"Slowly, what Twitter rewards becomes what we do. If we don’t, then no matter — no one sees what we’re saying anyway. We become what the game wants us to be or we lose.... There is a reason that Donald Trump, with his preternatural gift for making people look at him, was Twitter’s most natural and successful user. And he shows how the platform can shape the lives of those who never use it. From 2017 to 2021, the White House was occupied by what was, in effect, a Twitter account with a cardiovascular system, and the whole world bore the consequences.... But I count myself, still, as a cautious believer in Musk’s power to do the impossible — in this case, to expose what Twitter is and to right-size its influence. In fact, I think he’s the only one with the power to do it.... He will be Twitter. He will have won the game. And nothing loses its luster quite like a game that has been beaten."
Writes Ezra Klein, in "Elon Musk Got Twitter Because He Gets Twitter" (NYT).
Posts
54 comments:
Slowly, what Twitter rewards becomes what we do.
Good to know. Now do the effects of the welfare state on illegitimate birth rates and the effects of giving benefits, licenses, and voting rights to illegal immigrants on the southern border problems.
Here's Important News! From MSNBC!! If Elon buys twitter, he could..
“secretly ban one party’s candidate…secretly turn down the reach of their stuff and turn up the reach of something else and the rest of us might not even find out about it until AFTER the election.”
Musk just lost a round in his fight with the SEC over his use of twitter in the context oh his consent decree.
This follows the history of the printing press:
https://www.history.com/news/printing-press-renaissance
This was a media revolution that led to religious and political wars that lasted for a very long time. Martin Luther. The 30 Years War. The US and French Revolutions. Etc.
https://www.history.com/topics/reformation/thirty-years-war
Computer based social media upended the old power order, and we've been in a de facto war between the elite and masses for 20+ years. In 1998 Drudge broke NBC's control of the Lewinsky story and the establishment has fought back hard until the present. Musk and the post-Jan 6 rise of Rumble, Parler, Telegram, etc. may have marked the final phase of the first Social Media War.
2007: Justin Rosenstein builds a prototype of the “like” button.
2017: Justin restricts his life online.
2022: Likes, followers and retweets are the fentanyl of social media.
Ezra Klein is a twerp who thinks history began he day he graduated from UCLA.
Fuck Ezra Klein.
So, the Twitter account that occupied the Presidency gave us peace, prosperity and a much securer border. Biden and the Dems have been a total failure.
Enigma said...
Musk and the post-Jan 6 rise of Rumble, Parler, Telegram, etc. may have marked the final phase of the first Social Media War.
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
In junior high school, in the early days of the internet, such a device/system/process was called, "a slam book."
"So, the Twitter account that occupied the Presidency gave us peace, prosperity and a much securer border."
How did Trump give us peace? It was Biden who removed our forces from Afghanistan.
The prosperity we enjoyed began in Obama's first term, after the collapse of Wall Street at the end of Bush's second term, and prosperity continued in its upward swing during Trump's term. Trump was not the cause of the prosperity and he failed in his promises to bring manufacturing back to the USA.
Obama deported more illegal aliens that Trump did.
"There is a reason that Donald Trump, with his preternatural gift for making people look at him, was Twitter’s most natural and successful user."
Trump was largely ridiculed for his ham-fisted tweets. It's the same thing as when Ronald Reagan was roasted as a lousy actor who was nevertheless a master at snowing the electorate.
@Robert Cook: "The prosperity we enjoyed began in Obama's first term,"
What prosperity? Obama's entire 8 year period was The Great Recession!?!? Nothing but stagnation!
https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2021/10/september-employment-report-194.html
Obama deported more illegal aliens that Trump did.
Obama invented putting kids in cages, right?
Cook is back to leftist nonsense. Sane comments do occur infrequently.
No new wars by Trump. Biden might yet bring us WWIII.
Obama did not bring prosperity. Remember the "summer of recovery" that never came ?
Very true, Cook. Trump betrayed us on the border. But Obama wasn't paying attention to the border --it didn't serve his narcissistic purposes. What he did was slowly defund border control while creating an environment where opposing open borders was tantamount to racism. Radical leftists play the long game.
Now Biden is the long game. No loss for him in it --he goes out rich and bewildered as the rest of us suffer from the consequences of a society torn apart by Obama's long-game open-borders cop-hating scheme.
You are not fair to Trump on foreign policy.
Afghanistan was a problem Trump inherited and Biden botched. Be consistent if you can't handle actually being objective.
Blogger Readering said...
Musk just lost a round in his fight with the SEC over his use of twitter in the context oh his consent decree.
Oh, the Biden regime is just getting started on punishing Musk for interfering with their propaganda apparatus.
"Radical leftists play the long game."
Obama is/was certainly no "radical lefist," except from the perspective of a radical rightist. At most, he was essentially a liberal Republican.
Obama managed to hire and install 2 crooks. Biden and Hillary. Two self-enriching crooks.
(At least 2 crooks.) Big guy crooks.
wow - you are right -> Obama is a Republican.
"You are not fair to Trump on foreign policy.
"Afghanistan was a problem Trump inherited and Biden botched. Be consistent if you can't handle actually being objective."
Trump said he wanted to withdraw forces from Afghanistan; he didn't. He had the authority to do so, but he didn't use it. Biden used that authority and withdrew our troops.
The "botch" you refer to would have happened if Trump (or anyone else) had removed our troops, as well. The "botch" is that our 20 years of violent occupation in Afghanistan created a situation that allowed for no other outcome upon our withdrawal.
How did Trump give us peace? It was Biden who removed our forces from Afghanistan.
As noted, Trump inherited Afghanistan. Trump negotiated a peace deal to remove our forces. Biden did remove our forces without following the agreements made in the peace deal. Biden didn't notify the Afghanistan government of our withdrawal. Biden didn't notify our allies of our withdrawal. Biden didn't even plan for the withdrawal of US armament from the region or non-military US governmental people and assets from Afghanistan. Thank you for reminding us of Biden's failure in withdrawing from Afghanistan in any form of organized manner.
Obama deported more illegal aliens that Trump did.
It's difficult to deport those who aren't let in.
Robert Cook said...
The prosperity we enjoyed began in Obama's first term..
So, the thing i can never decide, is: Is Cook an Idiot?
Trump.. had the authority to do so (withdraw forces from Afghanistan), but he didn't use it.
or a Liar (Hint: Trump ORDERED troops out of Syria, and the JCS disobeyed him)
Then, again; maybe Cook is just living in a Cloud cuckoo land*
Obama is/was certainly no "radical lefist," except from the perspective of a radical rightist
Remember! According to Cook, Every Single Person ON EARTH is a radical rightist (except for Cook)
Cloud cuckoo land* My Most Favorite German word.. Wolkenkuckucksheim
"From 2017 to 2021, the White House was occupied by what was, in effect, a Twitter account with a cardiovascular system, and the whole world bore the consequences."
Yeah, the consequences: peace and prosperity, a nearly secure southern border, energy independence, non-inflationary growth benefiting largely the less well off, the Abraham Accords in the Mideast, and Russia, China, and Iran back on their heels.
In 15 months, Bozo and Bozette have managed to blow all that up. Consequences, indeed!
"Trump negotiated a peace deal to remove our forces."
Why didn't he follow up by removing our forces? Whatever the answer(s), Trump did not bring us peace. (We wouldn't have needed Trump or anyone else to "bring us peace" if Bush/Cheney had never invaded Afghanistan to begin with. Obama cannot be credited either, as he ramped up drone strikes and made no efforts to simply remove our troops.)
"Trump ORDERED troops out of Syria, and the JCS disobeyed him"
If this is true, rather than just an excuse cooked up by Trump (or his apologists), why didn't he then simply fire all the Joint Chiefs? As Commander in Chief of the military forces, (not of the civilian population, which too many do not seem to know), Trump had the final word. If he ordered troops out and the Joint Chiefs really disobeyed him, he could have had them all removed and court-martialed, and he should have. So, either he's lying, or he's too chickenshit to have done what he could and should have done.
Further looking shows a more complicated reality: Trump did order the removal of the troops and they were being withdrawn. Trump was condemned for allowing a similar kind of "botch" Biden has been condemned for, so Trump belatedly modified his orders and allowed a small number of troops to remain, to moderate the criticism of his decision.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/27/americas-abandonment-of-syria
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/19/isis-terror-group-rebuilds-after-trump-pulls-us-troops-out-syria/4237528002/
BTW, kudos to Trump for ordering the removal of troops from Syria. However, it answers the question why he did not remove our troops from Afghanistan: he received such criticism for the chaos in Syria when our forces were (largely) removed that he kept a small contingent there, and, no doubt, he decided to avoid the problem altogether with Afghanistan by not removing any troops, despite whatever treaty had been drafted (or even signed).
In short, this illustrates the reality: when the US is the major fighting force in a foreign land, there will always be instability and a chaos of violence when we leave, as there is no comparable alternative force in place to prevent it. There was never going to be a US withdrawal from Afghanistan that did not result in just the situation that followed upon Biden's withdrawal. Just call Biden Trump redux.
Props to Ezra Klein (or NYT headline writer) for not saying Musk garnered Twitter.
Anyone looking to Ezra Klein for wisdom is wasting their time.
"The 'botch' you refer to would have happened if Trump (or anyone else) had removed our troops, as well."
To a degree that's true. There's no way a withdrawal like that was going to go 100% smoothly. But there are things that should have been done better, like not shutting down Bagram first. I'll give Biden credit for getting out, and Trump deserves some criticism for not doing what he said, but that doesn't excuse Biden for making some really dumb decisions.
"To a degree that's true. There's no way a withdrawal like that was going to go 100% smoothly. But there are things that should have been done better, like not shutting down Bagram first. I'll give Biden credit for getting out, and Trump deserves some criticism for not doing what he said, but that doesn't excuse Biden for making some really dumb decisions."
I'm not hailing Biden as the great peacemaker. He's a doddering old man who should not be in office, but that is only to say we had no good choices in the 2020 presidential elections, as we have not had any good choices for decades. I vote for the Green Party candidate because every time around because I cannot give my endorsement to any of the miserable shits that have been our only choices for far too long.
It's not Biden's being a doddering old man that is his greatest fault; even in his summer of greatest virility, he belonged nowhere near the White House. He is and has always been just another hollow factotum to the great financial entities that own and rule Washington.
Likes and retweets are for garnering.
Ezra Klein: I count myself as a cautious believer in Musk’s power to expose what Twitter is and to right-size its influence.
This is progressive fanatic who wrote that "men need to feel a cold spike of fear when they begin a sexual encounter." In any remotely healthy society, Ezra would have no influence at all, and would probably be unemployable and living under a bridge.
DHS Sec Mayorkas in a Congressional hearing announced DHS has created a "Disinformation Governance Board".
Cook,
Are you alleging that our economic prosperity occurred under Obama's two terms?
If so, what exactly did the Obama Administration do to create our great national wealth?
I have a hunch that you believe the success of the Reagan Administration was due to Jimmy Carter's previous four years.
Mr. Cook, no one since Napoleon told his men in Russia "nevermind" has anyone ever orchestrated the pullout of soldiers from a war zone as badly as Biden did with American troops, leaving hundreds of Americans and Afghani allies behind. It was last minute, went against all of his military advice, and was executed after giving a date for departure, which should never have been done. The Taliban needed only to hang out, sing folk songs, and grow their beards while waiting for D-Day. Their reward is that they are in the top ten most supplied armies in the world.
I guess this post was about something else, but since we're here, when you talk about Trump and world peace, you cannot simply cherry pick Afghanistan. You're right when you state that Trump should have fired his Joint Chiefs. But can you imagine the caterwauling that would commence after that? And surely yet another impeachment attempt. The world was far more peaceful in Trump's years because so many (mostly those at 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY) were so afraid of Trump. I honestly think the American and English left and media (but I repeat myself) expanded Trump's potential for World Violence far beyond who he is. They used their lefty megaphones to scare not only themselves, but baddies around the world.
Trump started no wars. He started peace in multiple locations, was the first President to visit the Hermit Kingdom. And...
The Middle East (Abraham Accords) is one such item that, had he been allowed to remain in office, would have continued to grow. Now, instead, we have Team Biden trying to pay Iran to keep up its nuclear work which will destabilize the entire region all over again.
Trump wanted to leave Afghanistan. And yes, he had thrown out a timeline, but we have no idea how that would have ever looked. His military advisors/Joint Chiefs would not let it happen, and Trump- fighting off a non-stop campaign against him, plus covid, plus impeachments- could not get it done.
China was held in check much more under Trump. At least the threat of economic reprisals and actual military engagement was alive with Trump. The Chinese (and Russians and Middle Eastern states) recognize and respect strength. This is not new. They also despise weakness and will run all over it. If you recall, China was being attacked and praised by Trump almost daily. But he was very clear to call them out on their economic bullying around the world and with the US. Their military expansion into the Pacific Islands. Their sending the Wuhan Virus around the world before mentioning it to anyone. Today we have a President compromised in both the Ukraine and China- on the payroll of both, not to mention the Mayor of Moscow (a Putin stooge). What do you possibly think Biden will do to stop China in any way? I cannot even imagine what they've got on him.
Russia/Ukraine. Well, this entire thing probably would not have happened under Trump. This is me musing. But many other people have stated that out loud. What we do know is that Putin invaded the Donbas and Crimea under Obama/Biden. He then went quiet under Trump. Biden gets elected and here we are. Sensing a very predictable trend.
Under Trump we were friends with our allies again, our enemies feared us again, and there was a building of peace in the Middle East. Where are we today?
The identified head of the DHS Disinformation Governance Board, Nina Jankowicz, announced on Twitter that she's been working on this effort secretly for the last 2 months. Perhaps this comment best fits with the previous thread, because it certainly shows how much power the government is acquiring to control speech.
"he received such criticism for the chaos in Syria when our forces were (largely) removed that he kept a small contingent there"
The military lied to him and kept troops there against his explicit order. We are still fighting a proxy war with Russia in Syria, guarding the oilfields of friends of the US regime. Trump is the most antiwar president we have had at least since Eisenhower. But I understand you wasting your vote and not voting for him, because war is one thing, yuckiness is worse.
The regime has admitted that Trump would have averted this war, as if that were a bad thing.
What about the pleasure of understanding something and correcting stuff.
It may be that few pay any attention to followers.
Klein makes the obvious Journolist move to get out ahead of the exposure of all the fascistic actions taken - by lefty corksoakers- to affect the outcome of the 2020 election.
F-ing mincing nancyboy.
Amtrak California Zephyr is pulling into Galesburg IL right now. That has 202 followers. That's why it does it.
Followers and likes are why bot farms were created. You can buy 100,000 bots for under $100.
Which is why Elon Musk pointed out last week that the twitter accounts with the highest number of followers tweet the least, with virtually no original content (Like Obama).
. He is and has always been just another hollow factotum to the great financial entities that own and rule Washington.
My God ! We agree again. Still Wednesday though.
It was MBNA in Delaware, though, and they gave Hunter his first job.
"Are you alleging that our economic prosperity occurred under Obama's two terms?
"If so, what exactly did the Obama Administration do to create our great national wealth?"
I point out that the recovery from the recession caused by Wall Street's collapse in 2009 and the long subsequent rise of the economy began during Obama's turn and continued through Trump's term.
My point is that Trump was not the author the of "the greatest economy ever," as he claims. He did not raise the economy from the dead. He entered office in a good economy. The economy maintained its rise until it faltered beginning in 2020 (during Trump's term) due to the COVID pandemic, but is now again improving. I do not blame Trump for that abrupt fall, as the pandemic was sudden, surprising, and largely outside his ability to affect.
I never think ups and downs in the economy are entirely (or even necessarily significantly) the result of what the President does, as there are many factors outside the president's control that always affect the economy. Partisans of either party who declare ups and downs of the economy to be entirely due to the acts of the president in office are being simplistic and childish, simply cheering for their own side or booing the other side.
European Union threatens Elon Musk over advocacy for free speech on Twitter
'If [Twitter] does not comply with our law there are sanctions — 6 per cent of the revenue and, if they continue, banned from operating in Europe,' an EU bureaucrat warned.
-Financial Times, via Rebel News
"But I understand you wasting your vote...."
I didn't waste my vote. I voted for a policy plank I could support without misgivings. Do you suggest voters should only vote for one of the two major party candidates even if they and their planks are both terrible? That's not really a resounding endorsement of our system, is it?
I know people who use Twitter. I know a lot more who never do (some who aren't even on FB). Would Twitter have that big of an influence if the NYT and other news media didn't report on what politicians and other famous people tweet? Twitter only amplifies a voice so much. The news media making Trump's tweets their story amplified much, much more.
They thought they could mock his tweets, or that the majority of the public would view the tweets in the same way the news media did. We enjoyed them. We were not scandalized by rude tweets. We did not behave as desired.
In other words, if you're an attention whore you do what attracts more attention to you. If your career and your life depend on Twitter you depend on Twitter, but how many people are actually in that position?
People's attention spans and ability/willingness to follow long complicated arguments or exposition have declined, but you can't blame all that on Twitter. A lot of things -- from TV to texting -- have had an effect.
I give Obama credit for not letting the economy collapse during the Great Recession. I give Trump credit for creating a Great Boom. No boom lasts forever, but Trump did remarkably well during his term and would have given us a more (buzzword) robust recovery than Biden has.
Robert-
During Obama's presidency, real household income of the poorest 20% declined.
During Trump's, including the pandemic, the real household income of the poorest 20% rose 4.4%.
In fact, the top 20% are the only income group who saw greater income growth under eight years of Obama than 3 years of Trump and one of pandemic.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-inequality.html
Table A4
Slowing illegal immigration decreased the supply of low income labor, causing bottom up wage growth.
Projects that were not economically viable in 2016 became viable under the reduced corporate taxes, increasing demand for labor.
It's actually not very complicated.
Cook,
What do you think caused the Wall Street (actually the mortgage industry) collapse in 2008?
First clue is the dealing of Clinton fanboy Franklin Raines.
I agree that most Presidential policies have less impact on the economy than we imagine, but bad policies (e.g., giving everyone a mortgage) have a worse impact than we imagine.
I have become a single issue voter, I am against wars of aggression, such as wars to expand NATO, or what NATO did in Libya, or our proxy war in Syria. Perfect is not on offer. So Trump it was.
Musk also won a huge legal victory today, beating back a claim in Delaware that he breached his duty to Tesla shareholders in leading Tesla's acquisition of another Musk company.
"and the whole world bore the consequences" - too bad he doesn't state any of them:
lower inflation
lower oil prices
lower crime
lower illegal immigration
lower taxes
lower unemployment
less US involvement in foreign wars;
fewer invasions by Russia (as compared to 2014 Crimea under Obama-Biden, and 2022)
higher paychecks for workers at or below the median wage.
There is no significant policy result that is better under Biden.
What I love about Twitter is its similarity to the TV game show "Whose Line Is It, Anyway?" which is described as "the show where everything's made up and the points don't matter." Twitter, like this comedy show, is improv, and starts from a selected topic, but usually veers into far distant realms of ideology, disconnected from facts or known reality. Twitter counts points, too, and in Twitter they also don't matter. Fun times.
Reddit.com does this too and admits that their points for reader upvotes - called karma - are meaningless. And reddit topics often generate thousands of comments and 7 digit viewership. But nobody pretends that reddit is reality. Twitter has convinced people to pretend it is real. Good trick.
Leland said...
DHS Sec Mayorkas in a Congressional hearing announced DHS has created a "Disinformation Governance Board".
4/27/22, 3:22 PM
As he lied, and said “We inherited a broken and dismantled system that is already under strain. It is not built to manage the current levels and types of migratory flows. Only Congress can fix this. Yet, we have effectively managed an unprecedented number of non-citizens seeking to enter the United States.”
ANYBODY with eyes can see what a lie that is, and that we are being invaded at a speed never seen before BECAUSE Joe Biden invited them in to fuck over America because of their hatred of it. When is the Disinformation panel going to do their jobs??
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