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Disney erased FiveThirtyEight

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Re: Disney erased FiveThirtyEight

#241

Post by amalcon »

xmcp123 wrote: post #239
amalcon wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, when it comes to government, I easily prefer boring to not-boring in an executive all else being equal . Which it wasn't here, but still. I want the firebrands with big ideas to improve things in the legislature, and steady hands on the tiller in the executive. Unfortunately it seems that my compatriots want firebrands in both places.

I don’t think the choice is necessarily boring vs firebrands. Obama is a great example. He was not a firebrand, not boring, and was elected twice in a row. Charisma matters.

Obama is a very unique case. I wouldn't exactly call him a firebrand, but his public persona managed to give the perception of being a steady hand on the tiller who also had big ideas. The only other presidential candidate in my lifetime to give a similar impression was Al Gore, but he leaned more into the "steady hand" thing to his detriment. He also, as you note, had far less charisma than Obama.

Re: Disney erased FiveThirtyEight

#242

Post by satiric »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #157
Traster wrote: post #110

The more I read about how big businesses operate the more I think it resembles the weather. There's no intelligence in there, it's just random fluctuations. FiveThirtyEight never made any sense at Disney and seems to have been passed around there more like a trinket than a decades work of dozens of people.

One of the most frustrating things about getting older — besides all the fun stuff that happens to your knees and hair — is the fact that younger generations just take what has been normal their whole lives and say “yes this is the normal state of affairs.” We used to have laws and limits regarding media ownership. One company couldn’t own every radio station in most of America. Distributors couldn’t own studios. Etc…

Interesting in learning more - what bill is this that was passed by Clinton?

Re: Disney erased FiveThirtyEight

#243

Post by xmcp123 »

amalcon wrote: post #241
xmcp123 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the choice is necessarily boring vs firebrands. Obama is a great example. He was not a firebrand, not boring, and was elected twice in a row. Charisma matters.

Obama is a very unique case. I wouldn't exactly call him a firebrand, but his public persona managed to give the perception of being a steady hand on the tiller who also had big ideas. The only other presidential candidate in my lifetime to give a similar impression was Al Gore, but he leaned more into the "steady hand" thing to his detriment. He also, as you note, had far less charisma than Obama.

I think you would be surprised by how not completely unique Obama was!

The Democrats have had a number of pretty high quality, charismatic candidates, but for some reason they never receive the party backing on the national stage, at least not for the presidency.

The Democrats seem to lean in to almost inheriting nominations. Hillary Clinton, Biden, Kamala, etc.

“The heir apparent”.

Honestly the most unique thing about Obama Was that they broke from “the heir apparent” and ran someone who had risen up from the state level and was merely a high quality congressman for a short period of time.

Re: Disney erased FiveThirtyEight

#244

Post by WorldMaker »

TitaRusell wrote: post #145
legitster wrote: post #28

> The thinking at Disney is presumably that they invested a lot of money in FiveThirtyEight and were left with nothing to show for it. But to my mind, however much they spent on FiveThirtyEight, they never invested a dollar in it. There was never really any effort, or even any pretense of trying, to make it a profitable unit of the company. At one point, other senior staffers and I basically begged Disney to turn on…

It's remarkably ironic that we are slowly returning to aristocracy. Only it's worse this time. Say what you want about those French poofs and British lords: they were expected to do their duty on the battlefield.

To be fair, this is the second time the US has done a "trial run" on this sort of oligarchy. The Robber Barons of the First Gilded Age left their names on a lot of buildings in the country and left a lot of scars in several major industries.

Re: Disney erased FiveThirtyEight

#245

Post by 3RTB297 »

chao- wrote: post #13

>The Times was also in the midst of a leadership transition, and new management tends to want to move on from the old regime’s pet projects, even if they were successful. Learning about B2B sales over the years, the size of this leadership-change factor has been among the most eye-opening (and among the most disappointing). It cuts both ways: You can have a successful pilot that doesn't proceed because this-or-that V…

I imagine people won't like the comparison, but this is exactly how changes in leadership work for developing countries.

Anyone tied to the old regime that isn't immediately, obviously, and hugely beneficial to the top of the new ranks is scrapped. Business arrangements and government contracts have to be re-negotiated to cut in new leadership. If business owners don't hedge on both sides, and get in there immediately after the election, they become castigated as loyal to the old regime, leading to more friction, costs, and work to simply get back to normal operations.

Re: Disney erased FiveThirtyEight

#246

Post by ascagnel_ »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #157
Traster wrote: post #110

The more I read about how big businesses operate the more I think it resembles the weather. There's no intelligence in there, it's just random fluctuations. FiveThirtyEight never made any sense at Disney and seems to have been passed around there more like a trinket than a decades work of dozens of people.

One of the most frustrating things about getting older — besides all the fun stuff that happens to your knees and hair — is the fact that younger generations just take what has been normal their whole lives and say “yes this is the normal state of affairs.” We used to have laws and limits regarding media ownership. One company couldn’t own every radio station in most of America. Distributors couldn’t own studios. Etc…

> (And if you’re left-leaning, you can’t pin this mess on the “corporation-friendly” Republican Party because it was Bill Clinton who put his signature on this mess!)

I would argue Clinton's presidency moved the Democrats from a center-left party to a center-right party, given its platform of welfare reform and free trade at the expense of labor rights and the social safety net.

Re: Disney erased FiveThirtyEight

#247

Post by ascagnel_ »

satiric wrote: post #242
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most frustrating things about getting older — besides all the fun stuff that happens to your knees and hair — is the fact that younger generations just take what has been normal their whole lives and say “yes this is the normal state of affairs.” We used to have laws and limits regarding media ownership. One company couldn’t own every radio station in most of America. Distributors couldn’t own studios. Etc…

Interesting in learning more - what bill is this that was passed by Clinton?

The Telecommunications Act of 1996.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

It passed with support from both parties in both the House and Senate.

Re: Disney erased FiveThirtyEight

#248

Post by dwoldrich »

autoexec wrote: post #223
dwoldrich wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And he won the popular vote if you believe that all U.S. elections are secure and sacrosanct. He is diabolical at getting people to talk about him and think about him constantly. Joe Biden on the other hand was a senile wrecker for Build Back Better and the party finally made "the switch" to unelected Harris far too late in the process. Even if she was a great candidate, with her odd laughter and fascination with bus…

> Even if she was a great candidate, with her odd laughter and fascination with buses, there was not enough time to shape her candidacy. I don't think anyone who would have ever voted for her actually cared at all about her laugh. I do think that she'd have done much better with more time though. I also agree that Democrats are too invested in themselves and the status quo to put forward a candidate who will make the…

> I also agree that Democrats are too invested in themselves and the status quo to put forward a candidate who will make the kinds of meaningful changes that Democratic voters actually want.

The old saying "the customer doesn't know what they want" seems true of the average Democratic voter. I look at the Democratic party planks as primarily boomer-era causes increasingly misaligned with technological progress and social evolution.

I see average Democratic voters as wistful and earnest, but ultimately not (yet? ever?) grounded with a cohesive vision for modern/future American society _at scale_. In my opinion, the moment for a legitimate new vision to emerge was Occupy Wall Street. All that movement seemed to yield for the grassroots was an acquaintance with homelessness culture.

Re: Disney erased FiveThirtyEight

#249

Post by dwoldrich »

palata wrote: post #220
dwoldrich wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And he won the popular vote if you believe that all U.S. elections are secure and sacrosanct. He is diabolical at getting people to talk about him and think about him constantly. Joe Biden on the other hand was a senile wrecker for Build Back Better and the party finally made "the switch" to unelected Harris far too late in the process. Even if she was a great candidate, with her odd laughter and fascination with bus…

Yeah I think the presidential election system may be the one to blame. Only two parties, both very much "to the right", doesn't feel like a sane system anymore. IMO the better way is to have the government represent the people, and representing the people generally means enough politicians and having to go for a consensus.

Somehow "centrist" has taken on a negative connotation in Democratic circles, but I don't understand it. Far left politics are wrecker politics that have their moments and then (hopefully) get sent back to the political desert for a generation.

Governing in a sustainable way usually means big tent politics with give and take on the small stuff. Bill Clinton epitomized that style.

Re: Disney erased FiveThirtyEight

#250

Post by teddyh »

slg wrote: post #189
teddyh wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Not available in your country.” But what George Lucas claims to have thought (now many years later), is essentially irrelevant. What matters is how audiences interpret the movies when watching them, both at the time and now. If, as I strongly suspect, essentially nobody saw clear Viet Cong sympathies in the original trilogy, then the modern Star Wars differs significantly. And this is my point. The politics of the o…

You said “There was no conscious choice behind it” and here is the creator telling you the choice was intentional from the start. Some people simply can’t admit they are wrong.

1. I can’t watch the video, as I said.

2. I actually don’t believe whatever George Lucas claims, many years later, to have had in mind at the time. Creators in general are known for not always being truthful in these matters, and mostly just going “yes, exactly, that is what I really meant” when fans come up with and present their complex theories many years later.

3. However, it does not matter what George Lucas thought or intended. What matters is how audiences interpreted it. Most people, both then and now, do not see any clear Viet Cong sympathies in the original trilogies. Ergo, the politics of the original trilogies was different, since most people do see the heavy-handed symbolism in today’s Star Wars.

But I guess some people simply can’t read what I write.

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