"I have observed a change, or really a narrowing, in the public behavior of people who use Twitter or other social media a lot...."

"When I compare Mr. Musk, Mr. Trump and Ye, I see a convergence of personalities that were once distinct. The garish celebrity playboy, the obsessive engineer and the young artist, as different from one another as they could be, have all veered not in the direction of becoming grumpy old men, but into being bratty little boys in a schoolyard.... I believe 'Twitter poisoning' is a real thing. It is a side effect that appears when people are acting under an algorithmic system that is designed to engage them to the max. It’s a symptom of being part of a behavior-modification scheme.... Behavioral changes occur as a side effect of something called operant conditioning...."

From "Trump, Musk and Kanye Are Twitter Poisoned" by Jaron Lanier (NYT). Lanier is a computer scientist and author of “Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.” 

Jonathan Cohn says Barack Obama ought to model himself after George W. Bush.

How's that?

One of Bush’s most remarkable qualities--and one, I admit, that I frequently admired--was his stubborn focus on goals and willingness to push political boundaries aggressively....

Like Bush, Obama is pursuing an ambitious agenda....

When asked repeatedly in the final weeks which of his legislative goals he planned to discard, because of the financial crisis, he refused to play along, insisting his agenda remained the same. Just today, incoming Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said something similar on ABC's "This Week." After making the case for energy independence and health care reform, even in the midst of an economic calamity, Emanuel said "This opportunity, this crisis, provides--as the president-elect has said repatedly--the opportunity to do things Americans have pushed off for years." President Bush couldn't have said it better.

So, this will be the excuse we will hear time and time again. For every aggressive, power-grabbing excess: Bush did it!

Is there anything that is not Bush's fault?

"The president’s eyes became fixed; his voice took on the agitated, rapid tone of someone neither accustomed to nor welcoming interruption..."

"... his easy affability was replaced by an almost messianic certainty. As I watched my mostly Republican Senate colleagues hang on his every word, I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring."

That's how Barack Obama described President Bush in "The Audacity of Hope." The occasion was a White House breakfast for new Senators that took place right after the 2004 elections. Today, right after the 2008 elections, President Bush will meet with Barack Obama again, under dramatically changed circumstances. Will anyone's eyes become fixed? Will anyone's voice take on an agitated, rapid tone? Will anyone's easy affability be replaced by an almost messianic certainty? Will anyone call to mind the dangerous isolation that power can bring?