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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29265 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Elon Musk has suspended a slew of liberal journalists and pundits from Twitter. It is, as Benjamin Braddoc puts it, a red wedding for the liberal establishment. I initially believed that he was just the "controlled" opposition of the deep state, obviously he's stepped on way too many toes for that. This imo underscores an important truth to the ultra principled who believe in free speech absolutism and neutral institutions, the overton window won't shift the other way just to punish the "heretics" who've assailed this sacred virtue. Social media, our Frankenstein, has made it insanely easier for mob rule to influence culture (not that it wasn't already).

I still don't believe we're witnessing complete course reversal, but this could just be the first legitimate W for the right.

EDIT: It looks like he's lifting the suspension.

Definitely the biggest W for the right since Trump. If Elon can succeed in bringing "the press are regime shills, institutions are all controlled by progressives, progressives only care about who/whom" to the mainstream, then a lot of the hard work is done. All these institutions have going for them is credibility. Once it's gone, it doesn't come back.

How is this a W? What part of banning liberal journalists is a W? Was their credibility somehow based on not getting banned from Twitter?

When someone high-status like Elon Musk tweets "That is because The New York Times has become, for all intents and purposes, an unregistered lobbying firm for far left politicians," it hurts their credibility.

No, it hurts Musk's credibility. The NYTs credibility is unassailable.

To echo what I said to @pointsandcorsi, I an amused by the implication that the NYT has credibility to assail.

I think it illustrates how different our worlds are, you're always here acting like "Epstien didn't kill himself" and "the NYT are a bunch of partisan hacks" are whacky, out-there, Alex Jones-tier takes when in my experience they are the popular consensus. I know you live in Manhattan but every time you make one of these comments I find myself biting back the urge to ask if you've actually met anyone who isn't a registered democrat or under the age of 70?

The NYT has credibility because they are among the definers of credibility. The truth doesn't matter; if you go against the NYT you're automatically wrong, among anyone who counts. Think of it like the BATF and machine guns. Sure, you know that a shoelace isn't a machine gun and I know a shoelace isn't a machine gun, but if the BATF says a shoelace is a machine gun it is, and anyone with a shoelace is liable for prosecution. And the prosecutors will prosecute and the judge will go along and so will the higher courts and no amount of pointing out that it's a shoelace will save you from jail time. And to add insult to injury, if and when all this commences, all those law-n-order conservatives who agreed that indeed a shoelace was not a machine gun will say "Well, what did you expect? You knew a shoelace was a machine gun, BATF said so." They don't actually believe a shoelace is a machine gun, but they believe in institutions and the institutions said it was.

Same with the NYT. What they say is truth will be taken as truth, by anyone who matters. Even if it's patently ridiculous.

And the prosecutors will prosecute and the judge will go along and so will the higher courts and no amount of pointing out that it's a shoelace will save you from jail time. And to add insult to injury, if and when all this commences, all those law-n-order conservatives who agreed that indeed a shoelace was not a machine gun will say "Well, what did you expect? You knew a shoelace was a machine gun, BATF said so."

Somehow I suspect that it is hyperbole and not what you actually believe, but I am not really sure.

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Why? He doesn't seem to be saying anything unreasonable.

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