Posts Tagged ‘Know-Nothing Party’
“The tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things (such as objects or ideas)”*…
I am a game designer with experience in a very small niche. I create and research games designed to be played in reality. I’ve worked in Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), LARPs, experience fiction, interactive theater, and “serious games.” Stories and games that can start on a computer, and finish in the real world. Fictions designed to feel as real as possible. Games that teach you. Puzzles that come to life all around the players. Games where the deeper you dig, the more you find. Games with rabbit holes that invite you into wonderland and entice you through the looking glass.
When I saw QAnon, I knew exactly what it was and what it was doing. I had seen it before. I had almost built it before. It was gaming’s evil twin. A game that plays people. (cue ominous music)
QAnon has often been compared to ARGs and LARPs and rightly so. It uses many of the same gaming mechanisms and rewards. It has a game-like feel to it that is evident to anyone who has ever played an ARG, online role-play (RP) or LARP before. The similarities are so striking that it has often been referred to as a LARP or ARG. However this beast is very very different from a game.
It is the differences that shed the light on how QAnon works and many of them are hard to see if you’re not involved in game development. QAnon is like the reflection of a game in a mirror, it looks just like one, but it is inverted…
Read on for a full and fascinating (and frankly, frightening) explanation from Reed Berkowitz, head of Curiouser LLC (@soi). Playing with reality: “A Game Designer’s Analysis Of QAnon.”
Then consider Roland Barthes‘ (painfully–prescient) “The World of Wrestling.”
* Merriam-Webster’s definition of “apophenia.” See also “Being Amused by Apophenia.”
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As we wrestle with reality, we might recall that it was on this date in 1856 that Millard Fillmore was nominated for the Presidency by the (altogether-accurately named far-right nativist) Know-Nothing Party. Fillmore, who had been elected Vice President in 1848 had ascended to the presidency in 1850, when Zachary Taylor died, but then failed to get his own party’s– the Whig’s– nomination to run for re-election in 1852. In 1856, Fillmore turned to the Know-Nothings in (an ultimately unsuccessful) attempt actually to be elected to the highest office.
He was finally trumped by Gerald Ford, who was not even elected– but was appointed in 1973 by Richard Nixon– to the Vice-Presidency, then assumed the top job on Nixon’s resignation in 1974. Ford beat back a primary challenge from Ronald Reagan to win the Republican nomination in 1976, but lost to Jimmy Carter.
“Yet in opinions look not always back, / Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track”*…
One of ten trends to watch in 2018
From North Korea’s nuclear tests to global refugee flows, the rise or fall in numbers signals where the world may be headed in 2018. To help visualize what’s on the horizon, CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] editors asked ten of our experts to highlight the charts and graphs to keep an eye on in the coming year…
Ten charts and the short essays that explain their importance to our future: “Visualizing 2018: The Essential Graphics.”
* Yet in opinions look not always back,
Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track;
Leave what you’ve done for what you have to do;
Don’t be “consistent,” but be simply true.
― Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
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As we monitor the gauges, we might send underwhelming birthday greetings to Millard Fillmore; he was born on this date in 1800. The last member of the Whig Party to serve as President, he was a Congressional Representative from New York who was elected to the Vice Presidency in 1848 on Zachary Taylor’s ticket. When Taylor died in 1850, Fillmore became the second V.P. to assume the presidency between elections.
Fillmore’s signature accomplishment was the passage of the Compromise of 1850 passed, a bargain that led to a brief truce in the battle over slavery– a package of legislation so ill-conceived (it contained the Fugitive Slave Act) and unpopular that Fillmore failed to get his own party’s nomination for President in the election of 1852, which he sat out. Unwilling to follow Lincoln into the new Republican Party, he got the endorsement of the nativist Know Nothing Party (dba, the American Party) four years later, and finished third in the 1856 election.
Matthew Brady’s photo of Fillmore
There’s a lot less there than meets the eye…
Dennis Dammerman
Chairman of Compensation Committee at AIG
Once a year, the folks at 24/7 Wall St. offer a counterpoint to the 100 Best___, 100 Hottest ___, and 100 Most Powerful___ lists ubiquitous at this time of year, their roster of the “100 Least Powerful People Under 100 Years Old.”
To qualify for this 24/7 Wall St. list, a person had to be well known, at least in his or her own field or country, had to be under 100 years of age, and had to be perceived to hold a position of power or influence well beyond the reality of his station.
This year’s #1 (as it were): the Chair of the AIG Board’s Compensation Committee… “He has no power since AIG executive compensation is set almost entirely by pay czar Ken Feinberg.”
The list includes business executives, politicians, athletes, entertainers, even religious leaders… it makes for amusing reading– and for a powerful reminder that what goes up has a nasty habit of coming back down…
(TotH to Stewart Alsop)
As we speed dial our PR consultants, we might recall a high-ranker on the “Least Influential” list of 1856, as it was on this date that year that Millard Fillmore was nominated for the Presidency by the Know-Nothing Party. Fillmore had ascended to the presidency in 1850, when Zachary Taylor died, but failed to get his own party’s– the Whig’s– nomination to run for re-election in 1852. In 1856, Fillmore turned to the Know-Nothings in (an ultimately unsuccessful) attempt actually to be elected to the office. (He was finally trumped by Gerald Ford, who was not even elected– but was appointed by Richard Nixon– to the Vice-Presidency, then assumed the top job on Nixon’s resignation.)
Millard Fillmore, by Matthew Brady (1850)
Your correspondent is enjoying an island of connectivity during the previously-announced trip. So while it’s been possible to get this post off (albeit, in an unusually-timed way), regular service is unlikely to resume until next week.
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