Curry Pervert wrote: Fri Jul 08, 2022 4:20 pmThe alleged gunman, named as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, believed Abe was part of the group and shot him for that reason, they said, without naming the group.

The Gerogerigegege?

Chud Fusk wrote: Fri Jul 08, 2022 6:54 pm

Curry Pervert wrote: Fri Jul 08, 2022 4:20 pmThe alleged gunman, named as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, believed Abe was part of the group and shot him for that reason, they said, without naming the group.

The Gerogerigegege?
[/quote]

I feel like as I get older this kind of banter is less funny. But I gotta say the “zip gun” is a total GISM/Metal Skull move.

Clyde wrote: Fri Jul 08, 2022 4:37 pm Before I even clicked on the article, I thought to myself, "I bet Jonathan Haidt wrote this."

Came here to say exactly this same sort of thing, but not nearly as well as you did. Kudos. I was also thinking about Osita Nwanevu, even. His paragraph (paraphrasing Alan Taylor) about the Boston Tea Party being a propaganda-driven overreaction to other merchants getting lower taxes on competing tea has some real sad parallels to the zero-sum thinking in today's American politics.

I know nothing of this Jonathan Haidt or who he pals around with. Yes of course what's happening is more complicated than what the essay suggests. But the current form of social media (algorithms) is a problem and seems to be contributing to greater social polarization, and it's likely not going away or and will not be altered any time soon. And one can agree with Haidt here and not whatever his ideology might be.

Also, what exactly does "X% not using the site" mean? I don't have a Twitter account, but I certainly see posts, multiple every day, namely posts embedded in message boards like this one and others. There's one in this very thread a couple pages back. That surely ought to count as some form of "use." If you count seeing posts via third parties as use, I bet the percentage of users goes up quite a lot. I know some people who work in TV news. Twitter informs a lot of TV news stories and many stories are reported on Twitter before being reported by TV news. It's becoming increasingly difficult to separate Twitter from TV news media.

"Using" Twitter (or IG or FB) is much more complicated than simply having a Twitter account and using the site itself. Edit: In other words, the reach of social media goes far beyond only the people who have accounts.

Clyde wrote: Fri Jul 08, 2022 4:37 pm
Okay, but what about his larger point that this is all because of social media and algorithms? Well, the problem with that as Osita Nwanevu has pointed out is that:

I’ve shared figures like this before ⁠— on Twitter, ironically ⁠— but they’re worth repeating here. Every so often, the Pew Research Center publishes data on where Americans get their news. According to surveys conducted mid-last year, a 52 percent majority of Americans still say they don’t get their news from social media even “sometimes;” that number includes over a quarter of Americans under 30. (On Twitter specifically, Pew finds that 77 percent of Americans don’t use the site.) Pew’s validated voter data suggests about a 55 percent majority of the electorate was over the age of 50 in 2020; their news surveys show that only 38 percent of Americans 50-64 and 31 percent of Americans over 65 report getting any news from social media.

A couple things come to mind about this. First, 48% of America is a staggering number. It's a greater percentage of America than any registered party. Granted, it's not 48% tuning in to the same story from the same sources, but that 'minority' is a lot of people whose media use can strongly affect our culture climate. Second, not getting news would be interesting to qualify. I'd say political memes are potentially more damaging to nuanced thought than hyper biased articles based on proliferation alone. Does a political meme count as news?

Clyde wrote: Fri Jul 08, 2022 4:37 pm As for his solutions? Well, they're pretty much bog-standard DLC talking points mixed with letting the reasonable technocrats tweak Facebook and Twitter a bit to promote civil debate. Let a thousand Evan Bayh's bloom! Well, as Anton Chigurh once said, "If the rule you followed brought you to this, what use was the rule?"

I totally agree with this. While oversight on Facebook could be a net positive, it's not a proposal that could seriously address the concerns of the article. What we're struggling with is a cultural phenomenon. A recent example comes to mind:

The hot button political issue going into the midterms is inflation, and the related gas prices. Does the average person sharing their political thinking, or amplifying someone else's know about global markets and how inflation is effecting other countries? I'll raise my hand here and say "I didn't until a couple days ago."

My curiosity lead me on a ten minute journey of realizing that inflation is on the rise in most countries and the US is only on the slightly worse side when you look at the rich countries. Gas prices? America is in second place for cheapest gas in the G8. This information is not in a meme in my feed, it's only known by people who read nuanced articles on the economy (not a big group), or maybe distilled into a bite sized general perspective on public radio.

I know more about this now than anyone in my family, and the majority of my circle of friends. Which sucks because it's a pittance compared to folks who are academically engaged with this stuff right now, and probably a handful of sharp FMs on the board here. People will be voting on the economy, but a lot of them won't be reading about it. That's a knowledge gap that social media may not be particularly responsible for, but it's still rallying people on the issue without giving them any information.

That Chigurh quote is so applicable in most situations.

Everyone enjoying a parade of talentless ghouls lining up to be Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland…?

Any chance of a popular resurgence of the Labour Party after all of this mess?

Let’s hope Star Trek: The Next Generation was right.

(About more than that, sure, but this seems achievable.)

losthighway wrote: Tue Jul 12, 2022 4:31 pm Any chance of a popular resurgence of the Labour Party after all of this mess?

The Labour party are in a bigger mess than the country. Starmer is establishment through and through, and as neoliberal as they come.

His only selling point seems to be 'we're not the conservatives'....well, you have to offer more than that. He has purged socialist members, ridden roughshod over local party choices for candidates, expelled more Jewish members than any other Labour party leader and he's lost approximately 200,000 members in 2 years. Oh, and the party is nearly bankrupt again.

Every by election since he took over has returned almost or actually disastrous results, though he keeps smiling and trying to spin them as victories. Given we have the worst, most corrupt govt in living memory it takes some doing to offer up the worst opposition at the same time.

Fuck knows how a GE would turn out.