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arctotherium Profile picture
@arctotherium42
Mar 13 • 2 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
Is this actually true? Were, say, Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, or James Watt 'powerless and despised'? No, not really. Pasteur, Koch? Nope. Euler, Newton, Fermat? No. Einstein, Rutherford? Also no. Image
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Innovators are rarely people with immense political power, for obvious reasons (very few political elites, borderline impossible to be world-class in two very different arenas). But they tend to be from solidly middle-class and above backgrounds, not powerless or despised.

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More from @arctotherium42

arctotherium Profile picture
Mar 15
Thread on Anglosphere intelligence's role in the 2015-2023 closure of the Internet. Not a ton of evidence on the topic (obviously), so this thread isn't super dense. There was a huge surge in tech hiring of ex-FBI employees in 2018. Image
It is not inherently suspicious that ex-spooks go to Silicon Valley companies; many have expertise in cybersecurity and related fields. What IS suspicious is that so many flock to the content control/moderation roles (Trust and Safety etc). Image
For example, you have Meta product policy managers for disinformation (ex-CIA) and senior managers of Trust & Safety at Google (also ex-CIA). Image
Read 8 tweets
arctotherium Profile picture
Mar 14
Deplatforming of websites thread. This is when private web infrastructure actors (cloud providers, payment processors, DNS providers, DDoS protectors) coordinate to purge websites. Several layers of the web stack are oligopolies, so this can happen sans explicit coordination.
The first major case of infrastructure-level deplatforming was WikiLeaks in 2010, for releasing classified information obtained illegally (US diplomatic cables), referred to as "Cablegate," by AWS, EveryDNS, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and Bank of America. Image
The attacks on WikiLeaks were not ideological ones (they were committing actual crimes as a website), but the tactics (both deplatforming and extremely bogus sex "scandals" like sending love letters to a 19 year old), presaged later efforts during the Great Awokening.
Read 21 tweets
arctotherium Profile picture
Mar 13
The entire male Manchu population was turned into fighters by the Aisin-Gioro clan (Qing) to conquer China. They were forbidden from doing anything but fight, and given privileges and Chinese slaves to sustain them. Over time, this made them decadent and useless. Image
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Despite many Qing attempts to reverse Manchu decay, they, banned from working, eventually found themselves economically subjugated by their economically-productive and hardworking Chinese subjects. Sort of like Hegel's parable of the master and the slave. Image
As a result, the Qing dynasty came to rely primarily on their Mongol allies, who remained on the steppe rather than enter China, for their best soldiers, with footsoldiers/specialists filled out by Chinese (with Mongol or Manchu officers). Image
Read 4 tweets
arctotherium Profile picture
Mar 8
The most interesting thing in Facebook's evolution from mostly-free (albeit without pseudonymity) platform to aggressively controlled between 2015 and 2020 is how involved European governments were in the process (thread).
The most important thing about Facebook is that it can be used to reach the great mass of Gen X and Boomer adults who are not Internet natives and comprise most swing voters. Dark Facebook Manipulation from Russia and Vote Leave was blamed for both Trump 2016 and Brexit.
These two events provoked an avalanche of books, news articles, government reports, NGOs, and hearings (including in 2018 in the US Senate) about how Facebook microtargeting would end democracy. Example: Image
Read 12 tweets
arctotherium Profile picture
Mar 6
In 2015, Twitter was "the free speech wing of the free speech party" according to CEO Jack Dorsey, even avoiding collaboration with the NSA (unlike Google, Facebook). By 2019 it was one of the most censored, monitored, and controlled social media networks in the world. Image
YouTube was the biggest and most monetizable platform, Reddit the most important discussion forum, Amazon needed for authors and websites, and Google Search the only way to surface niche info sources. Twitter mattered as the social network of the intelligentsia.
In 2015, Twitter under Twitter general counsel Vijaya Gadde began reinterpreting their existing rules much more broadly and banned hate speech, to "keep Twitter safe." Chuck Johnson was banned for tweeting that would "take out" (attack digitally, not murder) a BLM activist. Image
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Read 14 tweets
arctotherium Profile picture
Mar 6
Alaric on 2010s feminism and sexual norms. He sees it as a concrete, sharp break in 2014 alien to anything that came before. which almost overnight made anti-male sentiment the most pervasive cultural force in the Western world. Image
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2014 saw a huge top-down feminist media campaign both motivating and caused by government initiatives and international institutions. This was the true start of Woke as a feminist and internationalist movement, before it became more racialist and parochial. Image
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2014 redefined consent and made rape and street harassment, low and falling for decades in the American mainstream, centerpieces of American social consciousness. Image
Read 14 tweets

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