PostHeaderIcon Related Posts

After reading a recent Jetpack blog post, I decided to try turning on the “Related Posts” feature. Now, at the bottom of every post, one finds three purportedly related previous posts, which is supposed to entice the casual reader to spend more time on the site getting to know us, and hopefully return for more.

In testing it, I wasn’t always in agreement with the algorithm making the choices; but at least the first one offered was usually pretty relevant. It can be entertaining, and often somewhat satisfying, to read old blog posts one has forgotten ever making. This will likely be a good way for me to stumble across them. One I just read from early 2012, I thought particularly insightful: “ Robin Hood vs. Good Samaritan,” which included:

I would like to point out three intertwined faulty premises, underlying all of these morality controversies in our national body politic.

  • The first is collectivism – the faulty premise that the needs and wellbeing of this amorphous thing we call ‘society,’ trumps those of its individual members.
  • The second is altruism – the faulty premise that looking out for oneself is bad, and sacrificing oneself for others is good.
  • The third is democracy – the faulty premise that a majority has the moral right to impose their will upon a minority.

Mixed together, this is one toxic brew, which has been used to poison the minds of most sheeple in America, whichever side of the Incumbrepublocrat duopoly they find themselves on. One cannot assert the primacy of the collective, without trammeling the rights of its individual constituents. Then, if the model for governing that collective, is either the Robin Hood of the Left or the Good Samaritan of the Right, the individual citizen is regarded as merely a vassal.

This reminds me what a relief it is in the present political season, that nearly all of the divisive ‘Culture War’ religious wedge issues, are essentially off the table. We rarely hear abortion or gay marriage even mentioned nowadays, because they aren’t Trump’s issues, and he is absolutely driving the discourse, whether the media likes it or not. It is beyond astounding to me, how he has practically neutered the whole LGBT rights debate, and more or less has the Republican Party embracing them. Like him or not, he really deserves a lot of credit for that! 😀 â—„Daveâ–º

9 Responses to “Related Posts”

  • Troy says:

    I, for one, have never believed that altruism actually exists. I think that everything every person does has some underlying selfish motivation even if it is nothing more that collecting “god points” for one’s ultimate entry into the fictional heaven.

    Troy

    • Oh, I agree with that entirely, Troy; but it has been sold as a viable feel-good philosophy to the sheeple, as the alternative to being ‘Selfish.’ That is where the title to that old post came from. The Left champions Robin Hood as their exemplar of altruistic behavior, and the Right champions the Good Samaritan. Both are in error! â—„Daveâ–º

  • Abortion and Gay Marriage 2 subjects I am tired of hearing about.
    Frankly I am getting fairly tired of the TOKEN gay couple in every TV program of late.

  • Test to see if this will post.
    You can delete it if it does Dave.
    I tried to make several other comments using Firefox and not of them posted.

  • Chris says:

    Great idea Dave. I have been enjoying looking back on some old posts in my haunt. There’s some good stuff there. A lot seems prophetic but probably not so much as it would seem. It’s all pretty predictable for anyone paying attention. Nearly anything that comes up these days there is a post or forum that addresses it.

    I don’t use Jetpack because it doesn’t play nice with the mashup I have running but I did find a stand alone plugin that does the same thing and runs off the post tags. It seems pretty accurate. You may want to try adding some precise tags to the more important posts if you weren’t real big on adding them during the original writing. That may improve relevance.

    I don’t know if you still get Tspeak notices but I was forced to reply to a comment you made on a post. Just because current news dictates it. 🙂 No self serving link. You know where to find it. 🙂

    • Yeah, I found it and replied. The tags thing is a good idea; but it would sure be a lot of work. There are nearly 1K published posts here, with nearly 5K published comments. 😉 â—„Daveâ–º

      • Chris says:

        Well it may be something to pay closer attention to going forward. Just one or two high relevance tags or at the least some carefully chosen categories when your writing a post will probably give better function to related future posts. It’s my guess that’s how the plugin decides.

        • Agreed. I have been a lot more careful about adding some tags for the past couple of years; but I could probably use some a little more specific than just “politics” or “debate.” â—„Daveâ–º

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