My debut newsletter at @ArcDigi looks at why not all allies are good in the pushback against runaway "wokeness." It's paywalled, but preview to come...
By the way: yes, the pushback against "wokeness" is important.
What's wrong with Lindsay? well... how about flogging irresponsible conspiracy theories about election fraud (which he was already doing *before* the election!)
COVID-19 conspiracism/denialism? check.
And finally, a foray into the JQ
Also, the lessons of it all. And a parallel from the 1980s.
Bonus moral: Why you shouldn't tell me to "just stop bickering" and focus on a common enemy.
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I'd much rather not fight w/Kat on whether she is (as I said in an article) "anti-anti-Trump," partly b/c I love her writing on culture & find this depressing, partly b/c I have other things to do. But since Kat's next tweet accuses me of "lying"... let's look at these, shall we
3rd screenshot is from this piece that attacks liberals/Democrats (1 day after the end of the Trump presidency!) for having Trump on the brain and being too upset about January 6th.
1. I really cannot stress enough how much I've had it with the Elon Twitter drama, but I did look into the jet tracker story, so... 🧵
2. The narrative we're getting from the pro-Musk side, e.g. @AbigailShrier, is that Musk's ban on the ElonJet account & other accounts that tweeted links to the jet tracker was motivated by security concerns after an attack on his limo with his kid inside.
3. Countless people have suggested that (1) the flight tracker is equivalent to posting someone's home address or exact location and (2) the motive for it was to harass or threaten Musk.
I see some are up in arms about this tweet so lemme explain: 1. Hobbes et al. claim that mobbings which destroy people's careers/schooling (& even upend lives) to punish "bad" speech are just "consequence culture." This is a satirical/hyperbolic comment on that, not an equation.
2. Am I being unfair to Hobbes in particular? Nah, he routinely smears and lies, as I think I conclusively documented here (& no this isn't personal - if he's ever attacked me I'm not aware of it. he blocked me after this piece) arcdigital.media/p/nothing-to-s…
3. The "'bad' speech is violence/harm" trope prevalent on the intersectional/social justice left does, in fact, blur violence & speech. If you're upset about my tweet but not, say, about the petition saying Dave Chapelle is "dangerous" & upholds a "violent" culture .... well.
A few years ago some nice folks from my condo complex banded together to block a low-cost housing development about a mile away. The flyer they sent out was just dripping with an "oh noes! *those people's* kids are gonna sneak in to play on our basketball court!" mentality
I was SOOO tempted to respond to their request for support with a letter telling them exactly what I thought about their effort, but well, making an enemy of your condo association is probably not a great idea
@wil_da_beast630 1. Saddam Hussein was in violation of a bunch of UN resolutions, some of them pertaining to the conditions after which he was allowed to stay in power post-Gulf War I.
@wil_da_beast630 2. The US didn't just say "OK, we're going in, here's a long nonsensical lecture on why Iraq was always American land to justify our invasion." We *tried* to make a case to the UN. We also built a fairly large coalition (UK, Australia among others)
@wil_da_beast630 3. We didn't slaughter hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Nearly all Iraqi civilians who were killed were killed either by the insurgency or in sectarian warfare. (Yes, we helped unleash that by blundering in. Still not the same thing.)
So the responses to this tweet (& @rasmansa's quote tweet saying that I'm promoting a baseless panic ) are very typical:
"LOL this isn't happening, you're nuts"
"LOL what's the big deal about stating your pronouns?"
"Being asked what your pronouns are isn't pressure" (my fav)
Oh there'a a major corporate memo encouraging employees to state pronouns and practice gender-neutral pronouns at home so they feel natural? LOL who cares! goldmansachs.com/careers/blog/p…
Harvard Business Review is also on the bandwagon, even instructing people that if someone uses both "she" and "they," it's important to vary them.