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The Evanston Legion AA baseball team continued to roll through their conference schedule last week, sweeping home doubleheaders against Rock Springs and Casper to remain at the top of the AA West standings.

The Outlaws welcomed Rock Springs to Ross Kesterson Field for a day/night doubleheader Wednesday, routing the Sandpuppies 16-3 in the opener, and holding off a late charge in game two to win 12-9.

Saturdays twin bill against the defending state champ Casper Oilers gave Outlaws fans all the action they could handle, with the home team coming out on the right side of a pair of nail biters, 6-5 and 8-7.

The boys knew they had a job to do, and they did it, said Outlaws manager Chad Thompson. In the end, thats what counts.

Evanston is now 26-18 on the season 9-1 in conference play with one week remaining before the start of the state tournament. The Outlaws will close out the regular season this weekend with a three-game series in Jackson; two of those will be conference games.

Were just going to work on our normal stuff that we do this week, Thompson said. Well keep plugging away were always trying to get better at individual stuff, and well go from there.

Outlaws 6, Casper 5

The Outlaws have had Caspers number this season, winning the first three meetings of the two teams by a healthy margin in each.

But it was a different team that took the field against Evanston Saturday the defending state champs began to play like it, battling back from a four-run deficit to give the Outlaws a scare before losing 6-5.

Defensively, we played really well, Thompson said of the Outlaws. We put a few runs up, and were able to play good defense. Even though they [Casper] tried to creep back in, we were able to shut it down.

Casper got on the board first, and led 1-0 after the first inning. The Outlaws tied the game in the bottom of the second Casey Periman led the inning off with a double, then scored on a long sacrifice fly by Brenden Thompson (the team leader in RBIs with 48) to bring the game back to even at 1-1.

Evanston increased its lead with a pair of runs in the bottom of the third a double by Conner Peterson and a single by Ryan Fisher set the table, with Peterson eventually scoring on a wild pitch; Fisher followed suit, scoring on a sacrifice fly by Jagger Mitchell to make it 3-1.

The Oilers cut the lead to 3-2 with a run in the top of the fourth; the Outlaws answered with three runs in the bottom of the frame, highlighted by back-to-back singles by Periman and Reid Gross and an RBI single by Peterson to make it 6-2.

Casper buckled down with a run in the top of the fifth and two runs in the top of the seventh, while holding the Outlaws scoreless in both innings. But with one out, bases loaded and the go-ahead run standing on second, Fisher on the mound in relief for starter Gus Allred got Caspers hitter to ground into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game. It was the second double play the Outlaws turned during the 6-5 win.

Those were both very timely double plays, Thompson said. Our middle infield plays really well together they always seem to know what the other is going to do before it happens, so that chemistry is good.

Lefty Gus Allred pitched a gem in his seventh win of the season, giving up three runs (two earned) on five hits and striking out nine in five innings of work.

My arm is feeling great, Allred said. I feel like Im starting to get to the point where I can pitch full games, and have finally started to get back into starting games effectively on the mound.

Fisher picked up the save, giving up two earned runs on two hits, striking out three.

Peterson and Periman combined for four of the Outlaws six hits Peterson was 2-for-3 with a double and an RBI, while Periman went 2-for-3 with a double and two runs scored.

Fisher (1-for-3 with an RBI and run scored) and Gross (1-for-2 with a run scored) rounded out the hitting; Gross also had the Outlaws lone stolen base.

Outlaws 8, Casper 7

The nightcap of Saturdays twin bill got off to a rough start for the home team still stinging from the previous games end, the Oilers took out their frustrations on Evanston starter Clayton Moyles, plating five runs in the opening frame.

That first inning, Clayton was just struggling to hit his spots, coach Thompson said. Thats baseball, it happens. They [Casper] put five up, and it was catch-up time from there.

The Outlaws cut Caspers lead to 5-1 in the bottom of the first, behind an RBI single by Gus Allred. Moyles shook off his disastrous first inning to throw well in the second the lefthander struck out the first two batters he faced to hold the Oilers scoreless.

Casper increased its lead to 6-1 with a run in the top of the fourth; the Outlaws answered with a run of their own in the bottom of the frame, when Reid Gross crossed the plate to make it 6-2.

The Oilers added one more run in the top of the sixth to push their lead to 7-2. Quiet for most of the game, the Outlaws bats awoke in the bottom of the sixth back-to-back singles by Ryan Fisher and Hank Allred set the table, with Fisher scoring on an error a short time later. A sacrifice fly by Gus Allred scored brother Hank and Jagger Mitchell to cut Caspers lead to 7-4; a two-run triple off the bat of Brenden Thompson scored Casey Periman and Reid Gross, and tied the game at 7-7 heading into the final frame.

He [Brenden] just went with the pitch, and laced it down the right field line, coach Thompson said. We were able to score the two runners on base I was trying to hold Reid [Gross] at third, but he wasnt listening.

After a three-up, three-down top of the seventh by the Oilers, the Outlaws went into the bottom of the seventh with a chance to win the game.

With Fisher on board with a single, Hank Allred reached first after getting hit by a pitch. An errant throw by Caspers catcher in an attempt to pick Hank off at first gave Fisher all the space he needed to score the game winner and send the Oilers home with an 8-7 loss.

The guys didnt get down on themselves, and they kept scratching and clawing, Thompson said. In the end, we put ourselves in a position to win, and we were able to.

Mitchell picked up the win in relief, giving up two unearned runs on no hits, striking out six in four and two-thirds innings. Moyles went two and a third innings, giving up five earned runs on seven hits, and striking out four.

Gus Allred led the charge at the plate for the Outlaws, going 2-for-2 with 3 RBIs.

Those wins against Casper were huge for us, Allred said. We knew we had to get those wins to help set the tone for state, and we were able to pull away with the victories in both games.

Fisher also had a two-hit game, scoring twice; Hank Allred, Gross and Thompson rounded out the offense with a hit apiece, including a two-run triple by Thompson.

Outlaws 16,

Rock Springs 3

Evanston put on a hitting display in the opener of a twin bill against Rock Springs Wednesday the Outlaws pounded out 13 hits in a 16-3 rout of the Sandpuppies.

Ryan Fisher led the charge at the plate for the home team, going 4-for-4 with a double, 3 runs scored and 3 RBIs; his .398 batting average leads the team.

We moved some guys around in the lineup, and moved Ryan up to the one spot, and he performed great, Thompson said. When your leadoff is 4-for-4, youre having yourself a good day.

Casey Periman also had a day at the plate, finishing 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles and 2 RBIs; Reid Gross and Jordan Schneider both went 2-for-3, with 3 RBIs from Gross and two from Schneider. Jagger Mitchell (2 RBIs) and Gus Allred rounded out the hitting with one apiece.

Allred picked up the win on the mound for the Outlaws, giving up one run on three hits and striking out one in two and two-thirds innings of relief. Starter Clayton Moyles pitched two and a third innings, giving up two runs on five hits, striking out one.

Outlaws 12,

Rock Springs 9

Game two of Wednesdays doubleheader was a bit more competitive, as is usually the case when the Outlaws and Sandpuppies square off.

Evanston picked up right where they left off, plating five runs in the bottom of the first. The scoring charge was highlighted by a two-run home run by Clayton Moyles, his first of the season.

Funny story we had a steal on for that particular pitch, coach Thompson said, laughing. Clayton wasnt even supposed to swing. So he swung, and I got a little angry. But then it went over the fence, and I wasnt angry anymore. I guess he thought it was a hit-and-run, maybe.

The Outlaws scored a run in the second and two in the third, highlighted by an RBI double by Casey Periman and an RBI by Reid Gross on a fielders choice. Down 8-2 in the top of the fourth, Rock Springs plated four runs to cut the lead to 8-6; they cut the lead to one with a run in the top of the fifth to make it 8-7.

The Outlaws answered with four runs of their own in the bottom of the fifth, led by a two-run double from Gus Allred. Rock Springs would score twice more, but thats as close as the Sandpuppies would get, falling 12-9.

Evanston scattered nine hits over seven innings, led by Allred, who finished 3-for-4 with a double, 2 RBIs and 3 runs scored. Moyles had a homer and 2 RBIs, Periman had an RBI double and Fisher, Mitchell and Brenden Thompson had a hit apiece, with RBIs from Fisher and Thompson.

Caysen Smith picked up the win on the bump for the Outlaws, giving up nine runs on nine hits (six earned) and striking out four in six and a third innings.

Caysen Smith pitched fantastic, Thompson said. There were nine runs on the board, but I wouldnt give very many of those to him. Our defense let him down a little bit, at times.

Derek MacDonald pitched two-thirds of an inning in relief, with no hits and no runs.

Original post:
Outlaws on verge of conference title - Uinta County Herald

TURNERS FALLS Standing in front of his peers, who wore masks and were seated in chairs spaced 6 feet apart, Turners Falls High School graduate Anthony Peterson said he may have been disappointed with how his senior year turned out, but he wasnt discouraged.

Being disappointed is one thing, and being discouraged is something else, Peterson said, quoting playwright Tennessee Williams. On March 13, our senior year came to an end. We werent going to have the typical ending that previous graduating classes had, and for that, I am disappointed.

At the graduation ceremony on Friday evening, the senior class president told his peers they shouldnt be discouraged either.

I want to celebrate what we accomplished, he said.

Seated in the chairs before him, there was an Eagle Scout, he said. There were actors and actresses, National Honor Society students, acclaimed athletes and state champions.

Every single member of the 2020 class should be proud of what we accomplished here at Turners Falls High School, Peterson said.

Fridays commencement began at 6 p.m. on the Turners Falls High School football field. Chairs on the field were spaced 6 feet apart, and bleachers were also marked to allow for social distancing between guests. In accordance with the state mandates as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone was expected to wear a facial covering.

I think it was worth the wait to hold (the ceremony) this way, said Salutatorian Brody Trott, acknowledging modified commencement ceremonies in other towns.

He reflected on his first year as a student, 12 years ago.

Graduation seemed so far away, Trott said. Its hard to believe we are already here.

Outgoing Superintendent Michael Sullivan congratulated the students on Friday, many of whom he had been in the Gill-Montague Regional School District with since they were in fifth grade.

Youve distinguished yourselves not just for your academic accomplishments, but also for your achievements in athletics and citizenship, Sullivan said. You are known to be a class of integrity and kindness.

He also thanked the students for their perseverance, resilience and maturity during the usual end to the school year.

You adjusted well to the remote learning situation, and you made the best of losing out on so many of the events that make the last semester of high school memorable and enjoyable, Sullivan said.

The occasion, Sullivan said, served for him to let the students in on a secret.

No one else has the answer to your most challenging questions, he advised. You will need to figure things out for yourself, because more often than not, your wisdom and your instincts and your inner voice will need to be your compass.

If the district has done its job well, he added, students will use the tools theyve been given an analytical mind, a curious heart and a collaborative spirit to find their way in whatever their next step is.

Graduates

Jaeden Anthony Ausikaitis, Spencer Logan Blair, Hailey Elizabeth Bogusz, Cameron Andrew Bradley, Jakob Joseph Burnett, Christina Eliza Caswell, Chelsea Katelyn Curtis, Liam Patrick Driscoll, Kody Andrew Fisher, Karissa Morgan Fleming, Elijah James Forcier, Alexandrea Rose Francis, Jonathon Patrick Fritz, Joshua William Gaulin, Josy Lyn Hunter, Tracey Jay Johnson, Eliza Cate Johnson, Shelby Elizabeth Jordan, Joseph William Kochan, Trevor Jeffrey Lapinski, Zacheria Charles Leighton, Jordan Myles Llewlyn, Korey John Martineau, Zachary Allen Mason, Kaitlyn Elizabeth Miner, Chantelle Makenzie Monaghan, Alyson Kendall Murphy, Brian Patrick Murphy, Anthony Thomas Peterson, Brian Daniel Poirier, Edward Joseph Reipold, Dabney Sinclaire Rollins, Anastasia Romashka, Lyuba Sankova, Jakob Aaron Shearer, Emily Alana Sisson, Journey Leigh Smalls, Lucy Willo Spera, Jaclyn Rene Thibeault, Brody Ira Conrad Trott, Luis Thomas Vinton, Abigail Marie Waite, Allison Joy Wheeler, Lindsay Arden Whiteman, Mackenna Gwen Whiteman, Jaden Christopher Whiting-Martinez, Lorie Lorraine Wood, Kamara Rose Woodard and Lydia Fay Wright.

Most Valuable Players: Boys Basketball Anthony Peterson; Girls Basketball Hailey Bogusz; Basketball and Competition Cheerleading Kaitlyn Miner; Field Hockey Alyson Murphy; Football Liam Driscoll; Football Cheerleading Emily Sisson; Golf Brian Poirier; Boys Soccer Jakob Burnett; Boys Swimming Cameron Bradley; Girls Swimming Allison Wheeler; Volleyball Hailey Bogusz.

Academic and Service Awards: Excellence In Art Lorie Wood; Excellence in Design Build Kody Fisher and Luis Vinton; Excellence in Film Editing Alyson Murphy; Excellence in Filmmaking Korey Martineau; Excellence in English Abigail Waite; Excellence in French Chantelle Monaghan; Excellence in Latin Korey Martineau; Excellence in Life Science Josy Hunter; Excellence in Maker Lab Elijah Forcier; Excellence in Mathematics Joseph Kochan; Excellence in Physical Education Jaden Whiting Martinez; Excellence in Physical Education Internship Eliza Johnson; Excellence in Physical Science Karissa Fleming; Excellence in Social Studies Josy Hunter.

Presidents Award for Academic Achievement: Abigail Waite, Cameron Bradley, Chantelle Monaghan, Eliza Johnson and Karissa Fleming.

Presidents Award for Academic Excellence: Joseph Kochan, Brody Trott, Dabney Rollins, Josey Hunter and Allison Wheeler.

Society of Women Engineers of Boston: Josy Hunter, Dabney Rollins and Isabelle Farrick.

Turners Falls High School American Citizenship Awards: Kaitlyn Miner, Alyson Murphy, Eliza Johnson and Brian Poirier.

Turners Falls High School Service Award: Kaitlyn Miner.

Ellen T. Wrightson Memorial Award: Anthony Peterson.

Turners Falls High School Class of 2020 Scholastic Merit Awards: Joseph Kochan, Brody Trott, Dabney Rollins, Josy Hunter and Allison Wheeler.

Salutatorian Award: Brody Trott.

Valedictorian Award: Joseph Kochan.

Special Recognition Dual Degrees from Turners Falls High School and Greenfield Community College: Allsion Wheeler.

National Honor Society Members: Josy Hunter, Eliza Johnson, Joseph Kochan, Alyson Murphy, Dabney Rollins, Chantelle Monaghan and Allison Wheeler.

Junior Book Awards: Bay Path College Book Award Audrey OKeefe; Rensselaer Medal Isabelle Farrick; Saint Michaels Book Award Haley Bastarache and Haleigh Greene; Smith College Book Award Mercedes Bailey; Wells College 21st Century Leadership Award Catherine Reynolds; Williams College Book Award Leah Timberlake.

Anna Garbiel Scholarship: Kaitlyn Miner and Brian Boguz.

Athletic Scholarships: Hailey Bogusz, Kaitlyn Miner, Anthony Peterson and Jaden Whiting-Martinez.

Donald Maynard Scholarship: Josy Hunter.

Edward Brown Memorial Scholarship: Anthony Peterson.

Erving Teachers Association Scholarship: Jakob Burnett and Allison Wheeler.

Erving PTO Scholarship: Allison Wheeler.

Ethel Raymond Orcutt Scholarship: Alyson Murphy.

Thomas W. Merrigan Memorial Scholarship: Joseph Kochan.

Friends of Gill: Alyson Murphy.

Gilmond Lamore Memorial Scholarship: Eliza Johnson and Kaitlyn Miner.

Gill-Montague Education Association Scholarship: Alexandrea Francis.

GMEF Enrichment/Scholarship: Joseph Kochan, Kaitlyn Miner and Abigail Waite.

H. Royer Collins Student Athlete Scholarship: Joseph Kochan.

Harriot E. Tidd Memorial Scholarship: Alyson Murphy.

Madeline J. Carlson Scholarship: Hailey Bogusz, Eliza Johnson, Kaitlyn Miner, Anthony Peterson and Emily Sisson.

Massachusetts Elks Scholarship: Alyson Murphy.

Mery OBrien Scholarship: Cameron Bradley, Josy Hunter, Alyson Murphy, Brody Trott, Abigail Waite and Allison Wheeler.

Our Lady of Peace Scholarship: Josy Hunter and Eliza Johnson.

Pioneer Valley Kennel Club: Josy Hunter.

REAM Scholarship: Emily Sisson.

The Recorder Scholarship: Anthony Peterson.

Tobin Scholarship: Kaitlyn Miner.

Turners Falls Athletic Club Scholarships: Hailey Bogusz, Alyson Murphy, Joseph Kochan, Eliza Johnson and Kaitlyn Miner.

Turners Falls High School All-Sports Booster Scholarship: Jackob Burnett and Eliza Johnson.

Turners Falls High School Alumni Scholarship: Emily Sisson.

Turners Falls High School Class of 1957 Bernard Plaza Scholarship: Cameron Bradley.

Turners Falls High School Class of 1962 Scholarship: Josy Hunter, Alyson Murphy and Allison Wheeler.

Turners Falls Class of 1964 Sally Ann Geraghty-Livingston Memorial Scholarship: Brody Trott and Abigail Waite.

Turners Falls High School Student Government Service Scholarship: Kaitlyn Miner and Alyson Murphy.

Wells Trust Fund Scholarships: Hailey Bogusz, Cameron Bradley, Josy Hunter, Eliza Johnson, Joseph Kochan, Kaitlyn Miner, Alyson Murphy, Brody Trott and Abigail Waite.

Womens Club of Turners Falls Scholarship: Hailey Bogusz.

Women of the Moose Chapter 316: Eliza Johnson and Allison Wheeler.

Read more:
Turners Falls High School says goodbye to Class of 2020 - The Recorder

In February it came as quite a shock to many that Jordan Peterson was going through detox at a clinic in Russia after developing a dependency on benzodiazepine. At the time, Petersons daughter Mikhaila said he had nearly died several times but she suggested he was finally on the road to recovery.Theres some indication that he is indeed back at work now. Last week his website put out a call for new illustrations for the sequel to his bestselling book 12 Rules for Life.

I am currently in the process of writing my next book, and am searching for an illustrator to produce 12 images. Each chapter of my previous book, 12 Rules for Life: The Antidote to Chaos, was preceded by one line drawing, which was placed on its own page

I am planning something similar with the book I am working on now. The new illustrations must be line drawings, in black and white (because the book will not be printed in color). They will occupy a page at the beginning of each chapterjust as indicated, above. They also do not have to precisely duplicate the style of the previous illustrations, although they should bear some relationship to them, as the two books are companion volumes.

Peterson writes that he is specifically looking for an illustration for a chapter titled Do Not Carelessly Denigrate Social Institutions or Creative Achievement which should be based on this tarot image of the fool:

In addition to this blog post there have been several recent updates to Petersons Instagram account. This one links to the call for an illustrator and includes a photo of Peterson working on the book, which will apparently be titled Beyond Order.

I also noticed this one from last week which includes a video of Peterson playing with a remote controlled car, apparently at home. His daughter wrote, Spotted@jordan.b.peterson actually enjoying himself. Hope you guys are finding time to do the same.

My initial reaction when I learned of Petersons drug dependency and near-death experience was that his career in public was over. After all, many in the media have been eager to see him fail for the past couple of years and it seemed like he had in fact failed in some sense. I was expecting most of the media to take a see, we told you so approach.

That may still turn out to be true, but I have to say Petersons timing may also turn out to be excellent. The next book is reportedly about chaos in the way the former book was about order. Its not hard to imagine that Petersons own experience of chaos in his personal life might become part of telling that story. If nothing else, he suddenly has a very new story to tell and one that is relevant to millions of people in the U.S. alone where deaths from drug addiction in recent years have far outpaced deaths from the coronavirus thus far.

The chaotic state of the world right now might also provide a perfect moment to say something about chaos more broadly. After all, there are no shortage of progressives suggesting now is the moment to capitalize on this crisis to build a new world. Even if you dont like their socialist solutions, its a timely idea.

I hope Peterson is able to recapture his footing and once again go toe to toe with his critics. He was a helpful corrective to a lot of progressive nonsense on the world state. It would be nice to have him back.

View post:
Jordan Peterson is back at work on his next book

(Jordan Peterson)

However, in this piece, I will explain precisely why Thinkspot was created. The story starts shortly after the turn of the millennium, with crowdsourcing and crowdfunding.

I have a problem: My interests are esoteric, and most people are simply not very interested in the things that get me going. I do not often have an opportunity to discuss deeply the ideas that I am passionately interested in. So I was excited when Jordan Peterson announced his backing of the social networking website Thinkspot in June of 2019. I hoped that Petersons involvement would attract enough people who were Maps of Meaning (Petersons earlier and more involved book) readers, as opposed to say 12 Rules for Life(his more recent and popular work) fans. I hoped this would be a place where I might find the types of discussions I was looking for. However, satisfying my personal desire for stimulating conversation was not exactly why Thinkspot was created in the first place. All of the articles that I have read about Thinkspot make many assumptions and usually start with an ill-defined, sweeping gesture towards free speech. However, in this piece, I will explain precisely why Thinkspot was created. The story starts shortly after the turn of the millennium, with crowdsourcing and crowdfunding.

The In Crowd

In 2006, crowdsourced user-generated content was the rage. Times Person of the Year was You, alluding to those individuals creating the content for Wikipedia, Facebook, Youtube, and countless other sites that would be empty, uninteresting deserts were it not for the content created by users themselves. Around that same time, a group of art lovers was creating a website called Indiegogo to crowdsource fundraisingor, as it soon became known, crowdfunding.

By 2013, seven years after Googles $1.65 billion acquisition of Youtube, user-generated content was becoming nothing short of big business. And Youtube was accounting for $3.5 billion in advertising dollars being collected by Google. So, for some creators on Youtube, things were getting increasingly serious. Youtube was no longer about a teenager sitting in his or her bedroom talking to the camera; creators such as Jack Conte were raising the bar on production values, creating full-fledged short films. At this point, Indiegogo (and other crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter) was becoming aviable option for well-known artists to seek funding for specific projects, such as the $5.7 million raised to create the 2014 film Veronica Mars or the $3.1 million Zach Braff raised for a film sequel to Garden State, the 2014 film Wish I Was Here. However, there was still no platform for artists to seek an ongoing stream of revenue: basically a salary. So Cone created one, Patreon, and he announced its creation in one of his Youtube videos.

The idea behind Patreon was a modern take on one of the oldest business models in the world: patronage for artists. For centuries, great artists, who were not independently wealthy, survived by securing the patronage of someone who was. Essentially, they were given an allowance by their patron (a salary, if you will) to ensure that they continued to create, and, in turn, the whole world benefited from the art they created. Patreon gained users and subscribers rapidlynot least because in 2016, Youtube began, in the words of Peter Kafka, demonetizingsome videos because its software thought the content was unfriendly for advertisers. So thanks to the demonetization trend, more and more creators needed to find alternative sources of revenue for businesses they had spent significant effort building, businesses that in some cases disappeared nearly overnight due to demonetization.

Release the Hounds

On December 17, 2014,Slatedeclared 2014 The Year of Outrage, and, six days later, Bloomberg published a response: an opinion piece entitled Sadism and the Online Mob: The Internet and social media make it easier for people to engage in vicious behavior toward one another.

The outrage mob was already a well-established phenomenon at that time, with Justine Sacco, a media publicist, making headlines as the poster child for Twitter mobs delighting in ruining lives over moral transgressions. The Twitter mob came to realize that it had significant influence, given that large corporations were willing to fire people just to placate these mobs. After Adria Richards, a developer evangelist for SendGrid, caused a stranger to be fired from his job with just one tweet, the mob turned on her, and she was soon fired herself. Once companies started caving to that kind of pressure, no one was safe.

Over the next couple of years, as Youtube demonetization became more aggressive, more creators sought relief with Patreon. By 2017 the service processed$150 million worth of payments to content creators. Some of the biggest recipients of these payments were Youtube content creators who had been demonetized because of the outage mobs reaction to their political views. However, Patreon eventually started showing signs of being co-opted by the trend towards censorious behavior, and it began to make decisions about who could (or could not) use the platform based on moral judgments. The consequence was the defection of a few of its highest-profile creator members: Sam Harris, Dave Rubin, and Jordan Peterson.

Yelling Fire in a Crowded Theater

There had been a few controversies at Patreon since the censorship began in 2017; however, the tipping point for Harris, Rubin, and Peterson was the banning of British social commentator Carl Benjamin. Harris had already come close to leaving the year before over Patreons first high-profile banning: of Canadian filmmaker and journalist Lauren Southern based on the view that she was raising funds in order to take part in activities that are likely to cause loss of life.

With Benjamin, Patreon went a step further, however, by banning him because of words he used in a discussion on somebody elses Youtube videoin other words, for an opinion expressed on someone elses creative work. Bearing in mind that Patreon had up until that point been perceived as a neutral safe haven for creators, the banning of Benjamin was widely viewed as a betrayal of the long-standing Western value of free speech. Only social justice true believers felt that Benjamins speech rose to the level of clear and present danger (the doctrine adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States to determine under which circumstances limits can be placed on First Amendment guarantees). Most others felt thatas unfortunate and offensive as Benjamins speech wasbanning him from the platform was overreaching.

So this was the proximate cause for establishing Thinkspot: looking to create a free marketplace for ideas, where content creators could seek financial remuneration for their content without fear of having their business pulled out from under them because of the whims of the platform provider. Thinkspots answer to this was to combine the content presentation platform with the funding mechanism. Thus, Thinkspot was poised not just to be a Patreon Killer but also a Patreon, Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter Killer.

Of course, the Killer characterization is hyperbole. I do not really think that Thinkspots founders sought to displace Youtube as the worlds premier purveyor of cat videosor to unseat Twitter as the worlds premier home for inchoate rage. The idea was to rely upon the reputations of Peterson and Rubinnoted free speech advocatesto assure creators that the platform would remain ideologically neutral, while ensuring that the voices of controversial content creators would not be financially starved-out of the marketplace of ideas. Simply put: Thinkspots original and primary objective was to provide content creators with a reliable revenue stream.

Jordan Peterson and the News

Much has been made of Petersons involvement with Thinkspot, and why not? He is the visible face of Thinkspot and a figure of international acclaim. As such, googling Jordan Peterson launches Thinkspot returns just over 30,000 results. However, in reality,there has been little visible evidence of Petersons involvement. It is difficult to say what would have happened were it not for Peterson and his wife, Tammys, recent serious health issues. So we can only know what actually is. Anyone joining Thinkspot with the hope of interacting directly with Peterson is likely to be seriously disappointed.

As for those 30,000 Google hits, many are articles expressing varying degrees of skepticism and condemnation of Peterson and/or Thinkspot, as well as misapprehensions regarding Thinkspots primary purpose. Perhaps I am reading something into them that is not there, but they do seemon the wholerather eager for Thinkspot to be a failure. I will simply remark that very few of these reviews or articles bear any relation at all to my actual experiences on the platform.

The Nuts and Bolts of Thinkspot

I submitted my email address to the waiting list for the Thinkspots beta edition on July 13, 2019 and received my invitation about five months later on December 11th. I believe I was one of the very early members, having signed up just two months after the very first Welcome post was made by the Thinkspots administrators on October 17th.

The platform was advertised as being in beta, but little further information was available. New users were left to explore on their own. The user interface takes some getting used to, which is a polite way of saying that it leaves much to be desired. The interface is somewhat complicated and definitely unpolished. The biggest problem is nested comments. They are not easy to keep track of, and I cannot count the number of times I have received a comment intended for someone else.

Every member of Thinkspot is called a Contributor, in Thinkspeak. All contributors are equal, however, some are just a little bit more equal than others. Featured Contributors get to set pricing and charge for access to their content, and they can create Events, Media, and eBooks. It is not that there is really anything wrong with this; it is entirely in keeping with the original mission of Thinkspot. I have heard mentions in various conversations that eventually all contributors will have this option once the website is out of beta testing, but I suspect that only a small percentage of contributors will end up taking advantage of this. One has to build up a fairly large, devoted audience before one can successfully charge admission, and it is not easy to build that audience.

There is definitely an eeriealmost neglectedatmosphere at Thinkspot. It makes me think of Lord of the Flies. I feel like we, Thinkspot users, are abandoned on a deserted island to fend for ourselves.

But, enough about the container, what about the content?

Personally, I am drawn to only about four or five of the Featured Contributors out of the 44, so no more than 10% of the content on Thinkspot interests me much. My perspective on the other 90% is that of a tourist, someone who visits but does not stay. I have no idea how well my experience in my little patch of Thinkspot translates to the restat least no subjective idea.

What I can do, instead, is provide some objective statistic on the contributors and how they interact with the subscribers. For example, half of the Featured Contributors have listed Culture as an interest, and almost half have also listed Society, Philosophy, and Politics. I believe, though, that these choices actually say very little about the authors. After all, we all agree that taking candy from babies is bad and helping little old ladies across the street is good. What self-respecting intellectual would not be interested in those things? So it is much more revealing when a contributor lists an interest that nobody else does. Then, we know something interesting about that contributor. Gratifyingly, there are 33 Featured Contributors with unique interests.

Readers might be interested to note that from a political point of view, there is only one Featured Contributor listing Conservatism as an interest and just one other listing Progressivism. It would appear that Thinkspot is not quite the hotbed of extreme political partisanship that many articles would have you believe. In fact, the distribution of interests is fairly evensomething for which the mysterious curators of Thinkspot must be commended. Here is the full list of interests showing how many contributors have selected each one:

I can also provide some more quantitative data:

The top contributor in terms of content creation is philosopher Stephen Hicks who postson average nine times per week for the past 45 weeks he has been on Thinkspot.The leader in terms of average number of views per post isquite predictablyJordan Peterson. The runner-up is less obvious: Bishop Robert Barron, founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Rated third and fourth, respectively, are the publications Merion West and The Post Millennial. Now, let us take a look at which users receive the most recommendation tags (Think: Facebook likes). The content creator whose posts most motivate readers to leave a tag (Recommend, Like, Agree, Insightful, Provocative, or Disagree) is Carl Benjamin, the source of the aforementioned Patreon controversy. He is followed by PragerU, the contributor who listed Conservatism as an interest, and then by Jordan Peterson.

The posts that generate the most user commentson averageare written by Marshall Herskovitz, the contributor who listed Progressivism as an interest. (Herskovitz is a writer, film producer, and director, who is committed to the cause of fighting climate change.) Herskovitz is followed by Jonathan Pageau, a Canadian artist and carver focused on Christian iconography, and then by Carl Benjamin.

Thus, the picture that emerges is very different from what most articles about Thinkspot would have one believe. The Featured Contributors are, for the most part, surprisingly heterogeneous, representing an eclectic mix of interests. Some are political, some apolitical, some theistic, some atheistic, some artistic, some scientific, some establishment, some anti-establishment, and so on. The top viewed contributors are not the top commented upon, and the top posters (in volume) are not the most recommended. The heterogeneity in Featured Contributors draws an equally heterogeneous audience, and so the user base of Thinkspot makes for a very mixed bag.

There is one trait the Featured Contributors largely share: They do not interact very often with anyone elses content. If we keep in mind the original mandate of Thinkspot, this should hardly be surprising, yet a great number of people seem to have subscribed with the expectation of engaging in discussion with the Featured Contributors. Certainly, many unfavorable reviews were based on this premise. Nevertheless, I have had many engaging discussions on Thinkspot, despite the dreadful user interface. I have learned a lot, and I have worked through much thinking in discussions with others. I am a mostly satisfied customer.

The Future

The management of Thinkspot is rather opaque with regards to the future. I invited its leadership team to engage with me for the writing of this article, but I received no response. This leaves me free to speculate.

I would say that Thinkspot has a lot of potential. Its heterogeneity is probably a positive portent. The world desperately needs social media that is not just an echo chamber and, consequently, there is a window of opportunity. I would also say that the segment of the community that I interact with comes to the website for discussion among ourselves. This is the case even if this was not the original intent or focus of Thinkspot. If Thinkspot fails quickly to improve the group discussion experience, something better will come along, and the website will lose a substantial part of its community. This is the most obvious threat I see. Finally, there is the issue of critical mass. Thinkspot seems to have about 63,000 participants at the moment, and the statistics that I have pulled together suggest that any given creator could not hope to appeal to more than 10% of the Thinkspot population because of the diversity of taste among its users. Then assume a (very optimistic) conversion rate of 3%, and we have 189 paying subscribers. Even at $240 per yearwhich most people find very expensive (even the wildly-popular Ben Shapiro cannot charge more than that)this works out to only $45,360 per year, not a particularly lucrative gig.

Youtube has cat videos; Twitter has outrage; and Thinkspot will have to find its drawing card: the thing that will pack em in to the rafters. Otherwise, the content creators the system was originally designed for will simply ignore it as irrelevant. 63,000 potential subscribers is not enough for even one content creator to earn a living. Without a flourishing community (because of user interface issues) to provide a sufficiently large audience pool for content creators wishing to commercialize, Thinkspot faces a dual threat that it must move quickly to overcome.

I wish Thinkspot all the best; it is a worthy endeavor.

Adam Wasserman has 30 years of IT management experience and is the author of The Chaos Factory.

See original here:
What Is the Real Deal at Jordan Peterson's Thinkspot? - Merion West

Miriam Lord captures well how the loud complaints from Fianna Fil TDs who did not get the nod for a ministerial seat, with the headline:Martin sparks Olympian levels of whingeing in Fianna Fil (shes worth a subscription to the paper alone).

Two thoughts strike me in response. One is that those complaining that the west wasnt represented well enough ought to reflect on just how ineffective the method of putting in TDs who physically represent western constituency has been over the years.

The flow of voters in the west leaving the big two continues so that despite the fact that this convention has been in place almost since the founding of the state, it isnt working. Something the two larger government parties surely have to recognise by now.

It may feel fair sitting in Government House, but the voters of the parish just get angrier and angrier with the trickle-up economics that feeds Dublin and the cities of the seaboard. So, first, they defected to the independents, now to Sinn Fin.

The truth is that both parties are so depleted neither of them can form a government without the other, so the picks are limited to whomever they think has the talent and/or the loyalty to turn things around. And in loyalty, it is Martin who has the problems.

Many of those now unhappy with Martins arrangements believe that throwing their cap in with the old enemy is a political third rail, and believe the better longer-term option for the party was to sit this dance out and take the damage in a new election.

In any near run result, having so openly Fine Gael rejected the party would come under huge pressure to choose Sinn Fin as leaders of the next government with themselves either as juniors or supporting them from the opposition benches.

Having just spent four years in the latter space, and having witnessed just how profoundly it helped to further hollow out their historic brand, the former would have been the only realistic option. No party in NI has ever prospered in such circumstances.

You only have to see how the west Belfast leadership overrode the common sense of rural folks like Conor Murphy, Michelle ONeill and even the Gaoth Dobhair based Pearse Doherty who must have known just how it would go down with rural voters.

Democratic centralism means they must follow orders even for someone unknown to the public but to whom that leadership had debts. A man who knew how to use his height and weight (if not with Mairia Cahills late but fearless Cork-born grandmother).

Getting close to Mary Lou (or in NIs case, Martin McGuinness if were to look at established records) is of no strategic use if neither operates autonomously at the top of Sinn Fins internal chain of command.

The other line, which arises from the media if not directly from party colleagues is that Martins tenure in office is everything to do with personal ambition. Ive met a fair few ambitious politicians in my time, few of them look or sound like Martin.

He may be criticised for modesty, lack of fire, snark or spike. An inability to smile for the opportune selfie, maybe. A personal distaste for the shallow reality show search for the beauty/uglyness of human authenticity (even if the set up is evidently fake).

If you dont believe me, try Jamie Barletts new BBC Sounds series (all of it, but the last episode in particular on how Trump, the new standard how-low-can-you-go, populist, was made by reality TV)

The Trump standard offered by leaders like Mary Lou and Michelle who arent really mistresses of their own houses is not a road any mainstream party should seek to go down. Innocents get hurt, and as Dennis Bradley says, the promises made are never paid.

Yet, as alluded to at the top some of the reasons for the advance of populist projects like Sinn Fin, Five Star, and whatever the current Le Penn vehicle is called in France these days lies at the feet of the centrists like Fianna Fil and latterly Fine Gael.

As Eric Lonergan says in Angrynomics*, these parties and their analogues elsewhere treat tenure in government as some class of managerial test, when in fact the whole point of voting people into government is in order to change the conditions we live under.

As Eric notes towards the end of the book, the price paid, even in a country of relatively equal like the Republic has been ruinous for the rural west. He writes, we need fundamentally new ideas about who owns what and who gets the returns to assets.

Reconnecting with the parish in one thing, but if this administration is to make good it has to make a huge difference to the lives of ordinary citizens regardless of where they live. Hard when you feel you dont deserve to be in the hard place you find yourself.

They could worse than heeding rule number one of Jordan Petersons 12 Rules for Life, An Antedote to Chaos, which is that

to stand up straight with your shoulders back means building the ark that protects the world from the flood, guiding your people through the desert after they have escaped tyranny, making your way away from comfortable home and country and speaking the prophetic word to those who ignore the widows and the children. [Emphasis added]

Or as one senior member of the Northern Irish press corp said this week, wise up. To which Dr. Petersons younger alter ego might add, and grow a pair

If the country needs fixing, help get it fixed. Or get out of the way of it being fixed in a way that treats all the children of the nation equally. That, as Elaine Byrne rightly notes in the Sunday Business Post, also means strengthening local democracy.

After 20 years of failed government in NI, betting Sinn Fin, be they Greens or Fianna Fil rebels will do anything it promises is not even a long shot. As one northern friend said, however tough it is if Fianna Fil is not a party of government it is nothing.

The cards have been played.

*If you havent seen it already this weeks podcast interview with Eric on #Angrynomics is below. Do give it a listen:

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Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

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Time for Fianna Fil TDs to stand up straight, with shoulders back and make the impossible leap - Slugger O'Toole