
Ryan Holiday on Conspiracy, Gawker, and the Hulk Hogan Trial - mCOLlSVIxp6c
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/04/ryan_holiday_on_1.html
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prepend
I like how they talk about “Mr. A” using his interview with Thiel to pitch the
conspiracy rather than a startup. An aspect not covered in the book.

This podcast made me read the book. The book is interesting, but this podcast
is somehow better because of the way Roberts questions Holiday down a few
logical paths.

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kbuchanan
I also read the book. It's a bit overwrought with classical quotes and
psychological exploration. Don't get me wrong, I love the classics, but I
often wanted the book to get on with the details of the story.

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s73v3r_
That truly was a case in which there was no good side to it. There was nobody
worth rooting for, and no matter who won, it would have been bad. Publishing a
private citizen's sex tape is not news, and for that matter, neither is outing
someone who is not wanting to be outed. Using your vast wealth to bankroll
someone else's lawsuit is also quite shady.

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sjansen
Agreed. Every time someone expresses outrage at the lawsuit, I want to ask
them why Gawker gets a free pass for their behavior. The truth is, they sealed
their own fate by stepping outside the bounds of both law and civility.

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oculusthrift
Well the entire media coverage of the event was on Gawkers side because the
media wants to be able to print anything. Therefore if you hadn’t investigated
further i could see why you would take Gawkers side.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
Not just that, a lot of the media that wrote about it had close friends or
sometimes even family members that were employees of Gawker.

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bad_ramen_soup
I'm curious how stoicism is tied to this as Holiday has been using his Daily
Stoic platform to promote this book as well..

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knuththetruth
It’s not really. Holiday has always been a “finger to the wind” public
intellectual. Stoicism isn’t really a marketable ideology in a time of social
and political upheaval, so he’s staking out a more “activist” position to sell
himself.

This time, I guess it’s that conspiracies to destroy your opponents might
actually be a good thing because they represent action over inaction (he more
or less says as much about two thirds of the way through the interview). That
seems a weird quasi-fascistic stance (Marinetti and other proto-fascists
argued in favor of the same bias towards any action, regardless of its
morality), but not one that’s out of fashion in our era.

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dingbat
Holiday as a "public intellectual"? he's always struck me as a marketer,
retweeter of self-help quotes, and curator of other people's ideas, at best.
something about him tells me there's nothing there.

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knuththetruth
>he's always struck me as a marketer, retweeter of self-help quotes, and
curator of other people's ideas, at best. something about him tells me there's
nothing there.

Yeah, sorry. In America, to me, public intellectuals are synonymous with all
of that. I guess that’s less true elsewhere in the world. But it’s probably
too generous to even given him that label and plays into how he’s trying to
market himself.

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strong_silent_t
Ok, I doubt I'll ever take an hour to listen to this, but I really enjoyed the
book. It was very interesting to see the little particularities of the legal
system and the participants that had a big impact. I basically read it
straight through in one shot as the host said he did as well. I found the
writing to be florid at times (there was a seamless segue between an anecdote
of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon and Hulk Hogan's decision to sue against
the distribution of the hidden camera sextape that made me actually laugh out
loud) but I found the asides were unobtrusive enough that it didn't affect the
reading.

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ordak
Bruh, Russ Roberts makes the hour worth it even if the subject itself doesn't.

Check out any of the econtalk episodes with Nassim Taleb or the ones with
Cesar Hidalgo or Pedro Domingos.

EDIT: Hidalgo episode:
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/10/cesar_hidalgo_o.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/10/cesar_hidalgo_o.html)

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knuththetruth
Yeah, in the interview with Holiday, he muses whether it might be good for a
handful of billionaires to conspire to destroy public education in America,
including planting stories about the evils of schools and teachers in the
press[0]. Seems like a real stand-up guy...

[0] 40:52 for anyone interested. I’m not exaggerating, this is pretty much
verbatim.

[http://files.libertyfund.org/econtalk/y2018/Holidayconspirac...](http://files.libertyfund.org/econtalk/y2018/Holidayconspiracy.mp3)

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kbenson
> Yeah, in the interview with Holiday, he muses whether it might be good for a
> handful of billionaires to conspire to destroy public education in America,
> including planting stories about the evils of schools and teachers in the
> press

Yes, he proposes a thought experiment, and them points out how it sounds
interesting from an ends getting something accomplished point of view, but
also specifically says he recognizes that if he were on the other side he
might find it a lot more suspect, and questions (as in _actually questions_ )
whether this approach, which is the whole thing being discusses, as it's _what
Thiel did_ , is something we should support or not.

So yes, a pretty stand up guy that's willing to note that even if something
works for an outcome that he supports the method about which it's achieved
might be suspect and we should examine it much closer before supporting it
wholeheartedly. What more do you want?

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knuththetruth
He tosses in a couple of asides about how if you were on the receiving end of
this atrocious idea, you might not like it so much, but your characterization
is far too generous for something radically awful that he’s floating as a
“thought experiment.”

And of course it’s not just a “thought experiment,” it’s something that right-
wingers are doing across the country to aggregately awful and racist results
(go look up the track record of Betsy DeVos’ charter school empire). It’s the
same kind of dubious “just asking questions” nonsense these guys pull all the
time.

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kbenson
> but your characterization is far too generous for something radically awful
> that he’s floating as a “thought experiment.”

He's floating it as a thought experiment to bring up the question of whether a
tactic like this, for _whatever_ goal, should be considered good or bad, given
that it relies on secrecy. _His_ thoughts are that government should get out
of education. He's not actually saying he thinks peopls should go about it
this way, he's raising the question of should we be okay with a tactic like
this? The extremity of the argument is to make you think critically about it.

The entire conversation is couched in this context. I'm not sure why you
refuse to consider it in this one exchange.

> And of course it’s not just a “thought experiment,”...

So you think the person that's calling it out as possibly something people
should be wary of or at least examine very closely because of all the possible
unintended consequences (which is a point they both spend quite some time
elaborating on) is the person that should be viewed negatively? It's not just
that something was said, it's how it was said, why it was said, and the larger
context. To me it feels like you're missing that.

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knuththetruth
I’m not missing anything. He says specifically that he’s “often wondered”
about this specific idea, goes into detail about how, if it were to happen, it
should be enacted by the wealthy in secret to prevent any opposition, and
proceeds to reveal himself favorable to a whole host of other fundamentally
anti-democratic ideas (as well as not really push back against Holiday doing
more of the same).

Yes, these kind of people are exactly the kind of people one should be wary
of.

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mathattack
It’s much more deep and interesting than the tawdry title suggests.

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mCOLlSVIxp6c
Backup link [http://archive.is/hKHcK](http://archive.is/hKHcK)

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nrook
Gawker always said it was in the business of publishing true stories. Here is
one last true story: You live in a country where a billionaire can put a
publication out of business. A billionaire can pick off an individual writer
and leave that person penniless and without legal protection.

If you want to write stories that might anger a billionaire, you need to work
for another billionaire yourself, or for a billion-dollar corporation. The law
will not protect you. There is no freedom in this world but power and money.

\- Tom Scocca, "Gawker Was Murdered by Gaslight"

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dfxm12
There's so much at play here, that boiling this situation to a generalization
like this is outright deception.

* Gawker ignored a court order to take down a post

* Gawker's legal defense had a poor strategy of attacking Hogan's character

* Gawker either didn't coach their witnesses, or they just ignored any coaching:

* You have the author of the post saying he didn't consider any of the reasons Gawker's legal team said made the sex tape newsworthy

* In a trial by jury, the author also said he'd only hold back a sex tape if the subject was under four years old

Yeah, the lawsuit was bankrolled by a billionaire, but it would have been a
slam dunk for any lawyer. The fact that they sought $100 Million but were
awarded $140 Million by a jury should be telling about how poorly Gawker
handled this situation.

