, then it became a means of self -expression, then a medium for sharing insights and points of view, then an attempt at informing and educating, then commentary and observation, and now?...

I'm stuck in the revolving door. Will my readership increase? If I stop now will the energy expended last year have been a waste of time? What if the next post is the one that breaks through the subscription and visitor barrier. Just like the gambler...just one more, just more ...this next one will be the one...just one more revolution. Surely the emotional and time investment I've made will be worth it. When will I see an ROI. Actually what is the 'R' I'm looking for?

Maybe there are some clues about the reality of blogging Here

Maybe if we had spiral revolving doors that would be different.

A Million Blog Post Questions

It's a mistake to think that Blogs are the place to go for answers. As an aspect of human behaviour blogging raises more questions than is solves.

What is the meaning of a blog post? More interestingly 'where' is the meaning of a blog post? Is the meaning in the post itself? Does the content clarify something, does it give advice? does it educate you about something?

How does it do this to you? What if it doesn't do anything more than turn your attention to a subject? What happens then? A blog post can only provoke you to think it can't do anything more than that, the rest is down to you. Which bits do you connect with? Which bits pass you by? Why do they do this? How do some pieces of information stand out as different enough to be noticed? How do you feel about missing something significant because you haven't the time or energy to read all the blog posts in the world? If blog posts are that important how come no business have closed down because they don't engage in blogging? How come therapists clinics aren't packed with people because they aren't taking heed of the mass of Life Hack advice? How come there aren't millionaires by the bank vault load because of all the monetization advice?

What if blogs are meaningless? Why are so many blogs about providing answers rather than asking questions? Why are blogs that seem to provide ready answers really popular? Are they really popular? Does this mean that most people don't want to think for themselves? Are blogs a form of solitary confinement? Is the notion of social-networking misplaced? What is the value in connecting to people you have never met? How come the human race has done fine without blogging up until now? What happens if all the servers go down? Who benefits from blogging? How do people become opinion leaders? Is it the high quality of leader? Or is it the poor quality of the follower? Do people who blog know something more than people who don't? Does blogging have an effect? If so on who? How?

Does a blog post that asks more questions than it provides answers attract more visitors than one that doesn't?

Blog Posting and Waves of Interest

After a year of blogging I'm beginning to wonder just how much control we really have over the number of readers we attract. Bloglandshire is packed with advice and tips about methods to generate traffic ranging from creative tips where its 'content' that matters through to the 'dark arts' of SEO and link love techniques.

What I have noticed is that often the number of visitors is unpredictable and never seems to directly correlate with either 'news worthiness',' expertise, interest or originality. There seems to be a deeper 'force' at work perhaps an aspect of Chaos Theory in which the number of factors affecting the popularity of blogpost are that vast and interconnected that seeking the 'magic bullet' is perhaps a fools errand.

As an experiment I'm going to do a couple of posts over the next few days just to see what happens and then I'll post my findings and assessment. In fact this post will be one of the examples that will set out to test the hypothesis that:

Post popularity cannot be correlated to the quality of post.


There is of course a problem with the hypothesis...

The Bank Roll is Over!

Finally UK banks are being held to account over their
excessive charges.

They have abused their power assuming that customers are gullible enough to go on paying through the nose and now their complete lack of authenticity is becoming apparent.

I have argued previously that Banks should be prohibited from marketing what they do as a 'service' and deploying sophisticated social influence techniques in their marketing communications to obscure their real intentions and take advantage their prey. The distress their high handed attitude and behaviour has caused goes far beyond the monetary.

Shakespeare's Henry V Act III, Scene I by Lawrence Olivier

So what is this thing we call Englishness? It is something that is intangible, something that is inseparable from those who know it and feel it. It should not be confused with jingoism or the excesses of imperialism. It is humble, caring, dogged and tenacious, it is self effacing and one of its most enduring characteristics is that it doesn't take itself so seriously that it has to injure others because of its insecurities. Being English is being dependable, being English is battling on against the odds, being English is doing the right thing. Being English is a valuable element of the United Kingdom.

This is St George's day.

KING HENRY V
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

Gullp! This Looks Serious

Mary Ann recently posted something which I believe is extremely important to us all. There is some debate however as to whether we have a viral, technical, or psychological problem on our hands.

There is growing research to suggest that Gullibility is a primary factor in the process of human evolution, and analysis of the early papers by Charles Darwin reveal that despite explaining the process of evolution he struggled to identify the cause. It is a little known fact that his ship was named The Seagull (with obvious gulling connotations) only to become known as The Beagle due to a misspelling during a particularly stormy night in the Pacific.

It is becoming clear now that Gullibility is a fundamental pre-cursor to much of human social activity and necessary in identification of the 'un-fit' as in 'not suited for' the prevailing environment.

The contagious power of Gullibility should not be underestimated and as Bob Cialdini shows Social Proof is one of the most effective ways to collect a following of 'gullees' Honestly!!!!!! Its True!!!!!!Believe Me!!!!!!

Blogging: A Symptom of Technology Dependency?

Is Blogging a symptom of technology dependency or is it an authentic expression of individual power and autonomy?

I'm sure that many of you of you will have thought at some time just how precariously modern western society relies on the highly specialised technical knowledge of a few boffins, and this article about how a recently developed Nano switch hints at future chips really brings the point home. Imagine...your PC breaks and you simply thump it with a hammer to re-arrange its atoms to get it going again!

Like all things Nano it can't be seen and yet it has the potential to radically transform the products we use and therefore what they are capable of and how we use them. The thing is, our dependency is directly proportional to technical specialism and as the father of a close friend often says "We're only one power cut away from the Stone Age"

At the other end of the scale there seems to be a desire to get back to the earth and driven by rising food prices talk of having your own allotment seems to one way of getting 'back in control'. There seems to be something very satisfying about the thought growing your own chips which is probably the primeval urge that is driving the technologists!

I guess then owning an allotment is a bit like blogging, the individual key pad is mightier than the Media Tycoons empire, in the same way that the individual gardener is mightier than the Wal-Mart. The irony is that without the 'geekery' I wouldn't be posting this and you wouldn't be reading it, so it seems that we have interdependency between the high tech and the low tech.

Our blogs then are much like allotments, little pieces of the techno sphere that we can call our own, in which we can grow what we want, spend happy hours tending and developing to the level of our capability and interest. Our PCs become our 'sheds' to which we escape, ponder, and plan what we are going to plant next.

I think that we'd be rather gullible to be overly dependent on technology so I'm still left wondering which sort of chips are the best, silicon, graphene, or potato?