Even in its hayday I don’t think Twitter was used by the majority of the US population and had significant demographic slants even within that reduced segment.
Current Affairs Elon Musk
- Thread starter ReiRei
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Interesting, the data on Twitter demographics over time would be fascinating.
Thinking about this a bit more, there’s a useful distinction between the content of something like Twitter and a message board or forum like GOT. Where GOT has distinct topics and threads, so you can pick and choose what you want to look at that day.
When I’ve had enough of politics and other misery, I can just avoid this bit of the forum, and stick to the Stadium thread for a bit.
Twitter and facebook and the like are just everything thrown in a pot at the same time, driven algorithmically to generate maximum revenue, so more difficult to curate your own intake of topics.
As Bo Burnham said in ‘Welcome to the Internet’ - “Can I interest you in everything, all of the time”.
I had my Twitter split into lists for this exact reason - when Everton were on a bad run and politics getting me down it is just the “cat” list and gardening stuff I checked on!
See, you’re smarter than me, I didn’t have lists.
I just opened the app, and let the sluice pour straight into my brain.
twoblue
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I hate that the centre ground doesn’t exist on the internet
I deleted Twitter quite a while ago and haven’t looked back. I don’t do social media at all really and to be honest it’s great. Although for those who are self-employed and or working in creative arts it’s pretty much essential for promotion.
I think the echo chamber thing is a good point. I vaguely recall some of the lessons learnt (which weren’t learnt at all it seems) from political shocks in the last decade were that social media platforms are very much not representative of the population as a whole.
Not like GOT, to be fair
NeilMorepies
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coollino
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I unfollowed all football accounts when Everton nearly got relegated a few years ago, and it was bar and far the best social media decision I ever made
Elon Musk's AI turns on him, labels him 'one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X'
His posts, it added, “can have real-world consequences."
This is well written and you would think that Musk with his (completely made up) IQ of 150 would understand how science works. But it turns out he is just another dumbass who got rich and thinks he understands how science works because actual scientists are on his payroll.
slate.com
The Stupid Reason That Elon Musk Is Complaining About Scientists Spraying Bobcat Urine on Alcoholic Rats
Science is inefficient. That’s a good thing.
Have yet to track down the paper but this looks interesting (and unsurprising) if it proves to be a robust result.
It's a continuation of the anti-science rhetoric that follows the MAGA movement around like a bad smell.This is well written and you would think that Musk with his (completely made up) IQ of 150 would understand how science works. But it turns out he is just another dumbass who got rich and thinks he understands how science works because actual scientists are on his payroll.
The Stupid Reason That Elon Musk Is Complaining About Scientists Spraying Bobcat Urine on Alcoholic Rats
Science is inefficient. That’s a good thing.
From Covid deniers, anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers and the type of religious half-wits who think man coexisted with dinosaurs.
Appealing to reactionary buffoons, who'd rather get their answers about the world from 30 second tik-tok videos (Like Joe Rogan) rather than spend 5 minutes to look up and find out for them selves why something is the way it is is the very foundation of the modern right-wings base.
They want people angry and reactionary rather than informed. Why else are they all still so mad even after such a resounding political victory?
Musk should know, as you say, that some scientific research may look a little odd from the surface, but there is usually method for the perceived madness.
The drive for funding for researching the type of sponge & coral life that lives in the parts of the ocean is another one that I've seen critisised over the years, but there's been a lot of research completed into various Alzheimer treatments along with a lot of other treatments from these studies.
As Our Oceans Change, Drugmakers Dive Deep for an Alzheimer’s Cure
Some drugmakers are forgoing conventional approaches to Alzheimer's, cancer and other disease, looking in oceans for potential treatments.
www.beingpatient.com
Most people wouldn't normally put those two things together (me included until I heard about it), but people like Musk are banking on the ignorance of his supporters to likely funnel more of the government budget into his own business interests (as if there's any way he's doing this out of any sense of duty to the USA
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There were these people, they disputed the accepted facts, had no time for experts - especially when their professional opinion was contrary to what they wanted, so they whipped up the crowds and invented a boogieman and took to the streets. There was kristallnacht, and there was the book burnings that defied history. It ended up on the railways to Auschwitz and similar. There are very troubling echo's resonating through history an awful lot closer than they've ever been. Stupidity isn't a sin, it is also not an excuse. I now wonder if america is as close or closer to some powder keg moment than if trump had lost.
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