14 Comments
May 23, 2023Liked by John Birmingham

I think part of it also is by staying on Twitter you are rewarding Space Karen and his followers for their behaviour.

I was dragooned into being the comms team leader for an organisation I volunteer with, and the first lesson I have to teach everyone who helps out is: we don't have to respond to every idiot who leaves a comment (on Twitter, FB, Insta etc). And the comments we do respond to, and how we respond to them, have much more to do with the people who are going to turn up later and read the discussion than the people we're responding to (usually because changing peoples' minds is impossible). When we do choose to respond, being seen to engage in a discussion in good faith, and disagreeing with someone respectfully, helps our cause much more than winning the argument with the idiot in question.

Which is a very long way of saying while I'm sad you're no longer on Twitter, I understand completely why you've stepped back, and I agree that not rewarding certain behaviours by sticking around and tacitly endorsing the platform with your presence is the right way to go.

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May 22, 2023Liked by John Birmingham

These sorts of automated systems don't really need to charge as much as that. Before they were bought by the f-book, WhatsApp's monetization strategy was to charge its users $1/year. You can keep a dozen engineers and a computer chugging along quite happily for $2B/year, I suspect. Overheads are low. Of course they never got around to charging that at all, and I suspect that data mining makes up the difference somehow, just as it does with TVs.

I suspect that the point of being invitation-only is bluesky's fuckwit-avoidance strategy, at least for now.

I'm glad of your blog. It's a nice place. Nice thing about blogs is that it doesn't involve algorithmic engagement-stimulation. I'm sure that robots have their place, but guiding my attention isn't one of them.

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Was listening to an astrophysicist on the radio the other morning and he was saying the same thing about the new hangout spot. He was saying how nice it was and fun again. Meanwhile us plebs are out playing in the radioactive dirt like a cross between morlocks and madmax building every bigger machines of spite chewing on the flesh of any who dare poke their head out :) I saw Chris Kenny briefly on a tv the other day and it reminded me that he existed and i felt like i needed a wash, but then remembered it was good to forget him and his ilk. Oh so good.

What has happened to Stan Grant jr is effing horrendous. I'm also not a fan but respect his viewpoint (especially around religion which is my main bugbear).

I recently did a purge of the numpties on the FB account i still have going (they were almost exclusively all old high school friends, but i keep the account to keep in touch with family who refuse any other medium including a goddamn telephone. Sick of seeing all the aunties and uncles sending out the "sorry folks hacked again please ignore any requests you get") and I wondered if turning these old school wankers off from my sight of view is a good thing or not. They obviously keep spewing their vitriol but is it good to know it exists and fight against it or is it a fire that will burn out of sight and eventually put itself out? Kinda like "do i care if that tree falls in the forest and no-one heard it?" Or do i run the risk of people turning up on my doorstep one day with pitchforks and brands to whip my woke arse.

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This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer. When I announced I was stepping away from Twitter for at least a month, I received a lot of very nice messages from people who were sorry to see me go but understood why I had to. And then there were one or two fuckwits who had to drop in and, well, you know. Immediately, I arced up. Immediately I thought I should hang around just to spite these cunts, and that's the trap, isn't it.

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Fuckwits and cunt . Sounds like great sitcom

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Haha. I keep forgetting there are Americans here.

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We’ve infiltrated every corner . Mixed results at best

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"Sounds like a great sitcom"...or a documentary on the Republican party...

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Both parties fit here

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There is a sliding scale of fuckwittery. I agree that there are plenty of Democrat pollies who live somewhere on that scale, but the Republicans have almost _all_ turned the dial up to eleven. The ones who have settled for only turning it up to 7 or so (cf Ms Cheney) lose their primaries (or get unpreselected, to translate into en_AU).

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I think that disconnection is the right answer. It's enough to know that the rest of the world is crazy: you don't have to read everything that they say. In the old days, it was always the case that you chose what to read, and chose who to associate with, and things were mostly calmer I think. Just because we can make a system where everyone can communicate with everyone else, all the time, doesn't mean that's the right model.

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I meant to mention earlier, there's a fantastic podcast called Flipping the Bird on Space Karen's takeover of Twitter; it's been quite cathartic to listen to:

https://wondery.com/shows/flipping-the-bird-elon-vs-twitter/

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May 24, 2023·edited May 24, 2023

I keep clear of the political shit, mainly use twitter for rugby news and views (it can get quite heated, but in a civilised, being pole-axed by a 130kg wrecking ball but not above the shoulders sort of way), and outage notifications. One this it is quite good.

This blog is good. It's one of my goto sites on a daily basis.

I miss Spartacast though.

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Sounds like a reasonable plan for mental health. I have enjoyed the upswing in activity here and am getting back into the habit of checking daily.

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