slatestarscratchpad:

Reading that NYT article on the intellectual dark web everyone is talking about.

Does it make sense to say that, abstracting out the opinions of these people, they’re also unique in their business model? IE mostly unaffiliated with normal institutions/media companies, doing podcast-like things, getting money on Patreon-type-stuff, and also being really successful / having big personality cults around them?

Does anyone know of anyone like this either on the left or the more conventional non-taboo National-Review-reading right? Am I right to think it’s at least pretty rare? I can’t think of anything, but I don’t know whether that’s just my limited perspective or a real fact about society.

@kontextmaschine, maybe?

My 2:30 am response is to point out that National Review reviewed Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged as raw untutored bullshit unhelpful to the mid-20th century conservative cause, and even with Michael B Dougherty on board and getting past the NeverTrump stuff I wouldn’t look to them to divine where popular energy is going until after the fact