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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Wikipedia says that Yahweh—you know, the Almighty God, Jehovah, the Lord God of the Bible, God the Father—was "the primary deity and the head of the pantheon of the polytheistic religion of Yahwism."
Yes, really. "Pantheon." "Polytheistic."
Wikipedia is not quoting anyone. It is asserting this in its own voice. The definition has boldly asserted that Yahweh was one of a pantheon since anonymous user "JustTheFacts" made the change on February 13. Before that, too, others had claimed further down in the article that the religion of the Jews was originally polytheistic.
It does not mention the fact that all Christians worship Yahweh.
According to the current version of the neutrality policy, articles should represent "fairly...all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."
We must conclude that, on the view of Wikipedia, the long, long history of theology about the nature of God (a God who is identified by those theologians *as* Yahweh) does not count as a "reliable source." Or, possibly, such views are not "significant," because they have been displaced by modern liberal scholars who apparently all (?!) agree in their speculation.
This rather neatly illustrates how Wikipedia handles the notion of neutrality today.
Hi @ElonMusk. Wikipedia co-founder here. May I ask you to determine what branches of the U.S. government—if any!—have employees paid to edit, monitor, update, lobby, etc., WIkipedia?
Such operations should be defunded, if any. If there are *none*, we’d like to know. Agree?
For people who don’t know me:
- I left WIkipedia in 2002.
- I have been a critic since 2004.
- The Wikipedia process is almost as opaque to me as it is to you.
- Yes it’s biased, I’ve said so for a long time. See my blog (LarrySanger.org).
- I do Encyclosphere.org.
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? 🤔