Many will read this article by @timstarks and @aaronjschaffer and say "See, the foreign influence thing was all made up!" But it's more complicated than that. washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/… My own sense is that 2016 discourse overstates the impact of "Russian trolls" and "Russian collusion" but probably understates the impact of hack-and-leaks and foreign influence more broadly (Russia, UAE, Israel, China etc).

I want @elonmusk to succeed, but I believe his erratic, monarchic approach to Trust & Safety issues going to backfire. A quick 🧵 I’ll admit, it is satisfying to watch Twitter’s “regime change” for those of us acquainted with the company’s longstanding political bias. But he needs to move Twitter to sanity for his deal to succeed, not from one form of crazy to another.

I'm cautiously optimistic about Elon taking over Twitter. Swinging too far toward free speech absolutism would be a mistake, but I don't think he'll do that. You can already see a change in tone in his message to advertisers. Curious how this plays out.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585619322239561728

As @elonmusk buys Twitter, I would anticipate:

•One or two big moves, like letting Trump back on the platform by a certain date

•Significant internal personnel & culture changes

•Marginal product improvement - the user experience won't change as much as people expect

Listening to the #WeCanDoHardThings (yes I listen lol) with ⁦@pronounced_ing. Noticing the impact of the host ⁦@GlennonDoyle⁩ using terms like “white fragility” & “patriarchy,” whereas Ng describes the same issues w/ more nuance & humanity. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-… I’m not allergic to discussing these issues, but I find some people’s reliance on these terms reductive, bigoted, and a bit lazy, as if reaching for the proximate woke scapegoat (patriarchy = men bad; white fragility = white people bad). The terms feel dated and inadequate.

The common thread: Three men whose neurodivergence is part of their brilliance and also their greatest liability, leaving a trail of achievement and disaster in their wake. An under-discussed issue.

https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1578174670854975491

Many of us have friends and family like this: Brilliant sufferers who need behavioral guardrails in the worst way, surrounded by enablers. The only solution is loving decoupling and firm boundaries.

Been thinking through a new approach to sustainability and climate issues driven by six principles.

Just playing around - let me know what you think... Vision:

Resource abundance as global population surpasses 11b by 2100.

Ensure grandchildren's generation has access to clean air, water, food, energy.

Help developing nations pursue prosperity unconstrained by resource limitations.

I agree about the rot on the Right. But here’s the thing: It presents a once-in-a-generation leadership opportunity to get the party back to a healthy place. This requires moving thoroughly & decisively post-trump and -trumpism.

https://twitter.com/nils_gilman/status/1568244569963397120

As it stands, we are well down the path toward a one-party system. And maybe for good reason. But this isn’t healthy or sustainable either. The desired end state should be a healthy two-party system. It is to *disagree* constructively about how to serve American citizens.

The problem with the sustainability movement is that it is based on a premise of scarcity instead of a dedication to abundance. It is driven by top-down policy instead of bottom-up innovation. Here's the result: wsj.com/articles/the-c… A different approach would frame things around creating a resources-rich planet as we grow to 10 billion people. It would be much more technology-focused, and much more mindful of secondary effects. Fossil fuels are not the enemy, but a friend to help make the transition.

Young guy asked me who to follow for life advice. My tip: Avoid guru worship. It will lead to disappointment. Instead, create an imaginary/parasocial board of advisors of 5 or so figures who bring different perspectives to the table. Swap them out as you evolve. The phenomenon of “masculinity guru” is particularly fraught, yet there’s a hunger for masculine guidance in an era of rampant fatherlessness & feminized institutions. My advice: Identify *multiple* figures who speak to you. Seek perspectives not answers.

Yes - ban it. But there are two systemic issues to think about:

• Tech regulation needs to operate within the OODA loop of innovation

• Counterintel issues pervade the private technology space, and we don't have fast or adequate means to address them

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1560708205713539072

“Surveillance capitalism” will become something much more sinister if we can’t appropriately regulate data.

This is a big issue for anyone wanting guardrails against authoritarianism.

Each side is authoritarian but in different ways.

Each side fears authoritarianism in the other and uses that fear to justify furthering its own authoritarianism.

I call this a "Weimar dialectic." Recognizing it is key to deescalating, which is my hope.

https://twitter.com/gribneau/status/1557700376748507137?s=20&t=EZLVua0dZk0dNUNGPP7nhA

The Right has a more immediate & specific authoritarian issue with Trump & coup apologists. There's a growing appetite for Caesarism in intellectual circles, largely in reaction to what they perceive as authoritarianism from the left. Normies are riled up too.

Reading @ELuttwak's WSJ op-ed from the day after Jan 6 and ... it is so wrong. Wonder if he still believes this as more details have emerged.

My view: Yes it was an attempted coup, though most participants didn't realize it. wsj.com/articles/the-m… It's intimidating to disagree with the man who literally wrote the book on coups, but this paragraph seems off. A large gathering can be instrumentalized for a "silent" planned conspiracy... in this case to disrupt and delay electoral certification.

.@PredictIt shows Trump sinking at the end of June, then surging through July. The #January6hearings don't seem to be taking away any of his support and may be having the opposite effect.

- The light blue line is Trump and the purple line is DeSantis predictit.org/markets/detail… According to another recent poll:

-half of Americans think Trump should be charged with Jan 6 crimes

but...

-Jan 6 is not top of mind for voters in either party
-Jan 6 is an important issue for only 2% of Republicans
pbs.org/newshour/polit…

Still waiting for media to engage in some self-reflection in the face of record-low trust....

That's not the case here, though @jackshafer raises valid points about a broader collapse of trust. politico.com/news/magazine/… Note the wagon-circling, evidence-free logic

Was just looking at some data points now vs Jan '21, when Biden took office... Inflation rate
-Jan '21: 1.4%
-now: 8.6%
usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/curr…

A few hot takes on the Twitter deal withdrawal:

1. Elon was foolish to waive due diligence rights. But Twitter was sus for not providing more transparency. There was an easy solution: a third party audit. (Facebook does this.) I suspect other factors are driving the withdrawal. 2. Elon's offer was at a premium in a changing macro-economic environment. But worse than that: The deal became political, in an already divisive & charged political environment. Elon encouraged this. This was a mistake imo.

Do the gays behind @againstgroomers have kids? Sincere question.

This "groomer" talk is dangerous & foolish. I share concerns about gender/queer ideological excess, but this isn't right.

Would encourage you all to reconsider. #GaysAgainstGroomers

https://twitter.com/againstgroomers/status/1539639935782854663?s=20&t=sxLPKDpFrlWRXF-mCbNUvg

@againstgroomers #GaysAgainstGroomers claims to want to protect children from predators. That's a noble goal. But is this the way to do so? The shotgun approach to smearing people with the stench of child abuse is dumb, dangerous, and wrong. It will get someone killed. Have we learned nothing?

Spent the last two years off Twitter, changed my info diet, survived parenting under Covid, worked on my shit, and evolved. Dipping my toes back on Twitter. Experimenting and kind of ambivalent about it. Hope life is treating you all well. What are some observations?

• I used to think Twitter helped me think more critically. That it made me smarter. But it controlled me in ways I didn't fully appreciate. It skewed my info diet, created weird subtle social pressure, rewarded righteous anger and bad energy.

As a Republican and (past) Trump supporter, I find it deeply disturbing how few people are acknowledging the obvious truth: that there was a deliberate, coordinated attempt to interfere in the electoral process led by Trump. This is a moral failure. I understand the counter-narratives:
-the 2020 election was stolen
-feds spurred the riots
-Democrats have done far worse
-the hearings are one-sided & scope of investigation should be widened

Even if history proves these true, a Constitutional red line was still crossed.

How would you describe @elonmusk's political views? Been thinking about this and my sense is that he represents a new strain in American politics. I'm calling it "rocketship centrism." (Feel free to suggest better language.)

Let me describe what I mean.... The term "centrist" may evoke brunch, bland thinking, and business as usual. That's definitely not Elon. Rocketship centrism is something else. Rocketship centrism challenges conventional thinking from left & right, obsesses about the future, & is very bold.

Been finding much of the free speech glee reductive and misplaced. "Free speech" works rhetorically and @elonmusk knows this. The question is how the ideals of speech translate to product strategy & content moderation. There's a lot of complexity here. Tons of little questions. I used to be a free speech absolutist on platforms like Twitter. I now believe that translating the ideals of free speech to a global tech platform requires some degree of content moderation. And yes, censorship. Ironic, I know.