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Community Note correcting Musk’s anti-vax tweet mysteriously disappears

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Re: Community Note correcting Musk’s anti-vax tweet mysteriously disappears

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This problem is not unique to free speech. Whoever is in power doesn't see why they should follow a principle their opponents violated when they were in power, except that then no one follows the principle and everyone is worse off for it. It's no different for privacy or due process or free association. This is why we try to put these things in constitutions for governments, and build decentralized systems with no b…

That is true, but the principle of speech is violated by everyday individuals with no power who espouse such values. You could say it is simply a derivative of the mindset that nearly everyone holds "liberty for me, but not for thee". We just tend to ignore or think it is irrelevant when nobody holds power. Yes, Elon and X can never be taken seriously on free speech without a pivot towards decentralization. What is h…

> That is true, but the principle of speech is violated by everyday individuals with no power who espouse such values.

The same is true of anything else. People demand their privacy and then look through their partner's phone etc.

> We just tend to ignore or think it is irrelevant when nobody holds power.

"Nobody holds power over others" is an impossible perfection but getting closer to it is a primary goal of a good society.

> Yes, Elon and X can never be taken seriously on free speech without a pivot towards decentralization. What is happening with X is precisely the opposite. The "everything" app only provides opportunity for more control which will result in less freedom inevitably.

"Everything app" is some kind of marketing BS. Is the same app supposed to protect your anonymity and do your taxes? Hold your medical records and implement opaque buggy video game anti-cheat systems? That is either a farce or a dystopia.

But in practice he probably just means they're going to add some Tesla integration or cryptocurrency thing to Twitter and then people can take it or leave it.

Re: Community Note correcting Musk’s anti-vax tweet mysteriously disappears

#112
post #43
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don't you mean the X Files? It certainly fits, a show all about fictionalized conspiracies

So all those twitter and government agencies that sent emails saying they were doing it were.. what? Cosplaying and writing fictional emails for LOLs?

for examples of government censorship orders that were given to Twitter and then followed, look at Musk's Twitter. Such as orders from the authoritarian government of Turkey to suppress tweets critical of the ruling party during an election, and these orders were executed by dutifully followed without question in obedience by Musk's Twitter [1]. He is after all beholden to his Saudi investors now.

[1] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4019109-twitters-turke...

Musk's Twitter is now a fully authoritarian-censorship platform, increasing compliance to government censorship requests to 80% from a previous level of 50%, including from countries such as India:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/04/27/tw...

Prior to Musk's takeover, Twitter went to court to directly challenge such requests - no such messiness under Musk where censorship on behalf of authoritarian governments is now a feature:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/02/twitter-indi...

As with all things conservative, the biggest fake outrage they have always points to exactly the thing they are guilty of in actuality, only much worse than the claims.

Re: Community Note correcting Musk’s anti-vax tweet mysteriously disappears

#113
post #50
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm forced to wear pants in public at all times. If I showed up to Thanksgiving with no pants, they'd ask me to leave and id never get invited again. Tyranny ! Everyone should be free to endanger everyone around them with a deadly crippling virus at all times.

The vaccine didn't stop transmission though so being vaccinated made no difference as to whether you were "endangering people" (you weren't, mostly) with a "deadly" (not unless morbidly obese or with other serious health issues) "crippling" (still unconfirmed) virus.

Studies which looked at this found that the vaccine reduced transmission levels overall [1] [2] , to greater or lesser degrees depending on variant. possible avenues include less people having covid in the first place, possible shortening of the silent incubation period, reduction of viral load, shortening of the disease's span overall.

[1] https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o298

[2] https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2022/12/424546/covid-19-vaccines-p...

Re: Community Note correcting Musk’s anti-vax tweet mysteriously disappears

#114

Community notes regularly disappear. It mainly comes down to the bent of a person's followers since they will simply downrank a community note. I frequently see someone screencapping someone's tweet + the community note to go "haha pwned" but then I visit the tweet and the note is long gone. Also, a lot of notes are low quality and seemingly upvoted just because they counter the tweet at all.

Community notes disappear, but as I understand it, it's not so simple as "group a downvoted the note away." Because members of a group are likely to agree with one another, the algorithm means they their ability to affect the note will be very low. Also, those who tend to vote up low quality notes will also have their ability to affect outcomes throttled. The inner workings of algorithm is pretty interesting.

From what I've seen personally, bad notes only tend to make it through early and for a short duration. Once someone retweets with more credible information that wasn't well understood at first, the note isn't able to survive.

Re: Community Note correcting Musk’s anti-vax tweet mysteriously disappears

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marines are the most prestigious branch of the military, by a huge margin. Plenty of people willingly join the Marines, specifically because they know they get to spend the rest of their life saying they're a Marine and with that comes (near universal) respect. The fact that the military lifts people out of poverty is a great thing. It's a damned hard life being in the military, especially if you make a career out of…

> a fair trade That's exactly my point. You join the Marines and you get all of the benefits and drawbacks you enumerated. You don't and you get to live in poverty. I think that can be described as coercive. To be clear, I'm not against the Marine corps or their vaccine policies. I just don't think coercion (even if it originates outside the Marine Corps) can be removed from _some_ people's choice to join.

It's not coercive because there are other options. I grew up in poverty and took the free money given to me to go to school (then dropped out, went back later - it's a whole ordeal). My friend from grade school did the military -> college route.

We both landed in largely the same spot. My friend just gets a ton of extra benefits from his service that have really added up over time. He hated being in the military, but he straight up says it's the best decision he's ever made.

My younger brother took the Navy enlisted -> retirement route (just hit rank where he can get 20 years, E6 I think), and while it's been hard, he says the same thing. Despite the injuries, moving constantly, deployments away from family, pay fuckups, and garbage housing, he loves it. And he'll retire at 42 or something with a pension and paid health care, after which, he'll get paid to go back to school then get a cushy tech gig at a DoD contractor.

Having seen people go through it, I think it's a good deal. Not just for people in poverty, but middle/upper class people too. I'm the last person you'd take for a "support our troops" guy, but I'd absolutely encourage my kids to do military service.

Re: Community Note correcting Musk’s anti-vax tweet mysteriously disappears

#116
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define forced. Federal employees and federal contractors were required to be vaccinated or lose their jobs and this was also repeated in several US states. Military members were also forced to vaccinate or face other than honorable discharge or NJP at a minimum. Yes, nobody came with a gun and "forced" them to take it, but significant economic coercision meets my definition of force.

> significant economic coercision meets my definition of force. Ok, but I hope you apply that criterion to every situation, and not just vaccination. I find it interesting to consider the Venn diagram of people who claim that vaccination was forced and people who claim that everything (else) that happens in the free market is voluntary.

My personal views are somewhere between Bakunin and Benjamin Tucker. Private companies can be equally or even more coercive than a government. In this case, via the OSHA mandate and the executive orders on defense contractors, we saw both acting together.

Re: Community Note correcting Musk’s anti-vax tweet mysteriously disappears

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should at least acknowledge the "trolley" problem here. You have two bad choices: join the marines or live in poverty. The US has a "volunteer" force but "volunteer" is a stretched euphemism in my mind. There aren't many people with options "volunteering" for the marines. Obligatory "I'm pro vaccine".

By this logic people are also forced to work for Uber/Amazon/other exploitative employers of low-skill labor. This undermines many arguments against unionization, treating "gig" workers as employees, or in favour of "right to work" laws. Yet the political leanings of those opposed to vaccination are often anti-union, pro "right to work", etc. So this doesn't help illuminate what they mean by "forced", unless this is…

> Yet the political leanings of those opposed to vaccination are often anti-union, pro "right to work", etc.

The fact that they have the most to gain from unionization, socialized healthcare, excellent public education, etc. yet seem to support the politics most beneficial to the wealthy and powerful seems like more than a coincidence to me.

Re: Community Note correcting Musk’s anti-vax tweet mysteriously disappears

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should at least acknowledge the "trolley" problem here. You have two bad choices: join the marines or live in poverty. The US has a "volunteer" force but "volunteer" is a stretched euphemism in my mind. There aren't many people with options "volunteering" for the marines. Obligatory "I'm pro vaccine".

Marines are the most prestigious branch of the military, by a huge margin. Plenty of people willingly join the Marines, specifically because they know they get to spend the rest of their life saying they're a Marine and with that comes (near universal) respect. The fact that the military lifts people out of poverty is a great thing. It's a damned hard life being in the military, especially if you make a career out of…

> Marines are the most prestigious branch of the military, by a huge margin.

I hope it lasts. Surely every generation has faced the challenge to uphold the same principles as The United States Marine Corps but, just as certainly, the struggle of today seem more perilous than before.

I often think of how the British refused to burn down a Marine Corps barracks during The War of 1812 out of respect for an honorable opponent.

Re: Community Note correcting Musk’s anti-vax tweet mysteriously disappears

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have two bad choices: join the marines or live in poverty. That's a loaded conundrum, but isn't this also true about pretty much any other job, especially in the US?

Sure but we're talking about if people were forced to take a vaccine. Social pressure, conditions of employment, mandates by government agencies. All of these things can muddy what it means to make a "voluntary" choice.

I had more than one remote co-worker reach out to ask me about or commiserate over whether or not the business would fire them for not being vaccinated. I can certainly say people _felt_ coerced and manipulated which might be the most important part at the individual level.

I also watched a lot of people get vaccinated and rack up multiple infections in the following year.

My wife convinced me to do it but I was very conflicted internally. I ended up fine and still haven't had an infection, as far as I know.

My brother desisted and wore a mask all the time at work, he cought it once, maybe twice.

Whatever the results are in the end, the damage to people's trust in the government, pharmaceuticals, and media may never be repaired, pro or anti mRNA vaccine.

It's a real tragedy.

Re: Community Note correcting Musk’s anti-vax tweet mysteriously disappears

#120
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vaccine didn't stop transmission though so being vaccinated made no difference as to whether you were "endangering people" (you weren't, mostly) with a "deadly" (not unless morbidly obese or with other serious health issues) "crippling" (still unconfirmed) virus.

> ...being vaccinated made no difference as to whether you were "endangering people" Those parroting this point forget to mention that hospitals across the country were collapsing because of COVID-19 patient admissions.

I'd love to read a good analysis of how much the vaccine contributed vs the attrition among those more vulnerable, along with a look at the final vaccination demographics.

People are still so polarized though, I expect the really interesting information is a few years out until it's somewhat settled.

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