Monday, March 31, 2014

Conversations with The Archdruid for the third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News

Fat Cat goes Galt

I've promised four times to write an entry about how The Archdruid has helped my blogging develop.  It's now time to deliver on that promise.

The fifth most read entry of the past year is A conversation with The Archdruid about Objectivism, Satanism, and the GOP, posted December 30, 2013.  According to the secondary counter, it earned 693 page views and, according to the primary counter, it earned 638 page views, making it the second most read of the last year and the fifth most read of all time according to that measure.  It kicked U.S.-China EcoPartnerships: The CoDominion plans for sustainability out of the all-time top ten according to the primary counter for a time.  As I mentioned in Popular retrospectives for the second and third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News, that wasn't the first time entry had fallen out of the top ten.  That entry later returned, but was again booted out on the last day of the blog, another story connected to The Archdruid that I'll tell over the jump.

As for how this became such a big deal, I promoted it in a comment on the last entry of 2013 on Kunstler's blog.  Within one day, I wrote the following about the reaction on Dreamwidth and LiveJournal.
I posted a link to the most recent entry about the Archdruid to Kunstler's blog this morning.  So far, I've pulled in 400+ page views to that post, moving it up to the third most read entry this calendar year and the ninth most read in the history of the Crazy Eddie's Motie News.  That only took 12 hours.
Kunstler himself responded to me, writing "Greer’s essay last week was really outstanding."  Obviously, that entry continued to gain readers and page views throughout the week.

As for what the entry was about, and what led up to my writing it, those same Dreamwidth and LiveJournal entries told the tale.
The Archdruid moved to a topic that he is uniquely suited to address, the role of belief systems in societies and how resource depletion would affect both societies and their beliefs.  It was enough that, after two years, I finally found something of Greer's that I could feature on my blog, the description of civil antireligions in  The Fate of Civil Religion that I excerpted and commented on to compose The Archdruid on Objectivism as civil antireligion.  Then, he wrote an essay that I actually had something to say in response to, An Old Kind of Science, which I turned into A conversation with The Archdruid for the Solstice.  The next week, he engaged in A Christmas Speculation, in which he called the GOP a bunch of closet Satanists who were hiding their true beliefs behind their devotion to Ayn Rand.  I commented on that and converted the result into A conversation with The Archdruid about Objectivism, Satanism, and the GOP.  I despise Objectivism, and couldn't resist a comparison between it and an unpopular religion.  After all, two years ago, I posted Objectivism and Scientology: a sublime to the ridiculous comparison.
My success with those entries prompted me to write "I think I'll keep reading and responding to The Archdruid after all."  Follow over the jump for how that has panned out for me.

Two more entries I put together from my comments at The Archdruid Report also made the twenty most read of the third year of this blog.  The more successful of the two was A conversation with The Archdruid about predictions posted January 3, 2014, which earned 481 page views, good enough for sixth place, right behind A conversation with The Archdruid about Objectivism, Satanism, and the GOP.  That's one where I recycled Kunstler Victory Lap? from The Hipcrime Vocab once again, having already reblogged that entry, using for my comment at Greer's blog.  I then promoted it at Kunstler's blog in his Forecast for 2014.  That's probably the best example on this blog of my being inspired by other bloggers.

The other was 'A Steampunk calculator' and six other sustainable technologies from The Archdruid posted January 21, 2014, which received 262 page views, qualifying for an eighteenth place tie with KPBS on retail desperation.  Again, the success of this entry came because I promoted it at Kunstler's blog.  However, I was able to pay something back to Greer, as he used the story of telling me to call a slide rule a "steampunk calculator' to open The Steampunk Future.  Not only is Greer good for my blogging, it looks like I'm good for his!

Finally, here's a story that I told a couple of days ago.
The entry about Examiner.com that made a move last year was Examiner.com article on tax policy forum, posted September 17, 2012.  As of March 21, 2013, it had 211 views according to the secondary counter, enough for 18th place among all entries posted that year.  Since then, it began a steady rise into the top ten all-time, knocking off first Austerity on the personal level from the AP, which itself kicked out Old man yelling at chair accidentally reveals a deeper truth.  It then engaged in a dogfight with U.S.-China EcoPartnerships: The CoDominion plans for sustainability.  By March 21st, it looked like it had lost, earning at most 402 page views according to the primary counter (I didn't check the secondary counter, so those numbers were never recorded), falling out of the top ten for good.  The story is not over; today it's back in the all-time top ten with 926 according to the secondary counter and 442 according to the primary counter.  As for what's driving it this year, I think the sites Google Correction, JustforLaughs.tv, and Vampire Stat bear at least some responsiblity.  Those were the ones I saw on the referring links list when the entry became popular again last October and November.
Here's the part that involves The Archdruid and his readers.  In my comment to American Delusionalism, or Why History Matters, I linked to National Review ironically reveals another deep truth about the current GOP.  Much to my surprise, that entry got 363 page views in one week because of that.  However, it wasn't the original beneficiary of the attention; the other entry I mentioned in last years Second Year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Eastwooding was.  Old man yelling at chair accidentally reveals a deeper truth jumped back into the top ten with 409 page views according to the primary counter at the end of March 20, 2014, knocking off U.S.-China EcoPartnerships: The CoDominion plans for sustainability for the last time.  Then, the entry I actually linked to jumped into tenth place with 412-425 page views, before Examiner.com article on tax policy forum returned to the top ten.  As George Takei would say, Oh, my, that's complicated.

Previous entries in this series.


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