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A multi media push for Bluesky is happening today.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Bluesky&iar=news&ia=news
Currently listening to BBC radio news with guests talking about "is X over?" To their credit the host is offering some criticism of the move and the possible motives.
Is X over? Is this push organic, or coordinated? Are journalists helping contribute to a more positive platform, or are they running away to a hugbox in an effort to punish Elon Musk for supporting Donald Trump?
I don't have much to say but I thought this was worth a post given these platforms' centrality to the internet culture war and its synergies with journalism. For my part I've always thought Twitter was shit, is shit, and will remain shit, and the same goes for any copycats adopting the same format. I lament the drop off of RSS, which suffered from terrible branding/awareness. I didn't understand the value of RSS until it was already in decline, dismissing it as just more icon clutter below a standard format blogpost next to Facebook, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us and send-to-email share links.
Twitter's rise began with journalists hailing it as the beginning of "citizen journalism", plateaued with it becoming a journalism circlejerk of mutual citationogenics they could profitably mine for clickbait from the comfort of their pillows with no need to undertake difficult tasks like research and real world reportage, and is now being abandoned as those same citizen journalists have increasingly turned against the professional journalist class who lauded them. Reap what you sow, Frankenstein's monster, the student has become the master, etc...
Is it a coincidence this is happening on a Friday night? Sunday night is the typical slot for setting a news agenda for the week, but something like Bluesky might be more suited to a weekend when people would be settling down to a relaxing night of shitposting.
I joined Bluesky yesterday out of curiosity. I haven’t stopped using Twitter, nor am I planning to at this time, but I’ll be posting on Bluesky, whereas I pretty much exclusively lurk on Twitter. Bluesky seems to be trying to optimize for a more amiable, relaxed experience, and hopefully the lack of chuds brigading people’s posts to call them Jewish faggots will contribute to that goal.
I have become acutely aware of my own radicalization as of late, and honestly I think it would be beneficial for me - both socially and intellectually - to reacclimate myself with intelligent libs, and to attempt honest and mutually-open-minded dialogue with them. I can do that here on The Motte, but the extreme selection effects and barriers to entry here mean that I’m not getting a lot of exposure to what actually-existing normie liberals and left-centrists are saying amongst themselves. I’ve already followed some arts- and gaming-related content creators on Bluesky, and my hope is that it will not just turn into a rebirth of pre-Elon Twitter where all of my favorite celebrities churn out 24/7 liberal outrage-posting.
That being said, on my very first day on Bluesky, some random rotund they/them woman apparently found my inaugural post briefly explaining why I voted for Trump, and the following exchange occurred:
So yes, some libs are very obviously planning for Bluesky to be a progressive hugbox where the left gets to regain complete ironclad control of the discourse, including leftists just being able to straight-up fedpost at people, in a way they’d never want RWers to get away with.
That said, I’m going to try and stick it out and see what I can contribute to conversations. If this exhange had happened on Twitter, as soon as she made her comment about “we can carry as well” I would have just made a mean-spirited joke about how I feel bad for the poor schmucks who have to try and carry her. I’m trying to be on my best behavior on Bluesky, though, and to use it as though Twitter had Motte-level expectations of charity and genteel discourse. Basically trying to recreate the vibe of in-person SSC/rationalist meet-ups back when I used to attend them, but with the added wrinkle that at least some moderately important content creators and companies are also there.
If you wish to avoid radicalization, wouldn't it be best to stay away from social media entirely? Or you can think for yourself like I do (this will likely put you out of sync with most people, but you will have a sane view on things)
By the way, that person clearly had nothing of value to offer you. She's some brand of mentally unwell (I'd say stupid, but she seems lucid and I don't notice any typos). There may be people worth interacting with on that site, but I think it's a bit cruel to yourself to interact with somebody that you know will waste your time and treat you badly, and giving them the benefit of doubt.
I've only seen Bluesky on Japanese Twitter so far, so I thought it was Japanese, in which case it would be somewhat safe from a political takeover. But now that I Google it, it seems like it's American. I'd recommend you don't get too attached to the site (in other words, mentally tag your account as throwaway so that leaving or getting banned won't affect you too badly in the future)
I don’t think that you actually can get away from social media entirely. But more to the point, I think beyond a certain level, interactions with media in general is probably not good for you simply because you’re interacting with news and opinions of other people all the time and thus imbibing the thoughts and opinions and agendas of other people all the time.
For most purposes, I think getting your news once a day in less than half an hour is really the maximum I’d recommend. And as far as social media, again, doing less is better. The thing is, that back in the dinosaur ages before 24 hour news cycles and social media, people didn’t obsess about politics. Sure if you wanted you could listen to Rush Limbaugh in your car for an hour a day. And because of that politics wasn’t seen as a major part of anyone’s life and thus it didn’t “trigger” people. There was no wailing and gnashing of teeth when Reagan won in 1980. Hell, I don’t think most people cared all that much about Nixon. Watergate was seen as a bad thing, but people hadn’t yet turned politics into a lifestyle so Nixon was important, sure, but people were more interested in watching MASH or sports or playing with the kids or whatever else was going on.
I personally think even politics themselves would vastly improve if people weren’t interested in it. Compromise and doing the job aren’t sexy parts of politics, but they’re why things actually get done. It can’t happen when everyone is watching all the time and commenting and so on. The best way for almost any government to run is in semi darkness where backroom dealing and horse trading can happen, and where people can make decisions for the good of the country without the proles interfering. Name any issue and I guarantee that it’s possible to come to a solution that would work, but that the general public would see as betrayal.
You probably can't escape social media easily, but you can escape politics. Which, by the way, feels fantastic and like being back in the past.
I think that news and media is psychologically unhealthy. If anything is important enough, you will hear of it anyway. If you really want to watch news, I suppose there's these "neutral, all-sides, unbiased" news sites, but I trust them about as much as I trust "debunkers" and "fact-checkers", which are 1984 ministry of truth levels of insanity to me. I cannot take authorities on truth seriously, it's a dumb concept in a way which one cannot help but notice if they think about it a little.
And I agree, it's like taking something too seriously hinders ones ability to think about it clearly.
I think it’s possible to curtail must social media, unless you are in some way using it for business. And I’m not really saying “get rid of it, don’t use it” about any news outlet or social media platform. I’m suggesting as far as any media goes, try to keep it between the parameters of what would have been possible before the era of phones in the pocket. Which would have been something like a half hour to an hour of news a day (or one daily newspaper). And for social media, unless you’re self employed and using social media for business (and in that case, then stick to talking about business) then, again, an hour or two a day is plenty to know enough of what’s happening in that sphere to keep you mostly caught up. Beyond that, there’s really no need.
Neutral news is impossible. Every news source has at least some bias. On the other hand, if you stick to a source or two you know well. It should be a known bias that you can adjust for. USA Today leans liberal. We know this. So you can adjust for it. Daily Wire is conservative, and again, you can adjust to it. But the alternative of connecting directly to a firehouse for information is just going to take the news and blow it out of proportion to its actual importance. Trump is picking a cabinet right now. It’s not that important to most people. Spending four hours a day reading about it obsessively even though the6 might not even get confirmed is not helping anyone.
I see. I suppose that's just my own view, then. Sure, you can reduce your media consumption to what it was in the past, such that you get what used to be a healthy and even useful level of information. However, I do not believe that a low amount is healthy nor useful anymore. Media is not trustworthy anymore, it's not honest, it does not cover issues that I consider to be important, it does not transmit information in a useful manner. I think it has gotten so bad that it's literally worse than nothing. What you say about being able to adjust for bias, is true. But any work we consume will rub off on us, it will change how we think, how we use language, what we focus on, and how we view the world. Social movements are nonsense (their success is only possible when they're not needed. Feminism can only succeed in socities which discriminate against men. If a movement gets public support, then the public cannot also be against that movement, it's a contradition) This is true for countless of issues. How are people not noticing that nothing makes any sense? Have you never read an old book written by somebody actually intelligent, and felt yourself slowly waking up and regaining the ability to think? So that once you return to the garbage you consumed previously, you immediately see through everything wrong with it? We're tricked into entertaining wrong questions, and focusing on issues which don't exist. We try to win arguments, but don't even notice that the very definitions and oppositions are flawed.
Neutral news is only impossible for us, the consumers. It's not that they couldn't just report facts if they wanted to, for them it would be easy. But it's not where the money is, and it seems like everything just flows in the direction of money now, and that individual people have very little control over anything. Like money is a force of nature. It also feels like "quality" is losing to "quantity" more and more in ROI. Something kept this at bay in the past, probably taste and high standards
The first question is how trustworthy it ever was. I’m not convinced it’s worse now than it was, in fact the sheer diversity of sources available does a pretty good job of keeping the press honest because if the majority of the news slants left, it’s now trivially easy to start one that corrects the bias. And once you add in press from other countries to the mix, we probably have news at least as accurate as any other point in history.
But second, the point is to consume less news, and perhaps be more choosy about it. Because at the end of the day, outside of very prominent elites, our actual influence over events is minimal and more than likely counterproductive. It’s not necessary to follow news to the point of insanity (there have already been two murders attributed to the victory of Donald Trump and his effect on liberals’ minds) if the best you can hope for is to maybe sometimes getting a jolt of dopamine because some conservative stuck it to a liberal (or vice versa). The juice isn’t worth the squeeze, especially as it gets harder and harder to tell the difference between outright propaganda designed to make you hate an out group and news that just so happens to make the ourgroup look bad. Why is it necessary to be reading hours of news? Does it help you live better? From r my money, I just scan the headlines of Google News, and while I’m sure I’m not super informed, I’m not missing anything much. I’m also in a much more sane headspace than the people drinking from the information firehouse and placing more importance on a given news story than it actually deserves.
I’ll make exceptions if the issue n question affects me, someone I actually care about, or is a cause I’m involved in. But 99% of the news isn’t that at all. It’s international news that doesn’t affect me and that I can’t do anything about. It’s court intrigues that are entertaining but not important. Or sometimes it’s important stuff. The important stuff you’ll definitely hear about one way or another. People will talk about it,
I generally agree with everything you wrote, but I wouldn't limit myself to just trustworthiness. I think there's a sort of "brainrot" quality to modern news which is independent of truthfulness. A lot of articles are "watch this silly video" or "guy does whacky thing". That's news exploiting other psychological needs, which is a bad direction to go in, because you end up with people optimizing only for the thing which triggers rewards in the brain, without the substance. Instead of news which are also interesting, we're getting interesting things which aren't news. This is like selling lootboxes without the videogames, or sugar without the food, or fanservice without the story.
By the way, I seem to remember journalists being people who put their lives on the line in order to fight against corruption (that it was almost an admirable job to have). It seems like the news are now owned by those who are corrupt, though, causing a disconnect with the average viewer. One of the causes is that the scope (size/range) of news media is too big. Decentralized news for every local area is superior to everyone reading the exact same set of global news. And to large companies, we're just numbers on a spreadsheet, so the human element is lost. This is a another kind of disconnect, and honest news alone cannot make up for it (objectivity and empathy are different after all) Anyway, a small sphere of concern is essential to psychological health, most of the mental health problems lately can be attributed to people who worry about far-away things while neglecting what's near to them (like themselves and their family, factors which are actually within their ability to influence or control).
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