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9 Feb, 4 tweets, 2 min read
This piece by @DavidSacks for @JoinPersuasion completely nails it.

The schism in the post-Trump era is not along the axis of Left & Right, but of insider & outsider. Anyone clamoring for censorship must realize that it only protects & entrenches insiders.
persuasion.community/p/the-insiders…
The Warren quote he highlights in the piece is something that jumped out at me YEARS ago.

"What all of our elites have in common is a reason to fear social media." Image
"The last thing that the rulers want to see when they look down is a teeming throng in the Square. And nobody benefits more than the rulers from malleable censorship rules that are easily weaponized to restrict, disrupt, or disband the Square." Image

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More from @MsMelChen

Melissa Chen Profile picture
10 Feb
Okay, I need to get this off my chest because it's been bothering me for a few months now.

American media has never backed up this claim that the words and actions by the previous admin directly cause the "rising tide of hate crimes" against Asian Americans.
In his first week in office, Biden signed a memorandum that reinforces the same claim - rebuking the previous admin for "advancing xenophobic sentiments" by using words like "China virus" and de facto banning its use by the federal government - and implying that the spate of
verbal and physical harassment of Asian Americans can be attributed to these hateful words.

These are serious claims, and it requires serious evidence. But what do we instead?

Bear in mind that the FBI hasn't released its 2020 hate crime statistics broken down
Read 15 tweets
Melissa Chen Profile picture
18 Jan
The Broken Windows theory has not been fashionable for a while but I think mob-driven unrest and increase in crime rates today have lent some credence to it.

In the 1982 Atlantic piece, George Kelling & James Wilson argued that a "broken window is a signal that no one cares,"
and so breaking more windows costs nothing”. The idea that untended disorder and minor offenses gives rise to serious crime and urban decay seems borne out by events and statistics today.

There's been a steady assault on the theory since it was published, claiming that Broken
Windows was racist and that it amounted to overzealous "zero tolerance" approaches to crime. After all, the implication was that infractions, no matter how small, have to be aggressively contained before they escalate into major problems.

But even as crime rates plummeted
Read 8 tweets
Melissa Chen Profile picture
4 Jan
This notion of "China's version of freedom" is old news for this Singaporean.

I've been told this my whole life as a kid aspiring to live/work in the US. That "real freedom" isn't the 1st or 2nd amendment; it's the freedom to walk safely at midnight.
nytimes.com/2021/01/04/bus…
It's the age-old tradeoff between security and liberty that Ben Franklin mused about.

Yes I am a China hawk. Yes I think civil liberties and human rights must be safeguarded. But we ignore "basic freedoms" at our peril.

China's model looks very appealing to those without it.
And if all the West can provide is chaos, disorder, a life without dignity, crime, no social safety net, institutional decay, corruption, a divided social fabric, then the 21st century will ultimately belong to China.

There's a saying in Chinese that goes 泥菩萨过江, 自身难保 .
Read 4 tweets
Melissa Chen Profile picture
14 Dec 20
I get the desire to transcend the tyranny of gender norms, I really do. But why does this have to entail the rejection of biological reality?

NEJM published some authors (all M.Ds) who think that "it is now time to update the practice of designating sex on birth certificates."
I'll post screenshots of the full paper here so you can read it for yourself.

The authors suggest pushing sex designation below the "line of demarcation" on birth certificates.
This is blatantly wrong; I can't believe I'm reading this in the premiere medical journal in the world.

Biological sex *is* a binary, but that doesn't mean there aren't exceptions, or intersex conditions.
Read 4 tweets
Melissa Chen Profile picture
2 Dec 20
As someone on the spectrum (with a deficit in contextual information processing) who grew up in a high context East Asian culture, I was really drawn to the low context nature of American culture.

I found it easier to thrive in a place where direct, explicit communication
was the norm. This was very much reflected in how language here is used, which is something that wokeness/the Successor Ideology has begun to change.

Language in our modern discourse now is hyper-contextual. "Abolish the police" doesn't really mean abolish the police.
"Black lives matter" is not just a literal statement of declaring the obvious. It's symbolic language that signals a whole other suite of ideas.

There are countless other examples of this shift. If one values cultural diversity, and not merely pay lip service to it, then one
Read 4 tweets
Melissa Chen Profile picture
30 Nov 20
Took a social media break (family in town for Thanksgiving) which did wonders for my ability to be present.

But I missed this gem by @BridgetPhetasy for @SpectatorUSA.

It's hysterical. She skewers every lightning rod in our culture war. Read it & LAUGH.
spectator.us/letter-online-…
Every paragraph ends with a killer punch line.

"Is this how Anne Frank felt?"
"They stormed the beaches of Normandy. We stormed the streets of SoHo."
Read 8 tweets

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