@LnzyHou Yep, we all have limited amounts of time and energy.

I look for where people are curious and open. X-Twitter stopped being that a lot time ago, and the net effect on our culture was really, really bad.

I also won't be on these other platforms much, most likely. But I just find it reassuring that people's appetite for megalomaniacal rage-baiting isn't, y'know, infinite. 🙂

@northernbassist I got played.

And then I laughed!

@LnzyHou I'm not convinced it won't be, but what's happening on there right now is like what I experienced when I first joined Twitter.

(Same with Threads at the moment.)

And when I joined Twitter, people kept saying it already wasn't like the "good old days."

People are detoxing. It'll be weird for a while.

BlueSky's terms and conditions are pretty comprehensive, and they're actively and specifically enforced. That's a whole new experience for some folks. ;-)

@redenigma It is a difficult equation because there are so many moving parts to this.

The costs and the profits are spread out over a huge product line up for companies of this nature. It all gets figured out in balance sheets on a fiscal year basis.

This is part of the reason why it's so difficult to hold corporations to account -- we have no concept of the actual value of anything, and the realities are (intentionally) shrouded in layers of mystery.

It is a *really* good question, though!

@LnzyHou Oh, I'm slow on the uptake there; I didn't realise he was out of BlueSky already.

I don't know what's next for him, and I don't particularly care. That's probably unfortunate timing on his part -- leaving before it lived into its potential, *and* making overly sunny comments about the platform that continues to flail on his way out.

I'm happy that throngs can finally see the dead-bird site for what it is -- including that it is intentionally addictive -- and can find relief from it.

Imagine launching and growing a popular social media platform. Getting a huge buyout for it. Watching it burn down to the ground, scorching everything that was good and fun about it. And then, a few years, later starting again with a thing that looks and works just like what you started with, and having people flock to it out of joyful relief.

This particular strand of the metaverse is definitely a weird one.

I've been spending a lot of time recently thinking about how some self-described sceptics are especially susceptible to falling for conspiracy theories.

The more people think they're immune, the more likely they are to take on the person of "true believers." and the more difficult it is to persuade them otherwise.

It's just one more quirk of the human condition.

#politics

The perpetual indeterminacy of his seriousness is not a bug, it's a feature. The unpredictability keeps everyone and everything off balance, which makes him uniquely powerful.

Everything is a joke, the threat of suffering, the fear of suffering, or even the reality of suffering.

People support him in part because they want to be insiders, safe from being the target of his jokes.

But there is no insider with him.

The Joker has been made the mayor of Gotham.

No-one is safe.

Infowars is now owned by the Onion because irony is dead.

And also because irony has been resuscitated with a stim pack that launched it into orbit.

https://www.readtpa.com/p/the-onion-now-owns-infowars-because

@LnzyHou Aggrieved privilege.

That is the only thing that comes through his bizarre babble.

Apparently this is the message that the US is the most eager to hear, and respond to.

@LnzyHou It's very weird and deeply scary to think about what the empowerment from shock and trauma could lead to, especially for a leader who has been so loudly cheered for his broad, vague promises of retribution.

What does a world-class opportunist do when he has no constraints of conscience, and no restraints of governance?

We get to be witnesses. Again.

It's pretty much impossible to overstate Covid's impact on global politics and democracy.

We've never needed life-and-death gov't interventions like that before in our lives. It stands to reason that wherever they were felt, they were deeply controversial.

Covid was bigger than doctors, hospitals, gov'ts, int'l orgs, everything!

Globally, people are voting from their shock & trauma, and are being (easily) led by politicians to blame incumbents for their suffering & grief.

#politics

@gshevlin It's important to recognise that they are in reaction mode. Mockery & ridicule will entrench them.

Zooming out, social theorists have pointed out that incumbents all over the world are being ousted by post-Covid voting.

The US in a bit unique here because the 1st Trump administration was actually in power when Covid showed up. Then Biden fixed a bunch of things, but hurt and harm were (and are) still rampaging.

So from this perspective, the US has experienced two Covid disruptions.

@cjcrew I know. I've experienced that. Both ways. 🙂

But the question stands, and it's not being asked enough.

"Where is the line?"

It doesn't have to be a long debate. It doesn't have to be in a flurry of accusations.

Authoritarianism works by continually pushing boundaries. Conservatives are yielding without resistance because they aren't being asked where their line is. Whatever the line is, Trump is determined to cross it.

He has done it before. He's promised to do it again.

#politics

It really does seem like Trump is constantly asking "Where is the line?"

And the answer, all the way from the voting public to SCOTUS, is "There isn't one."

This is the question that needs to be raised with conservatives and especially republicans. "Where is your line? What would be a deal-breaker?"

These are the people who -- my whole life -- have been calling out moral relativism. And now, this is their guy. This is now their moral centre.

They need to made to see it.

@Tee_Lynn @POOetryma @Liberty4all @feloneouscat It's been feeding itself a steady diet of manufactured grievance, scapegoating and its own supposed moral superiority for decades.

The church discovered that it could create solidarity out of antagonising minority out-groups, and eventually far-right politics found its new power source.

@LSWellesley There are several access points.

Do a quick search on the SBC's reducing numbers over the past few years. That's the biggest non-Catholic church in the US, and one of the most significant in politics. It's still large, but it's losing people.

Qualitatively, a common cited reason for leaving is that church group's support for TFG.

I also have access to an extensive research project that fleshes out the other pieces further -- I'll provide more details later.

@StevenSavage @danialexis I fully agree.

There are many (too many!) pivotal points in history when the church got caught up in the project of building the empire of its time.

This is one of them.