This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Does anyone have a good model for Elon's thought process here? I do not see him deriving any satisfaction from his current role at Twitter.
Investing effort as the CEO of a Social media product seems like a big step down from being known as a Tech Entrepreneur in the Electric vehicle or commericial Space aviation space.
Getting into fist fights on Twitter trying to squeeze non advertising revenue from a social media product seems like the least interesting and the most self-defeating thing to do. The general population is now accustomed to getting Social media for "free". It's a losing battle to make them pay for it with the glut of other "free" options.
Epistemic status- Confident: I think he originally bought Twitter because he thought it was a morally good thing to do, that he would bring back free speech, even though it'll be at a small cost to him because the return on investment would be lower than if he just kept his 55 billion in Tesla stock. But when he bought Twitter, it caused advertisers to flee, because they don't want the bad PR of being associated with free speech Twitter. Elon realized he massively over paid for Twitter, and has since been scrambling to make Twitter remotely profitable, and not go the way of Tumblr after Yahoo bought it for $1.1 billion and sold it for 3 million.
Epistemic status- I think this is true but I'm far from sure: I also think he gets caught up in internet arguments and drama the same way lots of normal people do. Lots of people share memes and get into pointless arguments on the internet. Elon is the same, but just has far from eyes on him than anyone else. He's probably relatively unbothered by the abuse that gets most celebrities to stop getting into constant culture wars. Also, he knows that his tweets going viral from people hating him still gets Twitter views and in the news cycle, so him saying something dumb often earns him more money than him saying something smart, at least in the short term.
Also, I don't think trying to turn Twitter into a subscription model is a bad idea. Ads, even when your site isn't blacklisted by a lot of advertising companies, pay very very little. If he can get even a very small fraction of users to subscribe, it can easily out earn advertising. For example, Tumblr introduced their own parody checkmarks(you get 2 for $8!) after Twitter start selling them, and the Tumblr app gained $263,000 in consumer spending since the paid verification scheme was launched, which amounts to a 125 percent boost in iOS in-app revenue(https://mashable.com/article/tumblr-twitter-blue-tick-revenue). Which is a pretty massive amount for a joke.
And my guess is Twitter will make a lot more than 263k per month on check marks.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link