theincompetencetheorist
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User ID: 1270
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
Part of the reason that people are careful in answering is because of the elephant in the room. Elon is occasionally does really dumb stuff and people try to explain it with 4D-chess when in fact it is just him being an idiot. To be clear, he is not an idiot in everything, but he is not the smartest person either. My guess that he is slightly above average. The direct order of giving a blue check to anyone with an iPhone and $8 to spare, maybe he didn't think it through.
But my 4D-chess explanation: The reasons to destroy the blue checkmark are multiple. It carries too much power in turning off critical thinking and make bad tweets more notable than they actually are(Eli Lilly incident anyone, it is bullshit with that it raised awareness, campaigns around insulin price has been observed many times before). Also due to the extra blue checkmark functionality verified accounts have their echo chamber with the verified tab without the public able to correct bad takes.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
Well recent events at Twitter and reporting around those events has been really helpful for me to understand the forces at effect here. The whining and hand wringing is simply that "the establishment" lost the control of crown jewel social media as controlled medium. The establishment stopped being the power brokers of who is successful or not. The more we see things like you pointed out that politics disappeared in trending like this article. It simply means that they can't construct a commercial success with commanding attention alone. There is this whole history of Payola in the past and we are seeing it being repeated. We are seeing the corruption from Twitter now in plain sight with $15000 verification badges and the US government agencies getting a dashboard to prebunk stuff and mainstream media is not reporting about it because it is not important to report on their own corruption. It is not a culture war we are seeing but a corruption scandal unfolding painted desperately by the old power brokers as a culture war.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
Somewhere in the space of pure fabrication and twisting a verifiable fact to suit a narrative the truth ends and the lie starts. Is that splitting hairs and arguing semantics? Point still stands journalists that are drunk on their clout of their chosen echo chamber has the motive to outright lie and/or twist facts. Feel free to dismiss my analysis totally if you think it hinges on this claim. But my opinion on the matter is formed on the whole foreplay for the court case and found that the flexible relation with the truth that the journalists had. My conclusion is simple journalists feel that they have skin in the game with the Twitter deal and bias their reporting around it.
Just to point it out, I don't like Elon Musk, Twitter and Journalists either so I could be a bit biased. I couldn't care less what the outcome of this whole thing.
So the whole raison d'etre of writing journalists is the ability to express themselves with brevity in text. It is not a suprise that the social media platform that is built for the ability for brevity in text(140/280 characters) like writing journalist they feel that it is their space. Any perceived threat to their power like Elon Musk buying Twitter is something they are willing to put in a bad light. And when Elon tried to pull out(or get a price adjustment of some of the people think) it was still a threat to the perceived power of the journalist that there is a disproportional amount of "fake" users there and the image that journalist have of Twitter of as a center of cultural and political power, that is another issue that they want to adjust the optics on. Elon stated to the employees at while visiting the twitter HQ that he doesn't know where the 75% sacking comes from! So maybe there is a lie there somewhere and it is either Elon that actually said it and it was truthfully reported or there is an anonymous source who is lying, possibly even made up by fear-mongering journalist. Because almost everything we know about this deal is through the journalist lens to adjust the optics to keep them in power in their favorite social media platform.
So in my view it has very little to do with the politics or social panics du jour, but everything with who the actual power brokers are on Twitter namely journalists.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
One of the things that we need to address is that those who lament on the progressives' in general here are not everyone is a 'ostensible right winger' but some are people that sees something that they think is strange and/or important enough to take the time to write a post. Just by focusing on a particular issue we all elevate the importance of that issue in all dimensions and communicate it in that way, but outside of this space it doesn't matter to most people, maybe not even to the poster. It is a bias that is included in all posts, we have all taken the time to observe and focus on an issue enough to write a comment on it.
Maybe the prophecy is based on societal collapses in the past which informed people of where their society could be heading. In the past I've heard someone say that the Book of Revelations is only an allegory that the change of society comes after disease, war, famine and the fourth horseman is not death of people but of society. I'm trying to not overthink these things. But maybe there is a recurrence and a life cycle in societal development and we are reliving the conditions of so many before us and we can draw parallels as with this prophecy.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
There is also a dimension on the chilling effect on speech (in the sense of free speech ideal not law!) that saying the wrong thing can be punished this harsly. I'm starting to look at these things as a societal collapse of the "western hegemony" that 40 years ago was on the same page with the fiction of Salman Rushdie is undeserving of a fatwa, and now can't agree that he deserved the attack on him because he upset some peoples feelings. The Alex Jones stuff is almost the same thing, he goes on an insane tirade that is mostly fiction and is harshly punished for that fiction and I suspect that 40 years ago the majority would have gone "it is obvious that he is insane and the things he talks about is fiction so they are undeserving of the award".
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
Yes if some traditions have practical benefits it doesn't mean that all do. There are things done within companies that are superfluous that nobody knows why they are done, yet they are ingrained in the company culture that nobody dares to remove them. So why wouldn't that be in cultures that are much older? Not everything superfluous is removed from company culture and therefore it is likely that superfluous rituals stays in civilizational cultures that are usually much older!
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
Yes, but still you might not want to assume that the message of adding that to the script comes straight from the CIA. It might have been inserted for political reasons by politicians. It is not even unheard of today that media is changed for political reasons.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
Similarly, there is a vast bureaucratic behemoth that benefits from the Drug War continuing. Whole areas of law with specialized lawyers, myriad government task forces and agencies, lots of police work to be done, lots of political points to be scored by being "tough on drugs." The Drug War is a waste of resources if you only measure it's efficacy at keeping drugs out of the hands of Americans. But as a self-licking ice cream cone it's a highly effective.
This is the point I'm partly trying to make with the cancellation. Beneath the surface is that the "war on terror" is that the "establishment" (I have no better word for it) doesn't have an incentive for telling the story of the "redemption". So there critique of that the creator isn't the right skin color to tell the story of these people trying to reform themselves is not called out by the "establishment media" as bullshit because it would be against the lucrative paymasters interest to tell a different story of terrorists as misguided human beings.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
I tried to qualify it in my post the limited usefulness of torture to gather timely and accurate information from 1. innocent people who are not motivated and trained, so they will make shit up to avoid the torture. 2. Well trained and motivated "enemy combatant" that will mislead you deliberately and feigning that he might have "cracked" and telling truths. But as I wrote in the other reply it doesn't preclude other benefits of torture like spreading fear or gaining assets from the less motivated enemies.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
For me it is hard to believe that people were so stupid for such a long time and wasted time and resources doing it just for fun.
So sacrificing food and other resources to gods that there is no evidence for is not wasted time and resources that has been done for millenniums? All of the superstitions that people use to have that where disproved by science in one form another makes them valid again, because they were practiced for longer than it has been disproved.
There is a difference to say that torture doesn't work as interrogation tool compared to informing your enemy of your callousness so they fear you. I never claimed that torture was totally useless, I only claimed that it usefulness was limited for the innocent and the well motivated trained individual! But torture as a tool to strike fear in your enemy it might be effective.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
Yes reading that gives food for my ordinary bias whenever I see cancellations. The usual it is the elites dunking on the working class. I was trying to avoid it with my reasoning and it is the same old story as we've seen for the last 8 years that I've been aware of the phenomena.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
There is a long history of e.g. the US Navy lending "production assistance" to TV series like JAG and NCIS . I have no proof of a such link but is it not a possibility that such a link exist given that the military-industrial complex has supported movies and TV series with the "correct" message in the past?
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
I think you're missing the simple fact that torture scenes are incredibly dramatic.
No, I'm positing that torture was included to "manufacture consent" in a similar way that the series contained rationalizations of mass surveillance to not get upset at the politicians when they continued to vote through continuation of "war on terror" policy that was eroding their liberties. I'm a total outsider of US-politics and culture in many ways. It is schadenfreude when the Jan 6 republicans got their names in the no fly list that was rammed through by republican politicians in the "war on terror".
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
I recently came across this little quillette article. https://quillette.com/2022/10/14/sundance-succumbs-to-social-panic/ where a film of jihadist rehabilitation is cancelled for being "islamophobic". Part of it as I read in the situation is that is a "white woman" is trying to sell the idea that one can be deprogrammed from ideological capture. I suspect that there is a deeper reason (which I can't prove) that we shouldn't go around believing that extremists can be redeemed or deprogrammed. This includes of course that there is no redemption arc for right-wing white nationalist extremists.
As an outsider to US politics I was fascinated by the apparatus of US media to "manufacturing of consent" to fighting terrorism of the evil jihadists with things like "enhanced interrogation techniques" a.k.a. torture. There is a whole TV-series produced to skew the narrative that torture is effective way to combat terror, despite that there being ample evidence that people being tortured will eventually make shit up to avoid being tortured. Also properly motivated persons can withstand extraordinary amounts of pain and delay the divulging of useful intel to the interrogator. So it is not an effective way of gathering information about impending attacks, because motivated and trained people can delay, lie or do anything in between to fulfill their goals and innocent people will probably just make something up to make the torture stop by guessing what the interrogator wants to hear. Yet we have multiple seasons of 24 to implant the idea that torture is effective. The critique of that show is that it was "islamophobic" because it painted the jihadist as an unredemptive terrorists.
I find it fascinating that less than a couple of decades ago the right thought that extremists where irredeemable from their idealogical capturing, but now the left is touting similar reasoning with white supremacists and throws jihadist redemption under the bus, in the same breath.
Being principled would imply consistency and you yourself noted that the inconsistency with regards of CoC vs Coq. It is the same thing as pro-life activists murdering people. Actions speak louder than words. Just because they say that they are principled on 'Inclusion' with regards of GitHub projects, then they start to argue for exclusion of viewpoints that aren't distinctly North American. And looking at the behavior, actual inclusion doesn't matter to them, the results of the projects doesn't matter to them, hard work doesn't matter to them, contributing useful stuff doesn't matter to them. What does matter to these people? Nihilism pure and simple they don't value anything except their own viewpoint.
edit: To point out to other people just because that the github complainers happen to be "leftist" doesn't mean that similar phenomena doesn't exist on the right. I've seen plenty of people from the right being equally indifferent to the outcomes of their activism thus the example of "pro-life" murderers.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
Well the point why I think it is nihilistic is the fact the name change hasn’t happened in year since the wiki page was authored. Not even the complainer believes the name is important enough to follow up on it.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
Well it is not a perfect argument by me. I’ve replied earlier that this also a slight push of the use language to get responses where I can try move my understanding of the issues forward. If I’m out of line I’ll happily take my punishment.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
I’m mostly pushing the “rhetorical envelope” to get responses that might enlighten me of my flaws in my views. It seems I found the boundary and be more careful going forward. Didn’t want to edit away after one complaint more try to clarify.
So the formal proof managment system Coq is going to change its name any day now to use a less sexist name. Oh they have been in a naming committee for over a year now! https://github.com/coq/coq/wiki/Alternative-names
I've witnessed so many of these where a complaint is lodged in the issue tracker over something without more reason that something in the "project" is problematic and not inclusive in some way. It is just simple wording or including a CoC(note the acronym for Code of Conduct) . It is not consistent or helping the project in a meaningful way to be more inclusive.
I witnessed the eton project get piled on for its original name of “coon” without fully explaining to the project author what the problem is, just assuming that the author is American.
How about this a German guy complaining to the Italian about the usage of master/slave internally in the Italian guys project, which is quite popular.
All of these examples take no concern in that there are consequences to the things that they are wanting to change. Because changing stuff other than adding a CoC could possibly break stuff or make a casual user not finding it again.
As for race-swapping a character is in some contexts possibility to break immersion. In a similar way not valuing the consumer of the thing that they want change only thinking of their own sensibilities.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
"Why are leftists performatively upset? Surely it must imply a lack of real values."
Yeah there are perpetually offended on the other side of the political spectrum that are equally nihilistic. Those nihilist got upset with the Lizzo twerking with a crystal flute they didn't know existed until the video showed up. I only imply leftist in the subsequent paragraphs and not in the first one. Thus the other reply saying that I'm waging a culture war. But I don't believe that it is a single group that is offended because of their lack of values but many groups and of many political persuasions.
Regardless of the accuracy of your observations, the analysis is on shaky grounds. I'm inclined to give Dostoyevsky some credence; I'd like to see more legwork for your interpretation.
You mean that I need to dig up the literary analysis I read that inspired me to read Notes of the Underground? It made the connection of nihilism with offence of something imagined slight almost treated as a game by the perpetrator. I read it so long ago but that quote has stuck with me. Values, created, lack of, and/or passed on from a higher power are a central theme to his works in general.
theincompetencetheorist
3yr ago
I'll be more mindful with the rhetoric going forward. The move from reddit is a part of the culture war, although might be a skirmish but it is a clash of values. That is a part of my comment of that the move is already done so there is no more fighting remaining of that battle of "values". I'm not calling for any further action from anyone more than knowing that what I view the move away from reddit was.
Isn’t this consensus building?
how is it consesus building? I can modify my comment to clarify...
Sweeping generalizations of the outgroup
What outgroup? There is a sweeping generalization but not a specific group you could point to. Or is "those in power" and my description of the many groups of offendacons present on twitter made into a single group?
And that what I've seen in other comments out there that 4D chess used in a disparaging way. Because we don't know how much intent exactly there is of this particular result. Of course it is a speculative way of reasoning of it.
Another way to reason for what happened here is that he is running experiments and don't take predictions on consequences because he believes that managements structure are afraid of change. It needs to play out to see what happens what works and what doesn't. "Elon Musk said Tuesday that he shut down a new verification program on Twitter just hours after it launched, saying the platform would “do lots of dumb things” in the coming months to see what is successful as the company tries to capture much-needed revenue, including potentially offering payment processing on the platform."
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