Bubblegen is way too smart to be saying this with any kind of incredulity:

None of these people want change. They never did. And so we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re not pursuing it when it could so easily be theirs.

Tucker made this very clear to me when we were discussing Caesar and Khan. Caesar, he said, was no hero because he was just attempting to realize the sense of entitlement he’d carried with him from birth. And in that light Gaul and the crossing the Rubicon take on a certain pointless but understandable patheticness. Caesar longed to be validated and conquering happened to fill that hole. Khan, however, just wanted to be left alone, to live as he pleased. And when that couldn’t happen, he remade the entire fucking world in his image.

What we see in bloggers like Techcrunch or Perez Hilton is more Caesar and less Khan. They always wanted part of the system but the system essentially rejected them. So they turned to the internet where at the time, it was easier to be heard through all the noise. To their credit, they brought something innovative to the table and were rewarded for it. But that doesn’t change the fact that what they really wanted was still elusive: a seat at the old table. And that will always define how they act. That means an inevitable slide toward mediocrity (the same post for the 100th time), relying on other people to do your work for little payment (guest posters), risk adversity, conflict of interests (investments) and selling out for short-term money (crappy shows on Vh1)

Khan though, never got tied up in emulating the traditions of the people he replaced because he never intended on replacing them. They were just in his way. And as I have seen from some of the 50 Cent/Robert Greene stuff: that is the difference between someone like Puffy and 50. One just wanted to be popular and the other wanted to be himself. That makes the former inhibited and the latter strategically flexible. So we’re going to see a whole generation of these bloggers self-destruct, ironically, in the very same way as the “man” they rallied against. (see: Gawker book) Ralafat at PaidContent created something of value–he might not be getting the attention for it right now but he’ll come out the winner.

We had an advertiser offer Rudius a ton of money if only Tucker would agree to change the word “fuck” to “f*ck” in all his stories. No. No. No. That’s the whole point–the reason that this niche even exists is because some executive five years ago insisted that people would be offended by that kind of material and look what they left on the table. And this week his book will hit #13 on the NYT Bestseller list, almost a full two years after it came out. The moral of that story is clear.

So I would offer this to the people who are my age and coming up. Trust your gut. Do the stuff that actually makes sense, let the short term money ride and build something based on reciprocity, authenticity and value. Be cool. Stop worrying about piddly shit. Buying in is only going to force you to sell out–sell out to a machine that almost everyone agrees is in its death throes. To the people who are already there, ignore everything your gut tells you. You’ve always been wrong, you just weren’t accountable for it. And trying to tempt the next generation into defecting before they can do serious damage isn’t a sustainable strategy–it just gets you further and further behind in the loop cycle.

But on the other hand, it can’t come as a surprise that some people choose the other route. Can you really blame them? It used to be a great strategy. I would just argue that that option is decreasingly daily as far as a payout goes. It used to be that you could sell out or coast for decades on an outdated business model–returns diminished gradually. Today, we’re seeing the rise and peak of companies just years, sometimes months after they’ve started. That means you’re fighting to stay alive. Innovation isn’t a luxury, it’s lifeblood and true disruption is the only opportunity for a slight breather.

I bought this book last month called Millennials Rising after Steve Olsen recommended it. It’s supposed to prove why my generation is going to shatter its misconceptions. However, the book opens with a quote from S Club 7, so of course I won’t be reading it.

If anyone wants it, drop me an email and I’ll get it to you. All I need is a report back on whether I should give it a second chance.

Wishful thinking, but completely incorrect. The idealism here is admirable and yet the epitome of what causes most movements to fail. It’s too “inspired” to talk about strategy, or to look at facts, or to win with the help of reality–they’d rather die in spite of it. And it’s just total misinterpretation of the Long Tail. Because of this, not matter how much money he wins, Ron Paul is doomed to fail.

First, the Long Tail only applies when the fundamental market constraints have been removed. There is a reason that the Long Tail was recently published: It didn’t apply until the internet came along and created a new way to sell products. But it didn’t change the actual stores themselves. The Long Tail doesn’t exist inside Borders, it exist on the infinite shelf space of Amazon. The internet is not “abound with examples with the long tail” as the author claims, IT IS the long tail.

American politics faces the same basic problem. That we have just two dominant political parties has nothing to do with information costs or media attention or lack of funding–it is the physical constraints of the market. We call this Duverger’s Law. The principle states that in any plurality based voting system, elections eventually funnel towards two parties. Because of the district basis of the system, it is impossible for minor candidates to collect their small stakes in many communities into a significant voting block. Candidates win based on how many individual districts they can tally together, not how much overarching support they can garner. Third Parties exist as aggregates of minor factions spread throughout multiple constituencies but the electoral system doesn’t care about percentage of the whole, only percentage of the local. It is innately compartmentalized, tied to the part to the point where the whole doesn’t matter. Sound familiar? This is exactly what prevents a long tail economy from thriving in Borders or at a Tower Records.

On Amazon, the one person in every town that likes Finnish Death Metal can be aggregated into a sustainable consumer subset. Borders, however, can’t afford to stock product for a single fan. This naturally guides them towards products that appeal to blocs of people much in the same way that Durverger guides us to just Democrats and Republicans and leaves no room for Libertarians.

What works on the internet does not work in US political elections. That is what Ron Paul supporters don’t understand. They’re so accustomed to the new dimension that they are trying to project the new rules back at the old. It’s not that easy. The internet has empowered your voices but the system still disenfranchises your votes. The Cold War Kids might be selling fantastically on iTunes, but that’s only because the internet has allowed them to connect and collect people all across the country. The laws of physical reality remain unchanged–touring efficiently is impossible. The internet allowed Ron Paul supporters to connect, but their votes still face the insurmountable limitations of a SMDP (single member district plurality) system. To quote Nicholas Carr “You can try to change the structure, but if you can’t change the economics your efforts will likely go for naught.”

I’ll say it again for the 1,000th time. There is no honor in fighting a battle you cannot win. Your job as a revolutionary is to see the world where it is and then take it to where you want it to be. For Ron Paul supporters that means understanding the massive opportunities the internet offers along with its fundamental limitations. The goal is not always obvious victory. The Spartans at Thermopylae went in fairly certain that they would lose at the Hot Gates but win as their efforts unified Greece. The Polish Cavalry that charged German tanks, all they did was lose. See the difference? One was part of a campaign, the other was desperation.

Ron Paul supporters should be leveraging the media coverage and ability to efficiently raise money not to buy votes, but to force change from the candidates who can win. You are not encumbered with typical burdens of having to schmooze large donors or barnstorm the country. To attempt to compete head to head with Hillary Clinton or John McCain is the worst strategic error you can make–it is conceding to the dynamic instead of controlling it. That money can achieve a far greater ROI if you fight on your own terms, as a light-weight, unified and mobile unit. One that understands that goal is not to win districts but to seed discontent within the electoral system.

But from what I have seen, this isn’t about change, it’s about ego. “Finally we can get back at those people who have ignored us for so long.” That kind of mindset is inherently problematic. It leads you into believing your own rhetoric, overextending, not knowing when to retreat, trading potential power for personality–-it does not breed victory in any form.

So fight this war on the terrain at which the battle has already begun on. Take the only victory that is possible on that field and use those gains to decide where you will fight the next war. In the case of Ron Paul, that means guiding the dynamic and opinion towards Libertarian policy as much as possible within the system. And then, maybe, you have a shot at changing the system; that is maybe, you can get rid of the Electoral College. Until then, it doesn’t matter. Your victory is literally impossible.

*I would like to note, however, that I don’t have any problems with Libertarian policy. I actually agree with most of his policies. But let’s be honest, he might be running in the Republican primary, but he’s doing it as a Libertarian, as a third party. So this isn’t a recycled argument or throwing your vote away, this is about analyzing the situation honestly and systematically. So even if he does win through some massive failure on someone else’s part, he hasn’t changed anything; a third party candidate would be no more viable four years later, all he’s done is change the guard in old model. He’s simply innovated instead of disrupted.