49 replies to this topic

[RiseUp]

 

IMO, if you're looking in those places to find truth, you're already lost.  People don't go to twitter, or fakebook to find truth, they go there to find reassurances of what they already want to believe.

 
 
I think it's a fascinating source of perspective rather than truth.

 

 

This confuses me. If I believe something to be true I can find people on twitter/facebook that will back me up, so what is the difference?

Edited by TVCasualty, 11 April 2022 - 04:40 PM.

[TVCasualty]

I edited your post to fix the formatting issue. Looks like you made the hyper-frustrating reply mistake of trying to edit text inside a quote box while in HTML mode, which is a road to madness (it's driven me crazy a bunch of times).

 

 

 

 

 

IMO, if you're looking in those places to find truth, you're already lost.  People don't go to twitter, or fakebook to find truth, they go there to find reassurances of what they already want to believe.

 
 
I think it's a fascinating source of perspective rather than truth.

 

 

This confuses me. If I believe something to be true I can find people on twitter/facebook that will back me up, so what is the difference?

 

 

Perspective is not the same thing as confirmation bias.

 

Sometimes I don't even look for perspective on anything in particular and am just checking out what someone is up to these days. Or what someone really smart is thinking about that day (here's a good example of the kind of unexpected perspective I try to find, and it's relevant to the topic, too). And crowd-sourced news can be interesting and provide you with info or images not found elsewhere, like when a dozen different people all post videos of different angles of the same incident (unlike the regular news media).

 

Most people, however, do seem to be seeking confirmation bias in such places rather than perspective. I was only talking about myself.

[shiftingshadows]

 

 

IMO, if you're looking in those places to find truth, you're already lost.  People don't go to twitter, or fakebook to find truth, they go there to find reassurances of what they already want to believe.

 

 

 

 

I thought that was why people go to church

 

and come to think of it why people defend positions,

and attach to identities.

 

And most live in the same culture all their lives.

 

Perhaps we even have different motives within ourselves:

 

1) to become anonymous, invisible, fit in ...

 

2) and another to get attention, be noticed, be different, feel special...

 

needs may be like a merry-go-round,

or

game of musical chairs

Edited by shiftingshadows, 11 April 2022 - 06:53 PM.

[Juthro]

 

I thought that was why people go to church

 

 

lol, I wouldn't know, I don't swing that way.  Though I do see fanatical behavior associated with both social media, and religion, maybe you're on to something.   

[TVCasualty]

Yeah, and the people celebrating his change of heart are not thinking it through. There's a distinct possibility that he only bailed on joining the Board because being on it would limit him to a ~14% stake whereas now he is free to commence with a hostile takeover and buy 51%. Which would not cost him very much, relatively speaking.

 

Twitter has something around 800 million shares outstanding, costs $47.00/share as of right this second so to buy another 41.8% would only cost him another $16 billion (give or take $300 million, which is about what Musk makes per day right now).

 

 

Whoa, I didn't see his offering to buy 100% of it and taking it private coming. But it seemed obvious when he declined the Board seat that he wasn't finished playing whatever game he's up to.

 

 

This seems to suggest that one of the world's richest men (ever) thinks owning, or rather controlling, twitter is worth all this hassle (and tens of billions of dollars).

 

I wonder what makes him think that?

Edited by TVCasualty, 14 April 2022 - 09:14 AM.

[shiftingshadows]

..."This seems to suggest that one of the world's richest men (ever) thinks owning, or rather controlling,

twitter is worth all this hassle (and tens of billions of dollars). I wonder what makes him think that?"

 

Such wealth seems to make people "a little nutty"

Like the idea we would want to live on Mars.

(where there are no forests, mountain streams, flowers, or birds.....

or Bezos monster yacht.

 

https://duckduckgo.c...mages&ia=images

 

Reminds me of Tolstoy's famous short story:

"how much Land does a man need".

 

Only 10 pages and free, and memorable for a lifetime:

https://www.ninalp.c...Leo_Tolstoy.pdf

 

I read it over half a century ago, and never forgot, Tolstoy was amazing, IMO.

Edited by shiftingshadows, 14 April 2022 - 02:11 PM.

[simplegood78]

Such wealth seems to make people "a little nutty"

Like the idea we would want to live on Mars.

(where there are no forests, mountain streams, flowers, or birds.....

or Bezos monster yacht.

 

Made me think of this:

 

 

https://www.youtube....rts/x45_Fss-3TE

 

And somewhere, Musk saying its a one way trip to Mars.  A new way to enslave people.

[TVCasualty]

Musk is almost certainly a little nutty, but also a lot calculated. Plus he has access to plenty of advisors, consultants, and experts in their fields if he has questions.

 

One thing his Twitter shenanigans have done is wake a lot of people up to who already owns/controls Twitter. All the hand-wringing about Musk might be justified, but why no concern (until now) about the very shady cast of characters who already own it? Does anyone seriously think that a multi-billionaire Saudi Prince gives a shit about freedom of speech? How about major hedge fund managers?

 

Musk may actually care about free speech to some extent since it serves his interests at the moment, so even if we hate the guy we ought to acknowledge that he's shining a light on things that probably needed to be revealed to a general public that usually never thinks about who actually owns and controls the digital infrastructure of our lives.

 

He also put the Board in a bind with his offer since their duty is to shareholders and if they are fulfilling that duty they would be compelled to take it. If I owned significant stock I'd be peeved that the Board was not helping me maximize my gains, which is contrary to my interests and therefore actionable (possibly gaining class-action status).

 

The fact that Vanguard immediately increased its position (it now owns more than Musk) suggests that Musk isn't the only person who thinks the platform is valuable and worth owning.

 

 

Here's another possibility I've seen few consider: Massive AI and machine learning projects like the kind Musk has been into need input data for "learning." The more the better. Twitter not only has an inconceivable amount of data, it also uses some interesting algorithms and buying it would give Musk complete access to all of it, which is probably where Twitter's true long-term value lies.

[TVCasualty]

Well this was interesting. Here's a TED talk from 4/14 where Musk talks about his Twitter offer, set to start when he says exactly what I've been warning about for many years, using the same words (it's an interesting talk worth starting from the beginning):
 

[Direct Link]

 

EDIT: Added new link since the one I embedded was removed (WTF?)

[Direct Link]

 

This one is not set to start at the point I wanted to emphasize that was about 12 minutes in since finding it again is a PITA.

 

 

 

That is becoming a problem. Ultimately all of our internet use gets routed at some point through privately-owned equipment, transmission lines, servers, or software. Theoretically, any owner of any part of the privately-owned infrastructure can block objectionable content as private entities are not subject to the First Amendment (in the US).

BUT, the internet has become a de facto commons and so this issue is no longer so clear-cut. If private infrastructure becomes the underpinnings of public space, freedom of speech would technically be at the discretion of its respective owners.

You'll always have the right to say what you want, just not on the radio unless you own a station. Or TV, unless you own a station. Eventually it may include the internet too, unless you own an ISP. Oh, there will be the equivalent of a token "public access" channel where various sundry lunatics rant and rave that they can point to in order to argue that freedom of speech still exists, but that's a sad joke really.

If freedom of speech just means I can stand on a street corner and say whatever I want, then it's on the verge of being worthless since no one will hear it as they'll be inside surfing the 'net or watching TV. The guys who wrote the Bill of Rights probably couldn't imagine a scenario in which freedom of speech would exist but we'd lose the freedom to hear it since they wrote it before speech could be transmitted over private property. Ownership and control of printing presses was already starting to hint at this problem, but a printing press was an independent and realistically attainable piece of technology back then compared to buying one's own ISP now.

Edited by TVCasualty, 22 April 2022 - 04:29 PM.

[shiftingshadows]

"Musk may actually care about free speech to some extent since it serves his interests at the moment,"

 

I hope you're right

 

 

"so even if we hate the guy "

 

I don't hate the guy. he's much smarter than I am. I just wish he had some wisdom & some sort of sensitivity/compassion/empathy/love of nature.

He seems rather one sided. Makes me think of a cute quip, perhaps too cute?

He is the AI he fears.

 

..."we ought to acknowledge that he's shining a light on things that probably needed to be revealed to a general public that usually never thinks about who actually owns and controls the digital infrastructure of our lives."

 

yes