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The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

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Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#221

Post by everdrive »

cgrealy wrote: post #203
vorpalhex wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. If I play boardgames with Sue, that's enough. We meet, enjoy a beer and play some Catan and go our separate ways. That's a fine relationship. If I follow Sue on social media, now I know her politics, religion, sex life, drug usage, opinions on every little thing.. and frankly, I don't care or want to. I'…

While I agree in general, there are plenty of circumstances where people don't get to not have an opinion about things. For example, you can't "agree to disagree" on LGBTQ rights if you belong to one of those categories. See also pregnant people and abortion rights.

> For example, you can't "agree to disagree" on LGBTQ rights if you belong to one of those categories. See also pregnant people and abortion rights.

Why can’t you? Is it impossible to imagine civil friendly people who simply do not share one’s views on these issues?

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#222

Post by davesque »

vorpalhex wrote: post #146
toastercat wrote: post #71

I tried being a Twitter user for a bit last year, mostly because a lot of engineers I admire use it to communicate about interesting topics and also their work. But after a while, I realized even they will pollute my feed with politically divisive topics, whether it be from them retweeting something, or liking a tweet, or even entering into the fray themselves -- Twitter will find a way to get me to see it. For a whi…

One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. If I play boardgames with Sue, that's enough. We meet, enjoy a beer and play some Catan and go our separate ways. That's a fine relationship. If I follow Sue on social media, now I know her politics, religion, sex life, drug usage, opinions on every little thing.. and frankly, I don't care or want to. I'…

This only seems true for the people who share TMI on social media. Still seems like a pretty specific subset of the population.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#223

Post by nradov »

jafoi wrote: post #194
CountSessine wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was one of the ideas behind Google+ - "circles". You could put other people in different broadcast "circles" and then you wouldn't end up announcing your weird fetish preferences or drug use to your grandma or your coworkers - at least not intentionally.

Wouldn't work in practice - no one is going to pass an opportunity to broadcast their political views to as many people as possible.

Google+ also relied on users to correctly categorize their posts to the right stream or interest. Software developers tend to be good at dividing things into near little categories. Other users not so much.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#225

Post by BeFlatXIII »

cgrealy wrote: post #203
vorpalhex wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. If I play boardgames with Sue, that's enough. We meet, enjoy a beer and play some Catan and go our separate ways. That's a fine relationship. If I follow Sue on social media, now I know her politics, religion, sex life, drug usage, opinions on every little thing.. and frankly, I don't care or want to. I'…

While I agree in general, there are plenty of circumstances where people don't get to not have an opinion about things. For example, you can't "agree to disagree" on LGBTQ rights if you belong to one of those categories. See also pregnant people and abortion rights.

But the topic can never come up in organic conversation altogether.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#226

Post by jollybean »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #204

So, this article states that 42% of Americans identify as politically independent. This beats the next largest political identity (Democrats, 29%) by 13%. Yet, the political system has been rigged - obviously so, for anyone who cares to look - so that an independent party fails to get the 5% necessary to get onto the ballot and future funding for the next election cycle for presidential running. How is it that there…

It's much more complicated than that those ostensible 'affiliations' indicate. Many Trump voters do not identify as 'Republicans'. Don't assume elections are 'rigged' because of some uneasy data. There are obviously specific issues with voting but even then it's more nuanced.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#227

Post by datavirtue »

thenerdhead wrote: post #73

I always think of the ratio of 90% consume, 9% contribute, and 1% create. This is a phenomenon on wikipedia, GitHub, twitter, and other places. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule The big question is...what side do you want to be on?

Nothing gets you high like creating.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#228

Post by MattGaiser »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #204

So, this article states that 42% of Americans identify as politically independent. This beats the next largest political identity (Democrats, 29%) by 13%. Yet, the political system has been rigged - obviously so, for anyone who cares to look - so that an independent party fails to get the 5% necessary to get onto the ballot and future funding for the next election cycle for presidential running. How is it that there…

There are very few true independents. They may label themselves such, but they don’t vote that way.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/few-americans-who-ident...

They just want to avoid the label of being one or the other.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#229

Post by Miner49er »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #24
Miner49er wrote: post #11

> Independents — who are somewhere in the middle This seems factually wrong? Maybe most independents are in between the two parties, but not all. Look at Bernie Sanders for example, I would say he's to the left of the Democratic party. I thought maybe the Gallup poll they are referencing had a weird definition of an independent requiring it to be between the two parties, but I'm not seeing that either.

Aren't independents people who haven't declared any party affiliations? They are usually in the middle, but could have extreme Democrat or Republican views.

That's my point, but the article says they are in the middle between Democrats and Republicans. They could be anywhere on the political spectrum, however.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#230

Post by candlemas »

tayo42 wrote: post #34
typeofhuman wrote: post #6

I don't engage on Twitter out of fear. I sometimes see posts that I like and want to retweet but I don't because it means I'm endorsing everything the author has ever said or ever will say. It's not worth the risk. People in my demographic face significant exposure to "cancelling" or ambushing for wrongthink. So it's best for me to avoid it entirely.

It's really easy to not be "canceled", just be a good person. What genuinely OK opinion are people being canceled for?

Good people are boring.
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