Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Michael Hobbes Profile picture
Michael Hobbes
@RottenInDenmark
Currently @MaintenancePod and @IfBooksPod. Formerly @YoureWrongAbout, @HuffPost, @Highline. Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
13 subscribers
Jul 12, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Claim and evidence. https://t.co/3OhO4JVndC

Image
Image All of these examples are the opposite of what Jon says they are.

The Michael Brown claim points to a story debunking it. This isn't "epistemic closure," it's a progressive outlet fact-checking progressive politicians, precisely the thing Jon says doesn't happen
Image
Image
Jun 23, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
David, from the bottom of my heart: Shut the fuck up.
https://t.co/JgirXp6yAOnytimes.com/2023/06/22/opi…
"While correct on the merits, these gay people made me uncomfortable."

Fuck off David, LGBTQ rights did not advance because we were polite.



Jun 21, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Absolutely insane framing
https://t.co/tAy2z5muThnytimes.com/2023/06/21/boo…




 Note that the "both sides" narrative here doesn't even hold up for an entire paragraph. The Utah "ban" on the Bible was a single complaint by a parent trolling conservatives.
If your own article can't support your thesis maybe write a different article!

Jun 21, 2023 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
If this isn't corruption then the word has no meaning. https://t.co/rQPzVG2Kou




 Indefensible that the Supreme Court isn't bound by ethics rules but if that's how it's going to work, then justices need to be impeached for showing judgement this bad.
Either he knew what he was doing or he's a total rube. Both scenarios make him unfit for the job.
Jun 15, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Happy Pride month!
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/… Image The core problem with centrist punditry on this issue is that they insist on debating trans rights in the abstract.

Are liberal news outlets responsible for reactionary backlash every time they're cited by right-wing politicians? Of course not. Image
Jun 7, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Not saying this isn't a real trend but whenever you see a year-on-year change that big your first question should be about the quality of the data. The GSS is notoriously noisy, especially when it comes to population subgroups. It definitely *feels* like young men are becoming more conservative and it's something I'm really worried about, but if this is a real trend we should be able to find other quantitative indicators.
Jun 6, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This piece notes that 77% of schools already ban phones in classrooms. As usual, it's unclear what Haidt wants other than to continue whipping up a moral panic about social media and mental health among kids. "Kids shouldn't be on their phones during class" is such an obvious statement that you'd struggle to find anyone who disagrees with it. At various points Haidt implies that states should ban cellphones in schools by law, which seems like a wild overreach.
May 23, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This thread is making the rounds but it offers no evidence of its central claim.
This is a (very technical) opinion article from 2022 that simply says COVID spike proteins contain "prion-like regions." Maybe this will become relevant in the future but for now it's not cause for alarm.
Image
May 22, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I am so fascinated by this behavior because it appears to only exist on Twitter. In no other context do you hear a person say, "I like a thing" and the immediate response is "some people can't experience that!" I feel like the core problem is that Twitter is used as a water cooler to goof off but also as a place to raise awareness and test out political messaging.
So when you say "I like donuts" people read it like you're proposing a Universal Basic Donuts policy
May 17, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
It is so fucking embarrassing that magazines are still publishing this shit Thousands upon thousands of words dedicated to ... a happy hour.
Breaking: People with similar politics hang out sometimes! Why do reporters and editors find everything adjacent to this stupid moral panic worth publishing?! Image
May 11, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The media has been making up for this alleged oversight for 8 fucking years now. When are we gonna get tired of looking at the "overlooked" Trump voters? It's true that the media didn't adequately convey to non-Trump voters that Trump could win, but that's hardly a failure of empathy. It's a failure of prediction, which the media sucks at and shouldn't be doing anyway.
May 10, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
A subway rider choked a mentally ill homeless man to death last week but it's important that we remain focused on the real villains: Random people who were annoying about it on Twitter.
nytimes.com/2023/05/09/opi… ImageImage There's been a baffling rush to assign responsibility for Neely's death on SJWs but one of the overwhelming priorities of the left is more funding for social housing, mental health care and welfare supports. Image
May 8, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Conor Friedersdorf is quoting "concerned parents" of trans kids and it's going about how you'd expect.
theatlantic.com/newsletters/ar… ImageImage To be fair he also quotes a pro-trans parent but the entire framing of this as a "debate" is deranged. We're talking about people who support their children versus people who disown them. On any other issue it would be obvious that there's nothing to debate here.
May 4, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
People are disruptive on public transit all the fucking time and we manage not to *choke them to death* because there are a million other options for de-escalating or avoiding the situation.
The idea that riders had no other option in Neely's case is insulting. Image Also Neely wasn't "refusing services" he was literally begging for a place to sleep when he was killed!
May 4, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Look how these articles launder extremism into the mainstream. What does it even mean to perform a mastectomy on a 12-year-old? A vanishingly small number of these procedures are performed per year and the vast majority are on 16- and 17-year-olds. As usual this article cites no evidence that children are being rushed into transition. It simply repeats a litany of *other* concern-trolling features and op-eds.
This is stranger danger all over again: Evidence of a moral panic being cited as proof that the panic is justified. ImageImageImage
May 3, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This seems to be a straightforward case of someone murdering someone else in broad daylight? Image The replies perfectly encapsulate the kind of society conservatives want: Decimate social services, push mentally ill people out onto the streets, exonerate vigilantes who abuse them — then blame the left for not solving the problem.
Apr 24, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Important to realize that Peterson was just some random college professor before he started telling lies about trans people and the media declared him an important thinker.
Without people like Brooks laundering him into the mainstream he would still be a nobody. In 2016 he was a U of Toronto professor. He put a lecture on YouTube in which he claimed that Canadians would be imprisoned for misgendering a trans person.
The student newspaper wrote it up and the national press found it. A few weeks later he got a fawning BBC profile. ImageImage
Apr 18, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Quick question what has happened to the price of housing, healthcare, childcare and education The whole piece is just an exercise in hand-waving. She's basically admitting that all the indicators millennials complain about are true, she just thinks they don't matter. ImageImageImage
Apr 16, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Baffling article based exclusively on a news conference by the NYPD, which released no detailed information.
Shoplifting *arrests* say very little about shoplifting since so few cases result in police action. This is just an excuse to whip up panic about petty crime. As usual, this article is trying to entrench an absurd false binary: "Shoplifters are either desperate poor people or rapacious professional criminals."

First, "organized retail theft" is essentially an urban legend invented by retailers to advocate for more police resources. Image
Apr 5, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
"Getting elected president results in additional scrutiny of your legal affairs" ummm yep that's kind of how it's supposed to work We should, in fact, hold powerful people to higher standards of morality and ethics! Numerous politicians had to resign in Germany for plagiarizing their PhDs published years before they were public figures.
That's ... good! Having a country run by scrupulous people whips ass.
Mar 20, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The journalists that spent the last four years calling this care illegitimate and harmful to children are adamant that their coverage had nothing to do with efforts to ban it. What's worse: GOP efforts to ban straightforwardly beneficial healthcare? Or GOP efforts to ban procedures that have questionable efficacy and are being given to kids without assessment?

The muted liberal backlash to these policies *has* to be due to the atrocious coverage.