[FRIAM] (not) leaving Twitter

[Steve Smith]

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 <sasmyth at swcp.com>
>> Date: 10/30/22 6:50 PM (GMT+01:00)
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>> <friam at redfish.com>
>> 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...
>
>