News + comment round-up
by Duncan O'Leary
A few links below that you might be interested in from this week:
- The Times’ Comment Central blog discovers that Barack Obama is king of the small donation, with Hilary Clinton making more from single, larger, donations;
- Chris Anderson’s Wired article on the Long Tail (from 2004), that explains how this kind of thing has become possible and why it matters more and more;
- Matthew Parris writes that the quality of a political speech is a symptom of popularity not a cause. Well worth a read.
- Chris Dillow explains how confirmation bias can mean that once a crowd gets an idea into its collective head, the idea can strengthen far faster than the evidence would warrant.
Sam Jones
Of course, Matthew Parris' point can be extended to the language used in poltiical speeches. The ease with which a speech is delivered is one thing, the confidence to be simple is another. There's a conference about this in New York soon.