Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

> he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

Sure. I don't think he's a hypocrite. He has, however, hyper fixated on a topic that's in vogue in tech circles but totally irrelevant elsewhere.

Unlike in technology, where one can credibly fail upwards, doing that in politics comes at the cost of influence. And in this block order we're seeing, tangibly, the consequences of Elon Musk's deteriorating influence.

What is this topic that's only in vogue in tech circles? Wokeism?

> What is this topic that's only in vogue in tech circles? Wokeism?

Wokeism as it pertains to social media's discussion of the woke mind virus. Everyone has an opinion on it. But it's not of practical relevance to most people, certainly not most voters. Sort of like modern art.

I do agree that he is hyper fixated on specific things like gender

but – I do think that there are elements of the “woke mind virus” that are okay with censorship. I don’t think that censorship has any place in a democracy, and I do think it is a problem we need to address.

The executive branch asked Twitter to ban a NY Post story on the grounds that it was misinformation when it wasn’t. It was “malinformation”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malinformation

They didn’t correct the record, and Ro Khanna emailed Twitter to cut that shit out: https://www.businessinsider.com/khanna-emailed-twitter-free-...

I really don’t like Elon, but I fear the previous Twitter censors more. Media is supposed to keep the government in check and not the other way around.

Musk’s Twitter actively censors and promotes content based on the personal whims of the billionaire owner. Is that really better for democracy?

The Twitter/X experiment seems to have primarily succeeded in demonstrating that nobody has good solutions for this problem, and just repeating words like “misinformation” and “free speech” doesn’t get us any closer to a solution.

Props to Bluesky for trying something else, at least.

“ I do think that there are elements of the “woke mind virus” that are okay with censorship”

Then let’s not focus on some made up boogeyman and ignore the fact that in 2020, the executive at the time was happily reaching out to Twitter and other platforms asking them to remove posts. The guy Musk is supporting was happily asking Twitter to remove posts.

But let’s be clear, they were asking Twitter to enforce its rules. And you can argue that the government asking like that is illegal, but I’ve yet to see a guilty verdict in court so, until that happens, Twitter enforcing its rules isn’t censorship. No one has been denied their first amendment rights.

More importantly, by Musks own yardstick, Twitter is no longer the bastion of Free Speech it was when he took control. So regardless of what you think, Twitter is worse off now.

The reason I don't move to the USA is because of woke people, scary numbers of mental health and crime.

The reason I moved country is because woke politics is making life worse. Crime is through the roof, kids can't go out in the cities by themselves because it's too dangerous. They started doing mandatory "gender identity" education in school, teaching crap to my kids.

I'm still in Europe and observing a progressive decline so I'm ready to move to Asia, the Caribbean, South America (Argentina maybe?) or maybe switch to the enemy and go to Russia or China, depending on how the situation evolves.

Dictatorship for dictatorship, I just want a low tax, safe place and governments to bother me as little as possible.

The opposite was true before Musk.

Some friends have an ancap libertarian and they were targeted before.

Woke content is not censored and you can find it on X, it's just that most left-wing people left for alternatives.

I went to bluesky briefly and I was inundated by transgender explicit content. I didn't open it again.

Musk censors mentions of his own daughter on X — the same person who he claimed was dead on a recent interview, but who is very much alive and posting on Threads.

That kind of monarch-like behavior didn’t exist on Twitter before Musk. Their protocols for hiding and removing content may have been very flawed, but at least there was a process.

Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US.

Some countries in Eastern Europe actively opposes gender stuff (it is banned in education). I do not know why "gender" is being asked in the first place, it should be "sex", and that is biological. Why do we ask for gender on websites, for example? What is the purpose of it, really?

> Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US

Yes, like modern art. It’s talked about a lot. But it’s an obsession of a few and irrelevant to most Americans.

> Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US

Yes, like modern art. It’s talked about a lot, especially by a particular core who gain money and influence from it. But it’s an obsession of a few and irrelevant to most Americans. It certainly doesn’t build one a national platform.

I don't know man, I'm not even from the US and I meet a lot of people being concerned about wokeism being imported into our country, do you have any proof of your allegations?

It’s not an important topic, any more than any other moral panic.

> Why do we ask for gender on websites, for example? What is the purpose of it, really?

I can only think of two reasons:

1) Localised messages to and from the user. Not every language supports gender-neutral singular "you/they".

2) Demographic tracking e.g. for advertising: I've been given unskippable ads on YouTube for sanitary pads, and have forgotten which ad network presented me with one for dick pills.

Hmm, are you sure about the localized messages? They typically use 'you' instead of third-person pronouns like 'he' or 'she.'

85% sure: the claim here was that there are some languages where "you" itself comes in masculine and feminine forms. I'm told this applies to Hebrew and Arabic — אתה and את — but my ability to confirm this is limited to googling wiktionary.

85% is mainly how much I trust the sources: my experience has been kind of factoid is often true, but sometimes turns out to be "this source sounds like it means X, but actually it means Y" or worse "we made it up and you'll never check".

That said, I ought to have written "I can only think of two *good* reasons", because the third reason is "whenever anyone makes a database of people, we automatically add gender without even thinking about it".

Wouldn't asking for "sex" suffice though? What happens when someone picks "none of the above" or "prefer not to answer"?