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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 18, 2024

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In conclusion, for the moderates and centrists: Your signal is jammed, and only extremism will be boosted on either twitter or bluesky.

Musk is pretty much the platonic idea of a centrist, no ?

Sick of the bots and echo chamber that X has become

The Indians are annoying, but to me the bots are just noise. I tune it out. Big accounts are pointless, but .. echo chamber? Go somewhere outside of your immediate circle and you find entirely different people.

Musk is an eccentric right winger in todays spectrum.

Another way to put it is that the definition of "right wing" has expanded to contain even people like Musk, Rogan and Gabbard.

Musk and Rogan have legitimately embraced some conservative views, even if mostly on the libertarian end.

Doubtless. But I think a big part of how that happened is them being labeled "right wing" and cast out by their erstwhile compatriots on the left. From personal experience, being "thrown in the pit" invites a lot of reflection and re-evaluation about one's views.

Uh, no. He’s jumped pretty hard on whatever populist-right memes are floating around Twitter.

Musk is by no means a centrist, he has actively campaigned as a partisan this election in order to secure a position for himself in the Trump ecosystem. He may have some kooky ideas that do not align with the rest of the Republican base but he has entirely abandoned the 'centre' position one could have argued he held years ago in favour of one side of the political spectrum.

... because the other side called him a doge before they had a cause; if he is a doge, beware his fanges. (wow. very revenge plot. which caskete choose? argument much clever.)

I don't understand at all what you're trying to convey with this comment other than the first part.

After carefully curating my feed and lists I pretty much never see any content I find completely distasteful and I also get a smattering of opposing views that aren't stark raving mad.

I kind of hate the site as a general rule, but it's less bad than virtually all the competing options. Facebook is boomers and slop, LinkedIn is strivers, grifters, and awkward corporate copy, Instagram is distilled narcissism. Reddit is... reddit. Twitter is, I think, the closest to the ideal of the public square where large scale discourse actually happens.

Pick your poison.