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non_radical_centrist  1yr ago (astralcodexten.com)   2453 thread views

Book Review: Elon Musk[Scott Alexander]

astralcodexten.com

Scott Alexander’s review of a 2015 biography of Elon Musk. Elon Musk, to me, is one of the world’s most confusing people. He’s simultaneously both one of the smartest people in the world, creating billions of dollars of value in companies like Tesla and SpaceX, and one of the dumbest, in burning billions on Twitter. Scott’s review I think is a good explanation of what’s up with Musk.

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"Quashed by twitter" was your wording in response to someone else stating that Twitter now magnifies right-wing memes more. If "quashed" does imply active action, then that's your mistake; the point we are discussing (and the point you responded to) is whether boycotts have started working better now that Twitter is more neutral.

The discussion is how important Twitter was in suppressing right-wing boycotts. Whether you want to point to human moderation or tweaks to the algorithm, you're still talking about ascribing agency to Twitter. My point stands.

An enormous change to the algorithm was changing who gets the blue checks. The group with blue checks (and therefore much more reach) is now much more conservative than it was before. This obviously leads to many right-wing memes such as boycotts having more spread than they did before.

Assuming this is true, it still wouldn't get you to Twitter suppressing right-wing boycotts. It would get you to Twitter suppressing non-verified boycotts. Those are not the same thing and they shouldn't be treated that way for the reasons I outlined above regarding verification.

What part of what I'm saying do you actually disagree with? If you agree that blue checks have more reach, and blue checks are now more conservative than they were, we are on the same page.

I disagree on the mechanism being proposed, that's what. It doesn't fit the narrative trying to be established.

The mechanism being how much Twitter specifically has contributed to right-wing boycotts? I'm not sure how much it has contributed either, but it evidently has contributed at least a bit more than it would have before Musk's takeover.

No, I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think it's entirely plausible that, to use the examples brought up initially, Target and Bud Light were protested against because there has been a years-long attempt by right-wingers to cast LGBT people and activism as intrinsically evil. It's much easier to get people to support a boycott when you raise the moral stakes.

Look, I'm not trying to imply anything other than what I'm saying. You are trying to make this discussion something it is not, one where you have to preemptively guard against the broadest possible implications of my arguments.

No, I don't think that's necessarily the case.

So just to be clear, you don't think Twitter has contributed more AT ALL to those boycotts? This seems like a straightforwardly ridiculous position to me. At least one conservative on Twitter now has more reach due to the recent changes, and used that reach to promote the boycotts. If you don't believe me I'm sure I can find a boycotter who wasn't verified before verification became buyable, though I'll be annoyed you find it unlikely enough to make me go look for one.

I think it's entirely plausible that, to use the examples brought up initially, Target and Bud Light were protested against because there has been a years-long attempt by right-wingers to cast LGBT people and activism as intrinsically evil. It's much easier to get people to support a boycott when you raise the moral stakes.

This has nothing to do with what I'm saying. Whatever the underlying reasons and circumstances of the boycott, there is such a thing as reach, and both right- and left-wingers use Twitter to increase their reach. Obviously there are underlying reasons for all social movements, but the tools used to spread those movements are what we are talking about.

EDIT: to be very clear, I don't care what the #1 reason behind the boycotts is, my point is that Twitter's changes contributed to them. There can be more than one reason that something happened.

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because there has been a years-long attempt by right-wingers to cast LGBT people and activism as intrinsically evil.

...Alternatively, right-wingers have been attempting to cast LGBT people as intrinsically opposed to coexistence with Christianity or any sort of traditional values. Which appears to be true, at least according to the vocal LGBT people driving policy. Or are we still pretending it's about what happens in the privacy of peoples' bedrooms?

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