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The tyranny of the supertweeter

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Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#121

Post by nemo44x »

honkdaddy wrote: post #110
ceejayoz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I think the two party system is ultimately to blame for this, though I have no idea what the solution would be. Up in Canada, we have three left-leaning parties, NDP, Liberal, and Green, which represent some very different political views but all have varying levels of representation in our parliament. After living in the States a few years it's become clear that none of the 3rd parties are taken very seriously, and…

Within each party is where you find the subdivisions. Democrats have within them Socialists to classical liberals" and the Republicans have MAGA to traditional liberals. It's fluid though.

It's within the primary elections where you see the most interesting elections at times. Sometimes you'll get a challenger in a district where it makes sense, like when AOC took on an established classical liberal and flipped it, pushing the representation leftward while still being Democrat.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#122

Post by nemo44x »

tablespoon wrote: post #112
actionablefiber wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being pro-business and anti-regulation The word "liberal" means exactly that - showing preference and deference to private enterprise - in the overwhelming majority of the world, as it refers to economic liberalism.

>> I'm not convinced these kind of semantic disputes matter. Non-Americans don't typically identify as "libertarian", but that doesn't make it hard to express or describe the idea of being pro-business and anti-regulation. > The word "liberal" means exactly that - showing preference and deference to private enterprise - in the overwhelming majority of the world, as it refers to economic liberalism. Except in America,…

> Except in America, where it took on a somewhat narrower, variant meaning that focuses on "social liberalism."

Right and you'll find large populations of both Democrats and Republicans fall under the "Socially liberal, fiscally conservative" banner with Democrats generally skewing one way a bit and Republicans the other. But ultimately, both sides headed the same direction just at different speeds and priority.

I think the woke left and MAGA types have made more noise lately and it has disturbed some of the balance we've had the last 70 years where everyone is essentially onboard with the New Deal Regime.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#123

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

ajross wrote: post #111
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you consider a major organization? I'll happily grant that the New York Times won't let you do that, but it's common for your Voxes ( https://www.vox.com/culture/23357114/the-little-mermaid-raci... ) or Rolling Stones ( https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/black-litt... ) to write articles on the topic of "I found some people saying mean things on social media".

So frustrating. I talked about news and reporters, and you try to counter with links to two opinion pieces from their journal's respective "culture" sections. Your point seems to be, what, that people who disagree with you are posting on the internet? Should we make the same criticism of Substack too?

I don't understand the distinction you're attempting to draw here. I looked at the Vox article in particular in detail, and it doesn't seem to have any kind of disclaimer that it's in a special section or that editorial standards have been lowered.

Am I just supposed to know that the string "/culture/" in the URL means it isn't real news and I shouldn't trust it? Even as a big proponent of media literacy, that seems unreasonable. News organizations must be aware that people will believe them when they publish things.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#124

Post by Mezzie »

guerrilla wrote: post #43
enviclash wrote: post #35

Is it only me perceiving that people is growing aware of the disadvantages of twitter, or at least its frequent use?

Most people on Twitter have referred to Twitter as "this hellsite" enough times that I can't say that I think this is anything new. Knowing Twitter is terrible and terrible for you is a prominent part of Twitter culture. There are many memes around the subject.

I'd consider them slightly different. "Hellsite" is a pretty common epithet for sites that are the brain version of cotton candy or Taco Bell: Very few people are under the impression that Tumblr or (to show my age) Fanfiction.Net were productive ways to spend their time. But 'hellsite' to me has a connotation of 'is devoid of intellectual/emotional stimulation and challenge' along with 'harmless'.

What grandparent commentator is talking about is, to me, more about realizing that Twitter isn't Taco Bell: It's arsenic. Or lead in makeup: Actively, immediately harmful. Not just 'bad for you'.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#125

Post by thrown_22 »

rr888 wrote: post #114
thrown_22 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm really not sure who you're talking about now. Sounds like Russian BS. Do you have a source for any of these three things? > were pushing for the OK sign to be classified as a hate symbol used by secret Nazis > Ukraine having 20% of it's army wear literal swastikas > Today they argue that [Ukraine swastikas] isn't that bad.

> were pushing for the OK sign to be classified as a hate symbol used by secret Nazis

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764728163/the-ok-hand-gesture...

> Today they argue that Ukraine having 20% of it's army wear literal swastikas

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ukraine-turns-a-...

> Today they argue that [Ukraine swastikas] isn't that bad.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32868328

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#126

Post by bnralt »

tux1968 wrote: post #99
samatman wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an insult to the Mercator projection, which exists to provide an objective map of longitude to up and down. The social graph of Twitter journalism is an ephemeron, it means only itself and maps to no other part of reality. This distorts in every direction it can, while giving no useful reference frame in return.

> Mercator projection, which exists to provide an objective map of longitude to up and down. While true, it also distorts reality and leads to mistaken ideas about the world: https://wonderfulengineering.com/the-authagraph-world-map-is...

_Every_ map projection distorts reality in some way. There's simply no way to accurately portray a sphere as a two dimensional object without some trade-offs. The Mercator projection has some useful trade offs, which is why Google maps used it for so long (and still does as certain scales, I believe).

I don't believe the authagraph projection is even the best map projection for preserving things like shape and area (other projections such as the Cahill–Keyes projection or Dymaxion projection seem better for both).

But of course, if you want the least amount of distortion, just get a globe.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#127

Post by ordinaryradical »

PaulHoule wrote: post #97
vorpalhex wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYTimes, front pages, sources from Twitter: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/business/media/russia-war...

NYTimes is one of those publications, like the Atlantic, that used to have quality writing but now chases clickbait... In a rush to the bottom to catch up with Gawker, Huffington Post, ...

Some of the only reasonable journalism I’ve read in the past year has been from The Atlantic. I have a large group chat with friends all over the political spectrum and we all can engage with and appreciate it every time someone posts an article from there. In fact The Atlantic gets more links for us than just about any other publication. Really, what downfall are you on about?

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#128

Post by Anthony-G »

SamBam wrote: post #85
thrown_22 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is a completely mistaken use of the word "neoliberal." Neoliberalism refers to a worldview that thinks in terms of market-oriented policies, global trade, privatization, etc. You thinking it has something to do with wokism or OK symbols is a perfect example of the word being used incorrectly.

Correct. I don’t understand why you’re being down-voted for stating something that’s so incontrovertible. Neo-liberalism is an economic philosophy that aims to turn back the clock on Keynesian (or New Deal for the other side of the Atlantic) policies and return to “laissez-faire” capitalism of the 19th Century.

It’s orthogonal to social liberalism (or “wokism”), i.e., one could be an advocate of privatisation of state services and just as easily be socially conservative or socially liberal.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#129

Post by ajross »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #123
ajross wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So frustrating. I talked about news and reporters, and you try to counter with links to two opinion pieces from their journal's respective "culture" sections. Your point seems to be, what, that people who disagree with you are posting on the internet? Should we make the same criticism of Substack too?

I don't understand the distinction you're attempting to draw here. I looked at the Vox article in particular in detail, and it doesn't seem to have any kind of disclaimer that it's in a special section or that editorial standards have been lowered. Am I just supposed to know that the string "/culture/" in the URL means it isn't real news and I shouldn't trust it? Even as a big proponent of media literacy, that seems…

Oh, come on! The title of that article is, verbatim: "The racist backlash to The Little Mermaid and Lord of The Rings is exhausting and extremely predictable"

Are you seriously arguing in good faith that you were fooled into thinking that this was a piece of objective journalism?

You are providing a perfect example of my point, which I'll endure the downvotes to point out: rather than see an opnion article with which you disagree and just accept is as an inevitable result of large populations of people living together, you feel the need to explain the disagreement as some kind of existential flaw with the whole field of journalism. Then you feel justified in extending that "mistrust" engendered from Vox authors writing articles you don't like to pieces of real journalism providing real facts with which you also disagree.

And so the whole field of journalism is sullied in your mind, simply because (in this case) you don't like the fact that some people think black mermaids and elves are kinda OK and want to defend their casting against those who don't.

Re: The tyranny of the supertweeter

#130

Post by tsol »

gonzo41 wrote: post #36
Bakary wrote: post #7

The part about journalism is particularly troubling because Twitter is like crack for journalists and has thus played a big part in decreasing the credibility of the profession. The platform is a journalist's fantasy brought to life. The ability to exist as an individual and have an audience independently of their publication. Blue check-marks. As the article mentions, the capacity to find stories with little effort.…

This is a good take on twitters effect on journalism. I was just thinking the other day about why journalists don't separate their work account and private accounts. I grew up in a time where you generally tried to keep your real identity to a minimum on platforms. Yet journalists seem to suffer from an identity fusion with their professional work, their personal views, and their ego all coming together under a singl…

I was thinking about going into journalism for a time and an ex- broadcaster teacher of mine connected me with a journalist to talk to. One of the biggest things, he said, about being a journalist nowadays is you need to build your own brand. Most journalists nowadays don't get hired as staff writers, they mostly work freelance. So in order to stay relevant and keep getting work, they need to develop a SM presence and get likes, clicks, etc. That part was what really turned me off from journalism as any sort of career.
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