the Pnictogen Wing has a hypothesis about @elonmusk's decision to ruin the public @Twitter API—it's not a hypothesis we've too much confidence in, but still we offer it: we think ONE of the purposes of doing this was to make Musk's own Twitter activities harder to analyze.
(1/x)
yes, there's lots of other reasons that the @elonmusk / @mtaibbi / @GOP#Twitter fash gang would have for destroying the ability of outsiders to write Twitter applications. the fash crowd themselves make heavy use of bots, sock-puppet accounts, and other Twitter trickery.
(2/x)
and of course there's also the fact that @elonmusk's been destroying @Twitter's ability to make money, long-term. he's in "vulture capitalist" mode—squeezing as much short-term money as he can from his own cultish #Twitter fandom before he finally auctions off the corpse.
(3/x)
but I think it's quite possible that @elonmusk (or rather the racist computer nerds who are still loyal to Musk, within @Twitter / @TwitterDev) also want to prevent as many people as possible from doing #DataScience on Elon Musk's own public statements.
(4/x)
it's a remarkable fact about the @elonmusk / @mtaibbi / @GOP conspiracy to politicize @Twitter and use its data against their enemies (via #TwitterFiles hype and other propagandistic manipulation) that they've done a LOT of their conspiratorial activity in public view.
(5/x)
partly it's because @elonmusk and @mtaibbi and the rest of these people know they benefit from an *extreme* degree of social privilege—one that tends to confer upon them invulnerability to criticism. they're like 'whıte-privileged' drivers who know they'll avoid tickets.
(6/x)
that's the *general effect* that Western systemic racism and 'whıte privilege' have upon people who benefit from racism, especially if they're celebrities like @elonmusk and @mtaibbi, but even low-level scum like @ThisIsKyleR benefits from being pasty-skinned and babyish.
(7/x)
"I just did a double 'self-defence', uwu," is something that @ThisIsKyleR can burble to almost any American cop—and they'll believe him, because Kyle Rittenhouse has gobs of 'whıte privilege' and is used to getting away with whatever he wants. he never NEEDS to grow up.
(8/x)
similarly, @mtaibbi and @elonmusk and @ShellenbergerMD and all the other people in the @GOP conspiracy to exploit @Twitter are people who've benefited from the cloak of virtual invisibility they get from their social privileges. they can do crimes practically in daylight.
(9/x)
@mtaibbi can openly suck up to @GOP politicians (like he did to @Jim_Jordan) and yet still pretend to "independence"—he *expects* his habitual lies and his public pose to be taken their word, and so far...he's gotten away with it. my own words mean little in comparison.
(10/x)
all the same I daresay that it's *possible* to infer the general outlines of the @elonmusk / @mtaibbi / @GOP#Twitter conspiracy simply from all their own public statements. these people haven't exactly been subtle; they've been getting more careful, but not THAT careful.
(11/x)
their chief method for avoiding detection is very simple and crude: flatly deny anything incriminating, and refuse to acknowledge any awkward details or questions about specifics whose answers are likely to be damaging to their cause. bald-faced denial goes a long way.
(12/x)
@mtaibbi, for example, refuses to answer any questions about whether he's had private meetings with @realDonaldTrump or any other @GOP politicians; he refuses to acknowledge questions about his business entanglements he may have in common with @elonmusk or Republicans.
(13/x)
and in private one can guess that @mtaibbi's been furiously at work scrubbing away as many of those entanglements as possible. we inhabit a topsy-turvy world of #capitalism and #finance and #cryptocurrency, which makes corruption and money-laundering easier than ever.
(14/x)
it's *also* quite likely that @mtaibbi's partners in the @elonmusk / @bariweiss / @GOP conspiracy have been strictly controlling Taibbi's access to information—Matt Taibbi's lies are more convincing if he himself has been deceived.
I'm _speculating_, of course.
(15/x)
my overall point, however, is that *traces* of these hidden connections between @mtaibbi and other persons within the @elonmusk / @stillgray / @GOP / @Twitter conspiracy might be inferred through #DataAnalysis: these people *talk in public* among each other.
(16/x)
one might, for example, detect interesting patterns in what persons @mtaibbi *used* to acknowledge in public, and then stopped acknowledging because his involvement in the conspiracy meant that Taibbi's access to information needed to be more tightly controlled.
(17/x)
the Pnictogen Wing was considering putting some work into such @Twitter#DataAnalysis ourselves, hoping to piece together some inferences about who's talking to whom and about what, within the @mtaibbi / @elonmusk / @GOP conspiracy. but then Musk made that more difficult.
(18/x)
not that I think @elonmusk knew or guessed what we were planning of course! but I do suspect that Musk and @mtaibbi and @ShellenbergerMD and the rest of them at least guessed that outsiders might be able to tease through their tweets, looking for clues about their crimes.
(19/x)
and now, that's tougher! it's a pity. one must acknowledge that the @mtaibbi fascɪst gang does sometimes know what they're doing.
I owe @KaylinEvergreen and Dionysos, one of my absolute _favorite_ Hellenic deities, a bit of attention. so here it is!
Dionysos, or "Bacchus" as he's been called in Greece and Rome, is an unusual addition to the Hellenic pantheon—a late addition, thought to be imported.
(1/x)
his own mythology seems to reflect the likelihood that the worship of Dionysos came in from the East: the general story is that he was born in Thrace, had a long period of wandering abroad, then returned to Greece—triumphantly drunk off his arse.
for Dionysos was a god of drunken revels and *ecstasy*.
that's how I first learned about him from Euripedes's stark play "The Bacchae", which describes how the king of Thebes, Pentheus, falls foul of Dionysos by attempting to forbid his worship.
there's a *lie* that #CSLewis told about himself in public, frequently. there were a lot of lies that he told about himself in public—not _malicious_ lies, but still lies.
this is something that Western society has trouble with: grasping that lies need not be malicious.
(1/x)
if you say something factually incorrect, you're a *liar*, even if you believe the lies to be truths. @MattWalshBlog or @realchrisrufo BELIEVE their propaganda lies about trans people, and they double and treble and quadruple down on believing them, when challenged, but...
(2/x)
...that's exactly why they're fanatics, and why their lies ought not to be taken at face value: @MattWalshBlog &c. aren't able to withstand criticism of their propaganda. if they're called out for telling lies, they tell more of them, and more loudly. this is *fanaticism*.
there's a very vague idea for a thread I've been chasing around my head all day. let me see if I can tease it out. I'll tell you the starting point: the writing of Mr. William Gibson (@GreatDismal) and his oft-quoted sentiment that the very rich aren't remotely human.
(1/x)
that quote still *bothers* me. I've admitted this before (to Mr. @GreatDismal, even)—I have an immense inward aversion to thinking about anyone like that. even Elon Musk, grotesque as he is...I've tried over and over to find some trace of healthful human emotions in him.
(2/x)
it's taken me a long time to come to grips with what separates someone like @elonmusk (and this maybe goes for his fanclub too—@mtaibbi, @bariweiss, @ShellenbergerMD, whoever) from someone like me. and it's not the *money* and *privilege* and *success* I'm thinking about.
one thing that right-wing people (like @NateSilver538) don't quite get about being "right wing": whatever these people *call* themselves, however they choose to label themselves, in reality they're as *right wing* as their most extreme right-wing beliefs, firmly held.
(1/x)
@NateSilver538 endorses the racist conspiracy approach to the #COVID19 crisis, i.e. "permit millions to die while blaming it all on China", and that's a *far right wing* belief. it doesn't matter what ELSE Nate Silver thinks he believes—it's not likely he even quite knows.
(2/x)
(sadly, one can't assume that someone like @NateSilver538 is ever in possession of very much self-awareness. he lies to everyone, *especially* himself.)
even if Nate Silver has some vaguely liberal or leftist ideas, they're bound to wither and disappear over time.
purity is the obsession of bigots, who define themselves as perfect and hence demand perfection in others.
one sees that arrogance constantly in the behavior of bigots like @NateSilver538 and @Cernovich. they act like nothing matters more than their approval.
(1/x)
Christians habitually have been obsessed with purity and perfection, which they only ever find in things they can't really see. there's a kind of diffuse Gnostic fallacy that pervades Christianity—a belief that there's something intrinsically sinful about *matter itself*.
(2/x)
I value many of the insights of Gnostic Christians but I don't agree with that one—I can't make myself think of the physics and chemistry of the Cosmos as somehow *broken*. if the Gnostics are right, and the work of the Demiurge is flawed...I don't blame the *materials*.
I'd like to talk about one of the most reliable weapons of bigotry. it's especially a "toxic male" thing—you can view "toxic masculinity" as a form of bigotry, being bigoted about being male—but it's a general-purpose weapon for bigots. @bindelj and @Docstockk use it.
(1/x)
it's *indignation*. point out something unpleasant to a bigot, and they take refuge in sputtering "how could you ever say such a thing??"
the *indignant* person is basically throwing the entire conversation to the ground and stamping on it, refusing to communicate any further, for you've said something so _appalling_ that no more words can be said other than "you're insane" and "how could you" and so forth.