Remember 2004, and blogging? Remember political blogging? I remember Matthew Yglesias’ blog, the one 1 or 2 before ThinkProgress. I remember the comments, that’s where I first ran across Steve Sailer. Yglesias made a show of not acknowledging the comments, good for him, but I remember in the 2008 primaries this guy went by Petey, always good for a riposte and counter, dropped that and just went all in on this absurd message discipline. As time wore on the main posts eventually referenced his line “trust-fund scumbag Matthew Yglesias”, eventually wrote a few posts about it.

I learned something there. Used to think that “capitalist running dog” thing was a joke, but now I realize hey, I remember the phrase “capitalist running dog” off the top of my head so.

If you had told me that Steve Sailer would turn out to have a much greater influence than Matthew Yglesias, Twisty Faster than Jessica Valenti…

…well actually I don’t think I would have laughed at you. I wouldn’t have predicted it then, but I’d like to think I would’ve been “Huh. Yeah, okay, I could see that.”

Also: Reddit is a recapitulation of Usenet. I only just realized that two weeks ago. You live, you learn.