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Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

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Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#881

Post by EarlKing »

TuringTest wrote: post #786
EarlKing wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...except they don't do that. This is no different than Reddit's own policies on spam and self-promotion. You're expected to use the site for discussion and building community, not directing people elsewhere. If the latter is your goal then you can pay for advertising. What's changed here is that people who previously were given free reign to promote themselves without paying a dime are now being told they need to pa…

Well I find hard to sympathize with the people saying that horrible abuse will not be moderated because "free speech", yet mentioning the fact that you use other social media apps will get your account banned as "unpaid self-promotion". It doesn't inspire confidence in that their previous stance was truly motivated by their love of the unrestricted diffusion of ideas.

> horrible abuse

Every time someone mentions this I ask for examples, and generally all I ever receive in reply are examples of people disagreeing with them. I begin to think that those who shout about 'abuse' are incensed that those they formerly silenced by bending the rules are now using those rules against them, particularly to voice their legitimate opinions, and they're using their institutional power elsewhere to try to tank Twitter as a result.

In short: I know full well that this has nothing to do with free speech arguments and everything to do with institutional actors being incensed that they can't use Twitter as their own propaganda institution anymore. I won't pretend that Elon is a friend of the proletariat, but I'm also not going to pretend that those opposing him somehow are either. This is a slap fight between two groups of bourgeoisie, and petit bourgeoisie actors are trying to convince everyone else it's some sort of fight for liberty, justice, mom and apple pie. Utter nonsense.

In the end, some of you are going to have to accustom yourselves to the idea that you are not gatekeepers of public forums, the people have interests that do not coincide with your own, and no amount of force or fraud is going to change that. Don't like it? Learn to code, I guess.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#882

Post by justbored123 »

conradfr wrote: post #527
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #2

It's interesting to see these tech influencers and their lag time on giving Elon the benefit of the doubt before they've had enough. Will Elon ever have a "coming to jesus moment" and realize that he's alienated so many of his peers that he is, in fact, in the wrong? Or is he so delusional that he really does believe he has the answers?

He's probably wrong but "previous Twitter" was not right either. It's funny how "Twitter is a private company they can kick who they want from their platform" is suddenly not so popular over the crowd that used to parrot it. Hypocrites from every side, unsurprisingly. Anyway, I can't believe his grand idea for Twitter was the botched "Twitter Blue", and the next version doesn't seem to make sense either.

No post body was provided.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#883

Post by PartiallyTyped »

asabjorn wrote: post #768
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, he has called two people paedophiles, an ex twitter employ, and a diver. The ex employee left his home as he received death threats. By all means, I am holding Elon responsible for this. Here is the reasoning: 1. Either he is too stupid to understand the power he yields, and therefore should not yield it, or 2. He knows and does not care about anyone other than Elon, or 3. He knows and did it on purpose. Hanlon…

The former Twitter head of trust and safety Elon called pedo in his PhD thesis argued grindr should accommodate underage queer youth on their platform. Arguably, that’s creepy. Also, he did not act upon child porn on Twitter while as the Twitter files show he was perfectly capable of acting upon legal speech.

> Also, he did not act upon child porn on Twitter while as the Twitter files show he was perfectly capable of acting upon legal speech.

Did the twitter files contain info about active Honeypots?

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#884

Post by hermitcrab »

noelsusman wrote: post #563
pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

Calling somebody like Elon eccentric is political correctness for rich, powerful people. It's a polite way of calling him a crazy asshole.

Rich and deranged = eccentric

Poor and deranged = mad

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#885

Post by _djo_ »

kjksf wrote: post #660
_cenw wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't an achievement for SpaceX. Lots of very talented people wanted to work on space based on passion alone. It just came down to providing funding at a time space privatization was an uncertain venture. Compare to Neuralink mostly being a failure.

No one wanted to work at SpaceX initially. It took Musk's persistence and ability to sell a vision to hire first employees. And yes, also money. But just money gives you Blue Origin, not SpaceX. It took SpaceX many years and a few rockets blowing up before they had first successful lunch so what you expect Neuralink to have achieved by now? They're making progress. Let's revisit the "Neuarlink is a failure" 10 years…

The role of Mike Griffin in helping Musk set up SpaceX and source the right people, and then steering NASA support his way can’t be ignored though. Without that it’s almost certain it wouldn’t exist now.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#886

Post by AgentME »

onryowave wrote: post #880
fallingknife wrote: post #836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gleeful cruelty? Really? That's quite an overstatement for a bit of social media drama.

he replied to paulg's tweet about leaving the website with laughing emojis after banning him he's only doing it to be an asshole at this point

Sure you didn't see a fake screenshot meme? I haven't been able to find anyone else talking about that, I couldn't find that on Elon's twitter replies page, and Elon just tweeted that he's reversing the ban (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604616426114932737) which I'm not sure tracks with him posting exactly like that. (Not trying to defend him at all, just trying to keep a handle on what exactly it is he's doing.)

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#887

Post by whoisthisguy »

pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

Yes. Just happened.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604616863673208832

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#888

Post by cmatthias »

systemvoltage wrote: post #781
cmatthias wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still think Elon is a smart guy. > Plus I don't think he realizes that the techniques that work for cars and rockets don't work in social media. Given his behavior and the results over the last ~month or however long he's owned Twitter, how can both of these possibly be true?

My prediction is that Elon will realize how badly he is fucking up things and change. I was listening to All-in-podcast and there was a really good comment that was made - "He[Elon] needs to just get back to landing rockets on barges" which I agree, moderating and micromanaging a massive social media platform doesn't feel like a good use of his time. Edit: annnnd he reversed the whole thing and apologized: https://tw…

Wow, what an absolute moron. If this is how he runs his other companies, it’s amazing anyone stays for more than a month.

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#889

Post by pySSK »

pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

> Plus I don't think he realizes that the techniques that work for cars and rockets don't work in social media.

How do you reconcile this with

> I still think Elon is a smart guy

Re: Paul Graham is leaving Twitter for now

#890

Post by dan-robertson »

_cenw wrote: post #599
pg wrote: post #350

I'm not leaving Twitter. It seems more likely than not that Elon will reverse the ban on links to other social media sites. I just don't want to hang out there in the meantime. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn about alternatives. I still think Elon is a smart guy. His work on cars and rockets speaks for itself. Nor do I think he's the villain a lot of people try to make him out…

SpaceX has talented people working there despite Elon, not because of him. They supposedly have an entire handbook on "managing Elon" for deflecting his weird requests and framing things in a way that doesn't provoke his ire. They put up with it because they only have so many opportunities to work on space. Twitter has people dependent on their H-1B and very few true believers that are unfit to serve in their role. E…

I’ve heard about people depending on Twitter for visa sponsorship but I don’t think I’ve seen any firsthand accounts. Is it actually happening? I’ve also heard that people who work for (or were fired from) twitter were deluged with job offers despite it not being a great time for hiring (so my guess is that people on H1-B visas could find sponsorship elsewhere)

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some people are staying for risk-aversion reasons but I feel like most people are there because:

- they actually like Elon or believe in the future of Twitter under different management

- they see it as an opportunity for career growth (you can have proportionally larger impact on the business; fewer senior positions at the company; they will likely hire more people soon, just not at salaries that are effectively inflated by Elon’s purchase)

- they correctly infer that they would be in a worse position if they moved to some other firm. (I think most people thinking this underestimate themselves, however)

It seems like it could be possible for employees to have a big impact on the platform or the business. It also seems like the whole thing could go up in flames. I don’t really know how bad it is to be associated with a site that goes up. I guess not that bad for job prospects for an average employee, especially if they got to learn about putting out fires / many more parts of the system than an average big tech employee. But then experience hacking in minimal fixes to keep mountains of software going perhaps isn’t going to teach you as much as properly understanding and improving fewer systems and making more changes that will have impact over a longer timescale.

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