It really is worth thinking hard about whether left and right would be quite as much at each other’s throats but for certain polarizing figures and bad media habits.
On the other hand, it really does depend on ultimate actual (not just declared) political aims, whether the divisions have become truly substantial.
If the right aims at God, family, and individual happiness, while the left aims at (e.g.) tearing down power structures...
...or something else equally radically, then, yeah. In that case the left-right acrimony and division *wouldn’t* just be illusory.
But that’s just theory. 75% of Democrats still ultimately want God, family, and individual happiness too, just a different way of getting there.
Of course, the means do matter. But violent revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat *isn’t* a means to advance those real interests of regular folks. It definitely does have different goals.
Bottom line: fighting back against “trolls” who are avowedly trying to destroy the system (one that supports individual liberty) is commendable and doesn’t just feed the need for self-righteousness. Somebody has to do it, even if the likes of @JonahDispatch find it distasteful.
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More evidence that the push for censorship and thought control on Wikipedia went right up to the top.
Appalling. Even ten years ago, a CEO of a free information organization saying this sort of thing in America would have been basically unthinkable. How far we have fallen.
I guess this is common knowledge by now. Yet, for some reason, we pretend it isn’t part of our reality. As horrifying as it is, it is good and necessary that we will be reminded from time to time.
Imagine the amount of specialized knowledge it requires to deal intelligently with all the problems of a 21st century megastate, from foreign policy, to finance, business, and economics, to every aspect of American society.
This is important. 👇
Call them "bureaucrats," but they include the Joint Chiefs, deep CIA, FBI, and NSA insiders, the extremely sophisticated diplomatic corps, the Fed Board, DoE nuclear security officials, etc., etc.
The Deep State, right?
Those people represent a massive and slow-changing center of power. The same goes for the party apparatus of the Republicans and Democrats. Those people are extremely powerful. And I'm not talking about elected officials.
@21WIRE @elonmusk Any rising (or new and already dominant) system will be carefully studied and ruthlessly gamed. Anyone who has watched the development of different social media systems knows this. There are people who make their careers in PR and intelligence on this. @TYonClubhouse
@21WIRE @elonmusk @TYonClubhouse Remember too how closely Twitter worked with spy agencies. Why suppose this has changed? Are we just going to *trust* that, when it matters to the Establishment, they will always allow facts to be endorsed by this system? 🤔
@21WIRE @elonmusk @TYonClubhouse I don’t suppose that *anyone* centrally controls how very large blocs of Community Notes all vote? 🤔
Musk: There’s a new plan to increase revenue. We charge $8/month for blue checks.
Investor: Sorry, but that’s ridiculous. Nobody will pay that.
Musk: Oh? But you forget, conservatives think I’m one of them. $8/month to support the cause! Own the libs!
👇
Emp.: But then you alienate all the liberal A-listers who gave the blue check its cachet in the first place.
Musk: Temporarily. In 2023 we hire a new liberal CEO who resumes the crackdown on misinformation.
Inv.: Well, then you’ll lose all the conservatives!
👇
Musk: No, that’s not how this works. The real functional effect of the blue check is to boost visibility. That’s the only thing that matters. After months of enjoying higher visibility, conservatives will stay on board just not to be suppressed.
I might be wrong that transgenderism is just a dangerous fad.
Thread:
Many people who seriously think they are the caring, decent, loving ones—not ironically, but really and truly—go to schools and churches where gender will be optional and trans kids are normal and everywhere.
They will BE the Establishment. They know they’re liberal, but also they’re the normal smart people.
To them, the weirdos who reject transgenderism will increasingly look like the racists of the 50s and the homophobes of 80s: embarrassing at best, just plain evil at worst.
You (my regular followers) and I know there is a massive difference between loving your black brothers and sisters as equals, on the one hand, and indulging what turns out to be a pathological sexual fetish, on the other.
But the Establishment normies don’t know this. At all.