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naraburns  nihil supernum  16d ago (text post)   26868 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

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I agree with @Dean about "Democratic over-reliance on media shaping", but want to take it in a different direction. I don't have the numbers to hand (EDIT: I do now), but I saw an exit poll showing a staggeringly-huge swing among the under-30s - Gen Z, who are extremely online. And what happened online in the past four years? Elon Musk bought Twitter, which shattered SJ's consensus-astroturfing operation; up until then, they'd been seeing a false SJ consensus created by banning everyone who spoke out, but now they see something closer to reality. And I think that gave... call it "social permission" to not vote Democrat; SJ can no longer gaslight them into thinking that voting Republican is lonely dissent.

they'd been seeing a false SJ consensus created by banning everyone who spoke out, but now they see something closer to reality

This statement seems crazy to me. If there was an SJW consensus prior to Elon, all the same mechanisms and all the same incentives exist to create an equally false right-wing consensus. If your response is going to be, "well, my side is actually right!" then you're isomorphic to an SJW.

If your response is going to be, "well, my side is actually right!" then you're isomorphic to an SJW.

Regardless of what Musk does or does not do with Twitter, he cannot create a false consensus by himself, because he doesn't own Alphabet (including Google Search and YouTube), Meta (including Facebook and Instagram), Reddit, or Hollywood (or TikTok, but lol TikTok's a Chinese op and will push whatever's most destructive). Most of these people consume at least one of those.

My point is that having all of the major platforms do the same censorship (and Hollywood and the most-respected legacy media push the same line) creates a false consensus effect.

I understand your point better now-- you're talking about global (across the internet) rather than local (on twitter) consensus. I still disagree with it, but that's because I don't think a consensus ever existed. facebook and whatsapp have been notorious for right-wing behavior for a while, and of course reddit and twitter got trump elected in 2016. Andrew Tate and the manosphere have been popular on youtube for quite a while too.

or TikTok, but lol TikTok's a Chinese op and will push whatever's most destructive

This is true.

If there was an SJW consensus prior to Elon, all the same mechanisms and all the same incentives exist to create an equally false right-wing consensus.

Okay. Show the high-engagement Progressive accounts being banned from X through arbitrary application of platform rules. That's the mechanism that dominated prior to Elon, so according to you it should be the mechanism dominating under Elon.

Likewise, community notes didn't exist prior to Elon, and are a significant improvement to the function of the platform.

Show the high-engagement Progressive accounts being banned from X through arbitrary application of platform rules.

I'm sure that regardless of whether censorship is actually happening, I could do that. It wouldn't be proof either way, because anecdotes aren't data-- and similarly, any proof of twitter's previous institutional leftist bent is subject to the same fuzziness. That's why I'm referring to mechanisms and incentives. The actual, technological infrastructure of the site either does or doesn't allow for systematically influencing public opinion. The owner of the site either is or isn't incentivised to use it for that purpose-- and either is or isn't empowered to incentivise their subordinates to do the same. Everything else is downstream of that. Either twitter has always been and still is pushing a particular viewpoint, or it never was and still isn't.

The left has become too dogmatic to be appealing. When each comment has to be approved by committee it becomes hard to be adaptive, participate in podcasts or even have humor. There was a post yesterday about how Tucker was talk about UFOs being demons. There are probably lots of people in the left with equally far out ideas but they don't say them because the self censorship is much stronger.

The left not doing long format podcasts isn't just an American phenomenon, it is noticeable here in Europe as well. Their speech is too curated allow effective campaigning. It also makes them rigid and slow to adapt. Boomers with though control won't attract young people.

SJ?

Social justice?

Steve Jobs, a lá Metal Gear Solid 2?

Social Justice.

Yes, yes, I know most people here refer to that movement as "woke". I don't like using that word. You can, indeed, search theMotte and find that it only shows up in my posts before now as direct quotes. As for why: part of it's that the time when I was semi-on-board with said movement was back when "social justice" was still the usual term. The greater part is that I'm an Australian linguistic snob, and "woke" is grammatically-incorrect African-American slang - i.e. a vulgar term from a demographic that doesn't even significantly exist in my country - so I consider it inherently cultural contamination and also beneath me. I suppose that makes me...

...a Grammar Nazi.

I assume they meant social justice.

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