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non_radical_centrist  1yr ago (astralcodexten.com)   2417 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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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.

So just to be clear, you don't think Twitter has contributed more AT ALL to those boycotts?

This is a different question than the one initially asked. I asked where the proof was that Twitter had quashed the boycotts before Musk. If there were no boycotts that even made an attempt, I'm not going to say that Twitter quashed the boycotts.

You keep saying it happened, show me one that didn't get off the ground and had at least a decent chance of getting off the ground.

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.

When you say that Twitter provided reach, the assumption is that said reach matters in relation to other possible factors. If there are more important reasons for why the boycotts took off on Twitter, and Twitter was not the limiting factor, then it doesn't make sense to talk about Twitter instead of the other factors.

Like I said, I'm not sure how much twitter has contributed, but it seems evident it has contributed at least a bit. There is no possible proof that a successful boycott could have been quashed by twitter, or that an unsuccessful one would have been successful had it not been quashed.

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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?

Except Christians also believe themselves to be moral and LGBT people to be immoral due to the refusal to accept socially conservative values. I don't think what I said was wrong, nor do I think it is good for you to assume I was assigning either side any blame. I don't believe there's any point in trying to litigate the wording in this case.

Except Christians also believe themselves to be moral and LGBT people to be immoral due to the refusal to accept socially conservative values.

Sure, in the same way that divorcees and people who watch porn are immoral, and yet somehow neither of these are culture-war hotspots to anything approaching the degree LGBT is. LGBT is a lifestyle in a way that porn and divorce are not, and so it provides significantly more areas of contention to fight the culture war over. So the successor ideology has spent years pushing the idea that LGBT folks are "just like everyone else", a claim that again the vocal LGBT folks themselves frequently reject and some fairly significant evidence contradicts, and then hammering the Christians they've always hated for "bigotry" when we push back.

I don't think what I said was wrong, nor do I think it is good for you to assume I was assigning either side any blame.

"cast [X] as intrinsically evil" is not a neutral descriptor, nor in this case an accurate one. You are framing what is at worst mutual combat as an unprovoked attack.

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