Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
You asked for more face time with The Founders®, and here it is: our first Question Time show of 2020 (there will be more!). We cover some Ricochet history, get into a feisty debate about abortion, take a brief break with Henry Olsen, host of our new Horse Race podcast to make some hay (see what we did there?) on impeachment and some key Senate races. Also, Lileks opines on the new Star Trek series, and the hosts pick a historical moment they’d like to visit once we achieve a critical mass of members (what are YOU waiting for? Join today!).
Thanks for all the great questions, Ricochet members!
Music from this week’s show: Happy Feet by The Manhattan Rythm Kings
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James Lileks, the early novels of Ellery Queen written in the 1920s can be your excellent time machine to the period. They provide wonderful details of New York in its heyday. Sal
On the time travel question, I enjoyed each perspective, but especially appreciated Peter’s. I was moved. Yes! To have been there … even a fly on the well wall, or at least a tree nearby. What a beautiful scene. Thank you, Peter!
For the record, and to throw a wrench in the works, I AM glad to hear Rob do the member pitch! [Okay, I’m glad to hear anyone do the member pitch. :-) ] My hope is that the NPR-alternative vision becomes reality – that the hockey stick chart of growth will appear as some form of critical mass is achieved or some event occurs which drives non-linear growth. I want this platform to not just continue, but to thrive!
In the meantime, as members, we should be reaching out to our friends. Maybe some kind of invitation to the membership base to recruit a friend. If only 10% of the members were successful in recruiting a friend, that’s about 500 more members, right? I’m guessing that at least 10% of us have a friend. :-)
The timing is good, especially now, during the election cycle. I would anticipate a greater level of interest in information sources and communities such as that offered by Ricochet. So, the iron is hotter – and therefore a good time to strike!
I’m in the process of reading William Shirer’s Berlin Diary right now. Published in 1941, it’s a fascinating read. It ends in December of 1940, before Germany invaded Russia. It’s a “current events” book of it’s time, with no post-war perspective on the happenings he reports on. But here’s Shirer, ten feet away from Hitler in Munich during the conference with Chamberlain. Here he’s walking into the Chancery while Hitler, Ribbentrop, Goering and the others walk past going the other way. It’s slightly surreal to imagine, knowing what we know now that he didn’t know then.
We will be giving you some tools to more easily do this very shortly.
Blue Yeti. Yes, I am one of the mobile-device users. Logging into the site to engage in the discussions is difficult with time-consideration issues – as you observe, I’m one of the multi-taskers, driving while listening … and not typing. :-)
And, for whatever it’s worth, I like the name.
Excellent points. The power of a well-structured telling of the events in history, and while preserving that freshness contemporaneous with the events as they unfold. Powerful stuff! … and, really important to truly understand those events.
I have a scrapbook at home (somewhere) that my uncle kept in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Newspaper clippings of events going on in the Pacific, as we were getting our ass kicked all over the place. We were losing, and badly, and the sense of fear is palpable. Something you don’t get from history written after the fact, when everything appears to be pre-ordained.
Even in Berlin Diary, there’s a different feel in the events in the early part of the book (The Anschluss in 1934) than there is later on. And I’ve seen some suggestions that Shirer edited his own history (diaries) from the early part of the book to make his views more anti-Hitler.
To continue the discussion of bolstering the membership base and enhancing revenue generation, what about cooperative advertising across compatible platforms? For example, advertising in Ricochet to drive interest in National Review, and vice versa.
Related to partnering with compatible institutions, and also to acknowledge the leverage of community in the existing Ricochet forums, what about partnering with various, local, politically-oriented discussion groups? Are there such things? J Not sure what that class of organizations is formally called.
As a relatively inexperienced citizen, in terms of participating in government and elections beyond simply voting, I am at a loss for where to go to discuss and engage in local politics. National politics is interesting [hence my membership here], but slightly unfulfilling as my ability to participate directly is infinitesimally small. However, engaging in local communities, I anticipate would be energizing. Ricochet can help me, help those localized voter-interest-focused communities, and in exchange, Ricochet can also benefit in the following ways.
I am interested in finding communities of people near me who share an interest in advancing the political discussion in the community and focused on local issues / candidates. Ricochet could offer its existing members value by building a list of partnering organizations within localities to where I could go and meet my need. My Ricochet membership opens for me the doors to members of the localized affiliate. Ricochet offers benefit to the localized-affiliate by providing an online forum for discussion [leveraging its existing technology platform], as well as easy access to information services already available without subscription cost. This is in addition to Ricochet’s work to funnel interested participants into the localized community organization. Participants in those localized organizations become exposed to the Ricochet experience which compels them to become subscribing members of Ricochet, and therefore Ricochet benefits, further.
The derivative benefit, or positive externality to all of that is the public good of enhancing the vibrancy of center-right communities at a grass-roots level by facilitating localized networking – beyond the virtual network of the internet.
The next stage after those connections are established is that some of those localized discussion group communities are at, or eventually then build, sufficient scale to want a podcast. Can Ricochet monetize that opportunity, too?
I have one other question related to the member experience, and the value enhancement of that experience towards enticing and persuading more people to pony-up and join.
What about setting up some kind of Users’ Guide for understanding the myriad podcast options? This could be simply a spreadsheet with a short blurb for each podcast describing: who is the intended audience, what is the nature of the podcast, who are some of the typical guests, how long are the podcasts, any other unique selling point associated with that podcast, etc. Or, the guide might be some kind of robo-guide that uses a few questions from the visitor to curate a list of recommended podcasts on the Ricochet Network.
Such a tool enhances the ‘stickiness’ of the Ricochet Network by quickly guiding the member to desirable programs.
Dear James Lileks @jameslileks
I know “Star Trek: Picard” is supposed to be anti-Trump, anti-conservative, etc, etc.
But what if Picard IS Trump?
Think about it.
There are a lot of details that can be included, but I’ll settle for a rough outline.
Some people claim that Trump turned the wonderful US and federal government that Obama had created, into a cesspool… even before he was sworn into office, really.
But the “Deep State” and such have been around for a long time. FBI misbehavior – including spying on Trump and the Trump campaign – occurred during the Obama administration.
On Star Trek, we might find that problems with the Federation/Starfleet in general and with Earth in particular, were developing for a long time. And that Picard’s departure from Starfleet was not just from a single out-of-the-blue or out-of-left-field event.
Even in the TNG and DS9 series-es, we saw what could be evidence of increasing problems and corruption “back home.” For example, in the two-part DS9 episode “Homefront” and “Paradise Lost.” Yes, Admiral Leyton was defeated. But he was likely just the tip of the iceberg.
Picard has been seeing all of that going on during his lifetime.
Similarly, Trump has been around and involved in business, and somewhat in politics, for a long time too.
So now in Star Trek: Picard, we’re going to get Picard rising up to take on the problems back home, etc etc.
Just like Trump.
I await the exploding heads.
Okay, this is hilarious.
I would have made it a separate thread, but my membership doesn’t have that option.
Cheapskate! 😜 What’s another buck a month or so?
I went over that before with Max. The “upgrade membership” method they use doesn’t just pro-rate you for the remainder of your current membership month and then start charging the new amount at your next auto-payment, as any right-thinking programmer would do it. No, it basically cancels your current membership, charges you the full new-membership amount, and in the future your auto-pay date is whatever date you upgraded. Which doesn’t work for my budgeting situation, and as a long-time business programmer myself the… aroma.. of doing it that way is very unappealing.
Unless that’s been changed/corrected, and nobody told me.
And, as T’Pring said to Spock, although I’m not female, “I am honored.”
(p.s. I’m assuming that was meant as a compliment.)
Some excellent ideas in these two comments! I especially like the idea of partnering with local orgs and the podcast user guide. We will talk internally about both of those ideas. Thanks!
Thank you!
See also #37.
Yes. But what about Trump = Picard? :-)