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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

#261

Post by Ekaros »

vlunkr wrote: post #245
MrYellowP wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing can be done, because the system is owned by the corrupt, which means that the system is corrupt. The only solution against this problem is violence. Despite what a lot of completely delusional and clueless morons believe, voting solves nothing as long as all parties are basically run by rich people and or paid career politicians. And I'm not even going to dive into the details. They're not necessary. You have…

I don't know what your political leanings are, but do you realize this is the position of the people who stormed the capitol building?

Ever wondered how that was even possible? Like how bad must the security be for bunch of unarmed random civilians to enter and have access to rather important location? Almost seems like manufactured. Or lot of people should be fired for incompetence...

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

#262

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

tayo42 wrote: post #207
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any of your own beliefs which you don't express because they might be considered offensive in the future?

I don't think i hold offensive beliefs (controversial maybe, as we see here, but no ones getting their feelings hurt), if I did and learned about I'd change them. It seems easy to not be offensive though, what kind of beliefs are people having trouble with?

There are some issues where it seems impossible to hold a non-offensive belief. You can't support abortion or oppose abortion or claim abortion is unimportant without genuinely hurting a lot of people's feelings. (I wouldn't deny that you can avoid being offensive by simply avoiding all controversial issues, and in some contexts that's a perfectly reasonable approach.)

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

#263

Post by AnimalMuppet »

DEADMEAT wrote: post #195
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'…

What's funny here are that the example issues you listed are exactly the issues that the vast majority of Americans actually do agree on. Those are wedge issues that were carefully crafted by political parties to try and create a division in popular opinion when there isn't one. It's a fairly common political strategy nowadays.

You think the vast majority of Americans agree on abortion? I'm pretty sure that, no, they do not. The division is real, not just a political strategy.

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

#264

Post by veganhouseDJ »

borroka wrote: post #142
bradenb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels oddly specific. I'm not sure why you can't engage on Twitter and still not be "lacking in real life." Who even gets to define "real life?" And while I'm sure some people spend 20-30 hours per week on Twitter I'm guessing it's such a small percentage of the world that it might as well be statistically insignificant.

At the very least is a workable hypothesis. To be active on Twitter one needs the right personality, which means being very upset when other people reply/engage or being indifferent and playing one of the games adults are playing. In the first case, the person is not able to avoid engaging. In the second case, they engage because they have the usual "motives". Twitter is a very dangerous social media. I consider myse…

Not to mention, you can't even express this thought on twitter. Way too many characters.

I think the character limit creates a blunt form of communication that leads to this toxic environment. It is practically designed to create misunderstandings and dismissive short responses to those misunderstandings.

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

#265

Post by Pxtl »

everdrive wrote: post #221
cgrealy wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Texas just unveiled a law that proposes putting parents who support their children's gender transition in jail for child abuse.

That means one side thinks the other side is a child abuser, and the other side thinks that bigots are going to throw them in prison for being a supportive parent.

This is not something you can be "polite" about.

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

#266

Post by jelling »

ar_lan wrote: post #233

Twitter is the fastest way for me to feel like I'm a completely worthless human being, especially in the tech sector. It overwhelmingly emphasizes the following, from my experience: 1. If you are not famous, you don't matter. 2. Front-end engineers are invariably the most important and skillful, and backend engineers really aren't valuable. 3. If you hold any position that's even accidentally politically incorrect, y…

> 3. If you hold any position that's even accidentally politically incorrect, you will be publicly shamed for it, and some people are quite relentless at bringing up tiny past mistakes.

A friend got disinvited from speaking at an NLP convention, not because of something he said or did, but because his employer was tangentially related to national security contracts. Of course, the person that organized the dis-invite also used it as an opportunity to get themselves ahead.

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

#267

Post by vorpalhex »

herbstein wrote: post #239
everdrive wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

It's generally quite hard for a trans person to be civil with a transphobe. Just as it's hard for e.g. black people to be civil with a racist. The bigot will, whether conscious or not, make the life of the minority absolutely terrible. With LGBTQ it is therefore not just a difference of opinion on taxation, or a few percentage points difference in a tariff. For trans people it's about whether the other person even ac…

Let's throw in a more complex example. Is someone who identifies as a "trap" trans? Is that self identification trans-phobic? Is it a valid self identity? What if someone identifies as a "trap" but not trans?

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

#268

Post by Uhhrrr »

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…

>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

Sorting by "Latest" rather than "Home" makes it so you don't see their likes and replies. I would recommend it to anyone.

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

#269

Post by ceilingcorner »

I have lost a lot of respect for certain very accomplished people because they tweet their hot takes on current issues constantly. I follow you because you’re an awesome musician/writer/entrepreneur/whatever, not because I need your extremely uninformed opinion on geopolitics or social issues.

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

#270

Post by kerneloftruth »

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.

I know LGB people who balk at the TQ.* additions to the acronym. Their arguments are cogent and logical. There seems to be plenty of room to disagree, because not all the constituents of the acronym are really fighting the same cause, or even see the groups as all being one team.
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