JustinC, that's it exactly: it's a purely local story, an isolated incident, nothing to see here -- move along.

Agreed, the abuse cases in the Church were horrific and disturbing.

What's even more disturbing is that it seems to be playing out again in another arena.

Klein's Reverse commencement speech should begin: "Did you know that the Constitution, is over, like, a HUNDRED years old?"

I remember it as an hilarious, anachronistic bit of foolishness, back when Quentin Tarantino was still in knee pants.

I'll bet on Romney. Obama has a glass jaw, and he's never had a real contest. He has one this year.

Agreed, there's something positive happening here. But one thing to keep in mind: it's not spontaneous. Ricochet is a crafted garden, a space planned and design for certain kinds of conversations. It will succeed to the extent that it adapts to people's habits and natures, and to the extent that its rules adjust to promote behavior that leads to engaging conversation. That's not an easy thing to do -- it's a kind of work.

KC, I think you've hit on something here. Magic can happen when the online and offline mesh. That can be a sweet spot. The fear is that certain good habits and practices can be lost with the advent of new media, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Sherry Turkle is far from a newbie. She's pretty thoughtful. I'll add a counter example. St. John's College and other similar institutions are premised on learning through conversation, both with foundational texts (e.g., Plato, the Bible, Shakespeare, Locke, Darwin, etc.) and with fellow learners. This kind of experience is unique, allowing students to develop the ability to fully engage others and helping them form habits of mind required for free men and women. Efforts to do similar things online fall far short -- people tend to resolve to defend statements much more inflexibly than they do in person, where they can moderate, find nuance, and develop their thoughts. 

katievs,

I always loved the following exchange from A Man For All Seasons. It sums up a conservative ethos on the rule of law nicely:

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

I have no candidate in this. I haven't figured out who I'm voting for (I'm a New Jersey-an, dead last on the primary trail). 

But Ben couldn't have picked a better video to illustrate his point. That is the most discouraging clip of someone campaigning that I have seen in a while.

If Romney can't make the case among friends, how can he do it among the country at large, with lots of enemy terrain and a hostile press?

BSA, you made my day! Thank you!

Peter, yes, but isn't Bill up to something more here? Namely, our candidate needs a unifying theme: keeping America free. Other things, e.g., restoring the economy (Romney) or preserving traditional marriage (Santorum) are fine, but people must understand them as part of a vision of America as a beacon of freedom.

Romney thinks he'll be able to ape Reagan and ask "are you better off than you were 4 year ago?". That's not going to cut it this time. Reagan did a lot more -- he persuaded us that America's destiny was to be the best, freest country the world has ever known.

Peter,

I think Bill Kristol nails it here. Our candidate can't just promise to get our numbers better. He's got to pledge to make the government more free and just. Those two things are linked, and they are not about whether unemployment is 8.3% or 7.9%.

Jonah Goldberg wrote a few weeks back that Romney might be safe for conservatives because he will "owe us." We won't be able to bring him to account unless he has explicitly endorsed our principles. He's got to stop focusing on his business acumen at squeezing out percentages and start talking about freedom and the threat to it posed by progressivism.

Way to go, Rob! Can't wait to see it.

The world may be dangerous, but the real story is that we've turned into wimps. There were predators out there when I was a kid (the term of art was "molesters" back then), but that didn't keep us from biking down to the river to fish off the pier or selling Girl Scout cookies on our own, door-to-door. 

I read a good book on this last year: Ten Ways To Destroy The Imagination of Your Child by Anthony Esolen. He's also the done the most recent Modern Library translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, as well as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization. Maybe we could get him on a podcast, or get a guest post from him.

The commenters who are suggesting that Derren Brown was free to resign or offer a draw at any point were wrong -- this would break the mirroring principle. If I resign, but the guy that I'm mirroring does not resign, he may decide to fight on and play for a draw (and against a weaker player, a grandmaster might even achieve a win!). Ditto if I offer a draw, but the player I'm mirroring did not offer one first.

My guess is that Brown achieved this through manipulation. At the very least this is the sort of thing that Brown claims  elsewhere to be able to do. Nathaniel Wright was correct in noting the rough pairing of numbers. In matches against evenly paired opponents, it is likely that there won't be a great discrepancy in the number of pieces between the opponents. When the games got down to his target number of pieces, he manipulated the more suggestible player to either resign or offer a draw, depending on their relative advantage.