Alex Balk:

Why does John McCain tell so many lies? Because lying works! If you didn’t read that AP analysis we mentioned earlier, you really should. It makes the very instructive point that even if the press actually does its job and shows that the lies John McCain and his surrogates tell are, real, honest-to-God lies, it doesn’t make a difference. Noting how the media had debunked many strands in the giant web of lies the McCain team has put out over the last two weeks, the article goes on to admit that it doesn’t really matter:

Major news outlets have written such fact-checking articles for years. “But in the last two election cycles, the very notion that the facts matter seems to be under assault,” said Michael X. Delli Carpini, an authority on political ads at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. “Candidates and their consultants seem to have learned that as long as you don’t back down from your charges or claims, they will stick in the minds of voters regardless of their accuracy or at a minimum, what the truth is will remain murky, a matter of opinion rather than fact.”

Now, real-life evidence. Check out this comment, from a Wired post about the various Palin spoofs — it’s whole point is to catalog parodies, and it’s quite explicit about this!

Hi,

just a question:

http://sarahpalin.typepad.com/

is this real??? I read and read and have a very hard time struggling with the idea that she is really this dumb that she can write this.

Come on, War with Russia, Creationism, Anti-Abortion, but admitting to ban and steal books from the libraryfor those reasons? that’s not at all a sane woman. Please answer: how are u sure it’s her blog??

Thanx

I have read a lot of comments like this over the past few weeks. And while they’re sort of funny, they’re also deeply depressing. I suppose that says as much about my sense of humor as it does about the electorate. But one of those things results in awkward moments at parties, while the other will ultimately lead to the death of thousands, if not millions, if not the destruction of the entire planet.

Doomed, I say!

Ryan and Ezra and Matt are talking about cars that can’t go faster than 75 miles per hour, the idea being that mandating such a change would save lives. I’m not sure what to think about that. I probably shouldn’t bother thinking much — the idea is clearly politically impossible.

But it’s intriguing nonetheless. In particular, it’s interesting to consider this theoretical speed limitation as an analogue of DRM — a means of crippling devices so that consumers don’t misuse them. As you might imagine, I’m not a fan of conventional DRM. I think it’s inevitably circumvented and accomplishes nothing other than inconveniencing users.

On the other hand, I do favor some sorts of restrictions on the devices that consumers can buy and that manufacturers would like to sell to them. I approve of some forms of gun control, for instance, including limitations on the mechanical capabilities of firearms. I think that such restrictions are less easily circumvented than copy protection, and of course the consequences of a single successful circumvention do not represent a system-wide failure in the way that they would within the digital realm. That makes the undertaking a bit more worthwhile in my eyes.

Cars fall somewhere in the middle. There’s already a thriving hobbyist scene devoted to swapping out engine timing chips for less efficient, more powerful alternatives. And of course more generally there’s a ton of aftermarket automotive components that performance tuners can buy. I have no doubt that speed restrictors, however implemented, would be easily beaten by motivated individuals.

But would the inconvenience of upgrading from the default limitation save lives? Probably. I’m not sure how many, though, and it’s conceivable that a speed limitation may cause deaths in ways that this debate’s participants aren’t anticipating. I remain generally suspicious of efforts to cripple devices that consumers can buy.

Mostly unrelatedly, during some preparatory spooky-story reading this weekend I came across this quotation from The Gold-Bug, which I thought sums up the DRM situation pretty nicely:

[I]t may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve.

Until recently public key cryptography arguably provided a counterexample, but quantum computing seems poised to prove Poe right once again.

My internet energies remain committed elsewhere, but I would like to at least register a couple of cranky complaints about the commentary surrounding Palin:

• To everyone asserting that the Democrats just don’t get it, and that only you, the author, have a privileged insight into what makes real Americans so gosh-darn real — and they’re going to love Sarah Palin! — please, shut the fuck up. You’re just guessing, you out-of-touch elitist, exactly the same way that I am. Show me some polls. Even if you dismiss the fact that the early returns don’t agree with your analysis, you should temper your statements with the realization that the odds of the vice presidential pick having a significant impact on the race’s outcome are very, very small.
• To those using Twitter for non-humorous political analysis: you should probably stop. This applies doubly for Democrats who employ it to compliment Republican machinations in an attempt to paint themselves as bold, contrarian truth-tellers in the tradition of — what, Alan Colmes? The instantaneous, abbreviated nature of the medium makes this a tough act to pull off; you’ll usually just come off sounding credulous and reactionary. The good news is that if you’re reading this you’re almost certainly not who I have in mind. But really: if you want to play contrarian, do it in a macroblog format. That will at least afford you enough characters to express your dumb observations in a clever-sounding way.

Whew! I sure am cantankerous this morning.

ALSO: Somewhat less emphatically, let me add that I (predictably) don’t really buy the argument that going after Palin will prompt a meaningful backlash. In terms of media narratives, sure — but nobody should care about that. The depressing truth seems to be that the first mover advantage overwhelms the final result of most societal deliberations.