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Ricochet Membership Week: Claire Berlinski
All this week, we’re running testimonials from Ricochet contributors as to why you, dear reader, should sign up for Ricochet membership (starting as low as $5 a month) or upgrade to Thatcher or Reagan-level memberships if you’ve already joined at our bargain-basement Coolidge level. Today, we present longtime Ricochet contributor (and former editor) Claire Berlinski:
Published in General
The founders of Ricochet were ahead of their time in observing that the Internet lacked a place to debate right-of-center politics in a civil, respectful and useful way. Their idea was simple: no flame wars, no swearing, no personal attacks. That idea was so simple, and so obviously desirable, that only Utopians would ever imagine that it might happen for free. Fortunately, the founders of Ricochet were conservatives.
Ricochet opened its doors in 2010. In August 2014, The New York Times woke up to the problem that Ricochet had already solved:
“The Internet may be losing the war against trolls. At the very least, it isn’t winning. And unless social networks, media sites and governments come up with some innovative way of defeating online troublemakers, the digital world will never be free of the trolls’ collective sway.”
Yes, yes. And of course, trust The New York Times to suggest that governments should be involved in this.
We solved this problem years ago, and we did it without state coercion or public funding. When you—a private citizen—agree, voluntarily, to pay for Ricochet, you get this in exchange: the social-media equivalent of a good neighborhood. No vandalism, crime, or trolls. The editors work round the clock to make sure that no one throws his empty beer cans on the sidewalks, and in the rare event that someone jumps a turnstile or breaks a window, they arrest the malefactor promptly, sentence him to meaningful punishment, clean up every sign of wrongdoing, and plant more flowers. Because of this, our members (who are polite and respectful to begin with) rise to the unusually high standards they see around them. Ricochet is polite, welcoming, and civil; and that is enforced.
“If there’s one thing the history of the Internet has taught us,” The New York Times continues, “it’s that trolls will be difficult to contain because they really reflect base human society in all its ugliness.”
We are pleased to see The New York Times acknowledge, late but better than never, that there is often an ugliness inherent to human nature. The facts of life, alas, are conservative. We didn’t need the Internet to teach us this, though, and we figured the time-tested, pre-Internet solutions would work as well as they have for the past several millennia. We built a new town. We put a fence around it. We policed our border. When we raise taxes, to extend the metaphor—the cost of membership—it is only to cover the cost of defending the realm. It works just fine.
Want to be a member? You’re warmly invited, so long as Ricochet is right for you. How do you know if Ricochet’s right for you? Here’s a test. With which of the following sentences do you most agree?
A) The problem Ricochet is designed to fix would be better addressed by extensive Federal legislation—say, perhaps, by the passage of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Trolling and Swearing Act.
B) People should come up with their own, private solutions to this problem.
If you chose B), Ricochet may very well be right for you. If you chose A), we think you’ll prefer the door to the left—and don’t worry, unlike Ricochet, it’s free!
We’re not *always* polite (human!). But we do try.
More cowbell? No. More Claire.
Claire Berlinski managed to do, in a few short paragraphs, what I’ve been failing at for 3 years: make a solid and smart and funny pitch for Ricochet membership that also manages to take an elegant swipe at the NYTimes.
I, for one, am glad — and relieved — to have Claire on our side.
yaay.
Rob,
The essay is beautifully written and completely true. However, the beautiful girl in the photo is beyond compare.
Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where charming masqueraders and bergamaskers go
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fanciful disguises.
All sing in a minor key
Of victorious love and the opportune life,
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight,
With the still moonlight, sad and beautiful,
That sets the birds dreaming in the trees
And the fountains sobbing in ecstasy,
The tall slender fountains among marble statues.
Regards,
Jim
But the free market can’t seem to do anything about the scourge of auto-play ads, so I guess we need the government after all.
I am so thankful that I’m able to recognize sarcasm, due to my Ricochet training! All hail the mute button.
Oh, billy. I know You know better than that. We don’t “need the government” in order to direct the private market in the direction some want. If enough Patrons were to forsake the product or service over a particular issue, then that product or service would adapt or fold.
I, for One, wouldn’t mind being ruled by an iron fist from Queen Claire, though.
So who’s up for a Ricochet meetup in Paris this Christmastime?
Pay up, you moochers, and
…is Claire seeing anyone?
Two relevant comments.
Regards,
Jim