How Much Time Should We Spend Online?

It varies. 

For me? Not much nowadays, now that I'm retired. I don't have anything to prove blogging or on social media, and I've made enemies with my support for Donald Trump --- even among supporters of Donald Trump! Especially on Facebook, which is high school, sometimes literally (my old classmates are organizing for the 50th reunion, oh my). 

In any case, Tyler Cowen makes the case to be glued to your screens. 

At The Free Press, "The Case for Living Online":

How much should we be online? Is it crazy to spend the majority of your day in chat groups, answering emails, and scrolling X? Is posing 20 to 30 queries a day to the AIs consistent with having meaningful respect for actual flesh-and-blood human beings?

I say yes.

Perhaps you balk at that answer. Perhaps you think that’s akin to admitting a heroin addiction. So I ask you to challenge yourself: Don’t think about how you should spend your time. Think about how you already choose to. Be honest.

I suspect most people aren’t like me—spending hours a day with ChatGPT, Claude, WhatsApp, and X. But, whether or not those are your particular fancies, the online life attracts a great number of people. Just walk through an airport, where most people have idle time, and watch how many of them are on their phones. You must either think this is (mostly) justifiable, or you have a very low opinion of current humanity. In that case, you must think them incapable of creating meaningful, autonomous lives, centered around some notion of the good. (I am not so pessimistic—at least, not yet.)

I view many of these online time investments as a determined attempt to be in touch with the people we want to be in touch with. To meet the people we truly want to meet. And to befriend and sometimes to marry them.

Those goals are so important that they can justify our massive online presence. I will explain this view further, but first let us consider the strongest and most articulate argument against such an intense online life.

It comes from Ross Douthat, who, in a recent New York Times essay, made the case that the digital revolution—and AI especially—is presenting humanity with an extinction-level event, at least on the cultural front.

“The age of digital revolution—the time of the internet and the smartphone and the incipient era of artificial intelligence—threatens an especially comprehensive cull,” writes Ross. “It’s forcing the human race into what evolutionary biologists call a ‘bottleneck’—a period of rapid pressure that threatens cultures, customs, and peoples with extinction.”

Ross calls for human resistance against these trends, calling upon us to embrace what tech partisans sometimes call a “meatspace” existence. He asks us to “sit with the child, open the book, and read.” We should seek church rather than YouTube, a sit-down restaurant rather than a WhatsApp group, and love and procreation rather than porn.

Surely “the real,” as Ross presents it, has value above and beyond its immediate utility. But it also, he argues, likely makes us happier in the long run, too.

Elsewhere, Jonathan Haidt, in his best-selling book The Anxious Generation, has called for far less online engagement and much more real-world play, most of all for our children. He has spent the year or so since the book’s publication advocating for cell phone bans in schools and age requirements for social media sites—all aimed at getting kids offline.

Ross and Jon do have a point, and indeed I do plenty of reading and also babysitting, including the conjunct of reading to babies. It is easy to see that many individuals spend too much time on their phones, as they might tell you themselves.

And yet Ross’s characterization of online existence does not recognize its true value, which I believe is deeply human.

Why do I spend so much of my time with email, group chats, and also writing for larger audiences such as Free Press readers? I ask myself that earnestly, and I have arrived at a pretty good answer...

Subscribe.

Allahpundit Out at 'Hot Air'

I don't know as fact, but it sounds like he was forced out for not joining the cult of Trump.

See, "My Farewell to Hot Air Readers" (via Memeorandum):

My final post: Farewell to Hot Air and hello to the Dispatch https://t.co/0r4Tp0dMmm

Thank you to Townhall Media for supporting me for so many years. And thank you to @stephenfhayes and @JonahDispatch for the opportunity to join the wonderful site they’ve built (1/2)

— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) September 2, 2022

/p>

I want to say thanks.

First, to our readers. It’s been my privilege to write for you. Few are lucky enough to make a living filling up a screen with their mundane thoughts, fewer get to do so on any subject they like. On an average day here I could write about COVID, Ukraine, and the new Frankenfood from Taco Bell. Sixteen years into this job, I still can’t believe they paid me to do it. Your patronage made it possible. I can’t thank you enough.

Thank you to Jazz Shaw, John Sexton, and especially Ed Morrissey for making working at Hot Air such a pleasure. A dirty secret: I was quietly furious when Ed came aboard in 2008. What was he doing on my site? But then it became our site, and then Jazz and John joined, and now you’ll never find a more collegial team of writers. In our years together I can’t recall an instance of infighting or office politics. It borders on strange how little drama there was behind the scenes. The pain of separation is eased by knowing that this will remain in their hands.

Thank you to Michelle Malkin for having taken a chance on me when she started Hot Air so many years ago. She made my career possible. And above all, thank you to Jon Garthwaite and Townhall Media, who stuck with me even as the GOP changed and I declined to change with it. At this point I must be the only strident critic of Donald Trump serving a pro-Trump populist readership across all of conservative media. And that’s been true *for years.* Since 2020, at least.

It was possible only because of Townhall’s sufferance, a show of integrity for which they don’t get enough credit. But I think all of us knew it couldn’t last. When you hire someone to run your hot-dog stand and he starts telling the customers that hot dogs are bad for them, that relationship won’t endure. Even if he’s right about the hot dogs.

Thank you to my critics — the earnest ones, who weren’t just axe-grinding because I wouldn’t join a cult. I am not dishonest but am frequently stupid and you were right to call me on my moments of stupidity. Accountability is good. The right needs more of it from its own side, urgently. If the average populist slobberer had a few like you in their ear, we wouldn’t be in the fix we’re in.

Lastly, to those who spent the last seven years barking insults at me in the comments for not genuflecting to Trump, I’ll give you this: You’re not phonies. You believe what you say. We have that much in common. I respect honesty and paid you the respect of being honest. It would scandalize you to know how many of your heroes sound like you in public and like me in private. Audience capture has brought most of conservative media to ruin by making it predictable and shrill.

I hear Lincoln’s words in my head as I write that: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.” Let’s hope. But let’s also be real: To a certain sort of Very Online Trumpist weirdo, having the right enemies is what politics is all about. To any who insist upon having me as one, I’m okay with it. Few badges of honor shine as brightly as the scorn of authoritarians...

RTWT.

 

Happy New Year

From Pasadena's Rose Bowl opening ceremony minutes ago:

Iconic. pic.twitter.com/OzV8Mk3D1d

— Rose Bowl Game (@rosebowlgame) January 1, 2022

ADDED 1/2/2022: More here, "2022 B-2 Stealth Bomber Rose Bowl Flyover Pasadena California (VIDEO)." 

More, "WHITEMAN AIRMAN CONTINUES FAMILY’S LEGACY WITH FLYOVER AT ROSE BOWL," and "HOPALONG CASSIDY'S GRANDSON, CAPTAIN, KYLE CASSIDY, REMEMBERS HIS GRANDFATHER, DISCUSSES ROSE BOWL FLYOVER."

Charles Grodin, 1935-2021

Charles Grodin wasn't a favorite of mine. In fact, I can barely remember watching him on film. I don't know why. I think when he was on film I wasn't going to the movies that much. Besides, I like hardcore drama --- tearjerkers --- more than I do comedy, though I'm for a good laugh as much as the next guy. (And I like war movies, and Grodin didn't star in those, as far as I can tell.)

L.A.T. has his obituary, "Charles Grodin, activist, author and actor who made grouchiness cool, dead at 86."

The fact is, though, I probably wouldn't be blogging this if I had seen this at Althouse: "Perfection."

Grodin's hilarious, so I can see why he starred in comedies. 

Interesting, when you think about it, is that Althouse has disabled comments. She takes comments by email, which raises the question if that's better than taking them at the blog, moderating them. If people don't like you, they're going to attack you with hatred, so it's six-in-the-one-hand and half-a-dozen in the other. You'll be moderating either way. I don't pay attention to this stuff that much, but I think it's easier to block people in Gmail than it is at Blogger, so perhaps that's the payoff to the cost-benefit analysis. But that brings up another question? I thought Althouse's blog was all about the comments, or at least eliciting good comments, right? I mean, what's Althouse if you can't go in there a post your reactions? She's always prided herself on comments, to the point that she wouldn't (or couldn't) leave Blogger without them. Of course, that's not my problem, since I'm not a New York Times-profiled blogger. But blogs aren't as numerous as they used to be, so if you like reading 'em you might be bummed that Althouse has dropped the ball a bit on hers, or some folks might think. 

But as noted, this is a laugh-riot. Maybe I should stream some old Grodin movies. Either that, or go back and find more "Tonight Show" episodes for the lolz. 

Been Busy *Shrugs*

Sorry for the lack of posting of late, dear readers. I don't mean to let anybody down, heh.

The fact is I've been swamped with work and a lot of stuff at home --- home issues especially dealing with my two sons (which, come to think of it, isn't "My Three Sons," and I'm glad, sheesh). 

I did score an Instalanche over the weekend, for this post, "New Capitol 'Attack' Investigative Report Released: D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser Indeed Called for Capitol Police to 'Stand Down', and the Feds 'Botched' Everything With Clueless Mixed-Messages and Incompetence (VIDEO)," which was nice. 

And of course, as many of you know, I'm a blogger at Theo Spark's, and often my babe-blogging hits posted there generate a little traffic back this way, as this one did last week, "Twins?"

So, to that end, here's a couple of more hotties, at Babe Gallery, and this lovely lady below from the University of North Carolina, via Rad Chicks:

Please Shop Amazon Until I Can Get Back to This Blog, Tomorrow, or the Next Day

I'm heading out to Fresno/Clovis in a bit, so here's the link to Amazon, if you'd like to do some shopping, which is appreciated. 

And for some reason, I woke up with Elvis Costello's "Alison" on my brain, and I was singing the song in my head while taking my morning piss, heh.

I'll be back up blogging again as soon as I can. Have a great Easter holiday!

Instalanche!

Actually, I received not just one, but two!, in the past few days, for my post, "Biden, Harris, Psaki and Other Top Staffers Afraid to Appear in Sunday News Shows (VIDEO)."

On Sunday, Ed Driscoll, one of the main co-bloggers at Instapundit, linked my post, probably just moments after I tweeted it to him. 

And then Stephen Green, also one of the other main stalwart co-bloggers over there, linked it again this morning. 

It's pretty gratifying, especially since I've had little time to blog, and I sure appreciate getting tons of traffic, and I welcome the Instapundit readers. 

But I want to thank MY loyal readers most of all, who number probably just in the hundreds, and if the number's over a thousand, that's on a good day. So thank you again for your all your support, for coming here to read, and to shop occasionally at my Amazon links. 

I've been doing this a long time, and some of the the greatest blogs from back in the day, at the height of the blogosphere, probably around the time from the Iraq war in 2003 (or maybe a little earlier, like 9/11) to the years of both the Obama administrations, are long gone; and back then, blogging was bigger and way more influential, than, say, social media (and especially Twitter, which itself was better back in the day, around the first part of the Obama years, before they starting f*cking with all the stupid "algorithms").

So, thanks for reading. This blog isn't going anywhere, but the volume of posting will rise and fall, perhaps a lot, depending on how things are going right here at home, with my wife and two sons, because, like everybody else, this godforsaken pandemic has messed everything up, including not just income flow, but the way the world works, how people literally "go to work," and how people engage and socially interact. It's killing people, literally, with the rise not just deaths from Covid-19, which are horrifying, but perhaps even more dangerously long-term, from the increasing social despondency and isolation people are enduring, particularly young people, whose life chances have been set back years, and even decades, if this economy flounders, or inflation surges, and the national debt keeps growing, and on, and on.

So, thanks again, dear readers, I appreciate the support. 

I'll be back with more later, probably in the late afternoon or early evening. 

Saturday Links

Morning everybody. 

All is right in the blog world, as I've gotten an Instatlanche this morning: "WHEN FRENCH INTELLECTUALS THINK THE AMERICAN LEFT HAS GOTTEN TOO CRAZY…"

Linked there, at my piece, is Assistant Village Idiot, who logically should be getting a tertiary Instalanche: "Critical Race Theory."

And at the Other McCain, "In the Mailbox: 11.27.20 (Evening Edition)."

More at Maggie's Farm, "Saturday morning links."

Found there, at Power Line, "MORE EVIDENCE THAT LIBERALS HATE AMERICA."

At AoSHQ, "Thanksgiving ONT."

Proof Positive, "Best of the Web."

At Pirate's Cove, "Clapton, Van Morrison Team Up For Anti-Lockdown Anthem."

Theo's, "Cartoon Roundup.

At Director Blue, "Larwyn’s Linx: Pennsylvania State Legislature Files Resolution to Dispute Statewide 2020 Election Results."

BONUS: At 90 Miles From Tyranny, "Report Claims Fox News Is Blacklisting Guests Who Appear on Newsmax TV..."

Andrew Sullivan to Revive 'The Dish'

I wondered where he was going to wind up. The editors told him not to publish a few weeks back.

Sully had a piece up two Fridays ago, and this yesterday, "See You Next Friday: A Farewell Letter":

Dishness lives. All we’re waiting for is you.https://t.co/X02Q5258iA

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) July 17, 2020

What has happened, I think, is relatively simple: A critical mass of the staff and management at New York Magazine and Vox Media no longer want to associate with me, and, in a time of ever tightening budgets, I’m a luxury item they don’t want to afford. And that’s entirely their prerogative. They seem to believe, and this is increasingly the orthodoxy in mainstream media, that any writer not actively committed to critical theory in questions of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity is actively, physically harming co-workers merely by existing in the same virtual space. Actually attacking, and even mocking, critical theory’s ideas and methods, as I have done continually in this space, is therefore out of sync with the values of Vox Media. That, to the best of my understanding, is why I’m out of here...

RTWT and stay tuned!

Professor William Jacobson on Laura Ingraham's Show (VIDEO)

Professor Jacobson is so mild-mannered it's almost funny. That this man is a "threat" to black lives is hilarious.



And in case you missed it, at Legal Insurrection, "There’s an effort to get me fired at Cornell for criticizing the Black Lives Matter Movement."

BONUS: From Jonathan Turley, "Cornell Professors Declare 'Informed Commentary' Criticizing the Protests as Racism."

Marooned in Marin is Back!

There's not too many local independent bloggers left these days, especially since Twitter exploded over the last decade as the "comment board" of choice for the Internets fever swamp trolls. Even John Hawkins, of Right Wing News fame, hung up his keyboard a couple of years back after Facebook purged his advertising, killing his revenue stream.

See, "A (Part Time) Return to Blogging...":

I have to say that President Trump has greatly exceeded my expectations in the three plus years he has been President. He is not a "movement conservative," as Ronald Reagan was. But, President Trump certainly has been the most conservative President since Reagan. I would argue that, until Trump, our nation has suffered under two Bushes, one Clinton, and Obama of a deficit of leadership where we have become too willing to surrender our sovereignty to globalism. What has happened with COVID-19 should be a wake-up call that we cannot rely on other nations, especially those who are Communist or hostile regimes, for vital things like medicines. Thank goodness President Trump has made us energy independent so we will not have to rely on overseas oil from a region where there are regimes hostile to America.

Also, "Democrats & Media Sycophants Kick & Scream as Trump Lays Path to Reopen US Economy."

Playmate Iryna at the Beach

Here's the phenomenal lady again, pushing boundaries.

Wow!

Topless beach should I? 😍 LINK IN BIO and lmk https://t.co/h2hVh3vfMn pic.twitter.com/racqkkFVrl

— playmateiryna (@IrynaIvanova) April 24, 2020

Also, fully nude here, sheesh.

Playmate Iryna Updates

Dear readers, I've been hoping to update more frequently, but with the coronavirus lockdown --- and my huge online remote teaching load at my college --- it's been hard.

My school went to online instruction on March 17th, and it was an intense week or two just getting my Canvas page up and running. I'm just now starting to get caught up with all the updating and grading for my courses.

I hope to get back to regular blogging soon, including my book postings from Amazon, which you can still support here.

Meanwhile, here's an Iryna update:

Did I catch ur attention? 🤯 LINK IN BIO more fun than easter 👍 https://t.co/VEewdHWImZ pic.twitter.com/bx0RaYzo2l

— playmateiryna (@IrynaIvanova) April 11, 2020

Are they the best you've ever seen? LINK IN BIO to find out 😱https://t.co/BiZ5wJ7FKz pic.twitter.com/jQCIl4PhSJ

— playmateiryna (@IrynaIvanova) April 4, 2020

Sorry you just can’t get rid of me and my boobs 😂 TEXT FOR MORE here https://t.co/M03maYOVmJ pic.twitter.com/7H51SYzUzo

— playmateiryna (@IrynaIvanova) April 3, 2020

'Social media, metrics, bad faith readers, columnists, instant and bad takes, blogosphere nostalgia, and online abuse have created an op-ed internet culture...'

At n + 1, "The New Reading Environment":

Grouchy / interesting piece in @nplusonemag on the op-ed's post-Trump renaissance and the weird longevity of op-ed pages — "Everything is an op-ed now. The op-edization of all writing should have rendered its traditional purveyors redundant....."https://t.co/VDWCg246of pic.twitter.com/2Kr1hG26Hr

— james crabtree (@jamescrabtree) August 28, 2018

Since Donald Trump’s election, new prominence has been given to an otherwise deranged and degraded form: the op-ed. The Times op-ed page — along with its basic best friend, the Washington Post op-ed page, and its evil, basement-dwelling older brother, the Wall Street Journal op-ed page — should have gone the way of the classifieds section. Instead it exerts a malevolent gravitational pull, delivering with punishing regularity an endless stream of annoying and offensive provocations.

The irony of the op-ed’s depressing reemergence is that everything is an op-ed now. The op-edization of all writing should have rendered its traditional purveyors redundant. Why read a Times columnist when you can read the same opinion delivered with more style and energy almost anywhere else? But even as internet writers refine and defend and reiterate their opinions — an archipelago of converging takes — so-called traditional outlets have consolidated their influence...

RTWT.

Drunken Steplinks

At Drunken Stepfather, "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY."

Also, at Director Blue, "Larwyn's Linx: The DOJ and FBI Worked With Fusion GPS on “Operation Trump”."

And at Maggie's Farm, "Friday morning links."

BONUS: At the Other McCain, "Democrats Love ‘S***hole’ Countries, and They Want America to Become One."

pic.twitter.com/IWX1OxJKih

— 🔥Perfect² Hotties🔥 (@nyxxxguy2) December 18, 2017

Volokh Conspiracy Moves to Reason.com

Well, I hate the paywall at WaPo. And while I'm not a huge fan of Reason, this move gives me ample reason to visit the site.

 See, "Our move to (paywall-free!) Reason from The Washington Post."

Reason welcomes The Volokh Conspiracy! https://t.co/En6HDckU70 pic.twitter.com/8lqsgQuGsx

— reason (@reason) December 13, 2017

The Tax Reform Bill is Killing and Raping Americans

Oh my goodness this is cracking me up!

Leftists have lost their minds, heh.

From yesterday's roundup, at Maggie's Farm, "Tuesday morning links."

BONUS: Today's roundup, "Wednesday morning links."

The Anniversary of 9/11

Some thoughts from Glenn Reynolds, "SO NOW IT’S THE 16TH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11. Back then, InstaPundit was shiny and new new new. Now it’s not, and some people have been warning of “blogger burnout.” But I’m still here."

Click through and read it.

FOMO

At Wired, "We Can't Stop Checking the News Either. Welcome to the New FOMO."

It's "Fear of Missing Out."

I've had it before, although not so much lately.

The science behind the regret, shame, and anxiety that comes from constantly monitoring your feeds for news https://t.co/UdEXeUPrxF

— WIRED (@WIRED) August 26, 2017

Courtney Messerschmidt Today

So, I'm reading this great piece at the National Interest, "Nazi Germany's 5 Most Lethal Weapons of War," which goes on about the Messerschmitt Bf 109 figther plane, which was prominently featured in "Dunkirk."

And the "109" part was interesting especially, since the old Courtney Messerschmidt, of GrEaT sAtAn"S gIrLfRiEnD, uses the handle "courtneyme109." And coincidently, somebody retweeted her the other day, and here she is. It's been six years since "The Courtney Messerschmidt Scam."

Those were the days, lol. Courtney's gotta be about 28-years-old by now. I hope she's matured and mellowed out a bit. You can't go around in life living a lie. Sooner or later people find about about you.