perfect gepr response... clear and unambiguous... and inspirational...
and covering a modest range (from the "chief twit-hole" to
billionaires-in-general to Hustle&Dole to "free speech") thanks!
On 10/31/22 6:10 AM, glen wrote:
Yeah, I deleted all my Tweets, unfollowed everyone, and removed all my
followers. Musk is an asshole. I know my lack of participation means
nothing. But at least I won't be (as) complicit. There are no good
billionaires
<https://patrioticmillionaires.org/2022/09/21/dont-trust-the-good-billionaires/>.
It's interesting how, in some cases, the existence of the most
horrible of any species (e.g. Uihlein
<https://www.propublica.org/article/uline-uihlein-election-denial>)
can make the others seem "good". It's like a murderer saying "At least
I'm not a rapist." Or a rapist saying "At least I'm not a pedophile."
And a pedophile saying "At least I don't kill 'em." Honor among thieves.
As SteveS mentioned earlier, I'm almost diametrically opposed to
effective altruism for exactly this reason. The argument is basically:
Hustle! Then Dole. I'm willing to change my mind.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YgbpxJmEdFhFGpqci/winners-of-the-ea-criticism-and-red-teaming-contest
Even when we give Billionaires [ptouie] the benefit of the doubt,
forgive them for their rapacious and exploitative methods, and
say "At least they're doing Good Things, now", the Hustle! Then Dole
lifestyle hones/perfects dystopian Taylorism
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor>. It's only
when these old codgers begin to see Death a little more clearly, do
they discover some sort of moral frame, while (metaphorically)
meditating at the edge of their infinity pool built on the ridgeline
of some desert mountain range. And, as we see in Musk, their lifetime
of isolation within the outsized scope of their own influence
(because, well, money is God, omnipresent, omniscient, etc.), puts
them at risk of dimension reducing attractors like most individualist,
right-wing causes. E.g. "free speech" (distinct from free speech, with
no quotes).
On 10/30/22 11:37, Jochen Fromm wrote:
Until now I have used 3 Twitter accounts for scientific, development
and personal stuff. I have used them more frequently since Google+
was shut down. One main reason why I do not use Facebook or Instagram
is Mark Zuckerberg. As Grady Booch used to say "Facebook is a
profoundly unethical company, and it starts at the top, with Mark
Zuckerberg".
For Twitter it is similar now. I really don't want to support a
platform that belongs to someone who likes to insult others, like
Garry Kasparov or the real Tesla founder Martin Eberhard or many
others, just the way Trump likes to do it.
The note for advertisers was plain marketing. His intention to save
the world? A lie. This town square stuff? Nonsense. He certainly
didn't write this, it was more likely written by Twitter's CCO Sarah
Personette and her team. However, he has created his own hell by
buying the platform he is addicted to.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-twitter-acquisition-problems-speech-moderation
I am using Mastodon instead now, which does not belong to an egomanic
or eccentric billionaire. Yes, it is named after an animal which died
out at the end of the Pleistoscene, but the distributed and
decentralized approach is much better than having one big centralized
system. My new Mastodon accounts are here:
fediscience.org/@cas_group
berlin.social/@JochenFromm
ruby.social/@jofr
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: Steve Smith <[email protected]>
Date: 10/30/22 6:50 PM (GMT+01:00)
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[email protected]>
Subject: [FRIAM] (not) leaving Twitter
https://mashable.com/article/please-stop-tweeting-leaving-twitter
https://mashable.com/article/i-was-going-to-quit-twitter-but-elon-musk-takeover
I have a *very* limited twitter engagement myself. Same with FB and
*zero* with anything else *but* Instagram where I restrict myself to
viewing and posting and liking the equivalent of "family" snapshots
for my family and closer friends.
I tried *mostly* to ignore the implications of a Musk
privatization-takeover of Twitter during all the on-again off-again
period but/and now as it has become a "done deal" I feel more able to
engage in thinking about that (unable to avoid thinking about
that?). I thought I might de-activate/delete my nearly unused
account when I discovered that I had a renewed interest (morbid
fascination) in watching it spin out (decohere) or not from the front
row. I found myself looking for whether Musk's magic pixie dust
would somehow trigger a phase transition (likely there will be one,
but probably not the kind most of us hope for).
Earlier discussions on *this* forum touched on what would make for a
proper *metaverse* (not the one Zuckerberg is trying to create from
whole-cloth). My (very loose) engagement with the Cardano/Catalyst
work and interest in blockchain is motivated by this as well.
Musk's attempts to characterize Twitter as a "town square" feels very
off-base in many ways:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-twitter-is-unlikely-to-become-the-digital-town-square-elon-musk-envisions/
What do "town squares" look like in "company towns"? And why does
most social media so often feel more like a rolling street-brawl?
I worked *peripherally* on a project at LANL trying to address the
possibilities/implications roughly 30 years ago:
http://library.sciencemadness.org/lanl1_a/lib-www/pubs/00285557.pdf
there were some good insights, but it was all so young and fresh and
raw at the same time...
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