Conversation

Good thread. Obvious unless woke derangement syndrome is blinding you. For all its elitist faults, bluecheck-nobility culture (RIP) was strong enough to prevent owner authoritarianism but too weak to police the narrative. Now it’s an imperial rather than democratic public space.
Quote Tweet
Thoughts on Twitter, Musk, and the destruction of the virtual public square.   The end may be near. No amount of snark or schadenfreude will change the fact that this situation is a disaster. Twitter has always been a mess – but also a crucial instrument to democratize America.
Show this thread
10
95
I had a thread on how the opposite of cancel culture is not “civil discourse” (that’s a classical liberal fig-leaf for reactionary tendencies) but “know your place” culture. Well, now you know your place. The diff between democratic and monarchic publics is having a fixed place.
Quote Tweet
In practice, the real alternative to cancel culture is usually know-your-place culture for the masses. Civil-debate-culture is not an actual option. It’s what elites get to enjoy when the masses know their place and stay there quietly without getting uppity.
Show this thread
2
31
The (public) social order is now: - Emperor: Musk - Clientelist “vox populi” class (cf the non-random voters on his trump “poll”) - Pay-to-play courtier nobility at $8 - “Creator” bourgeois in a reach-for-obedience bargain - Non-paying, non-creator algorithmic underclass t.co/keCYgIige7
This Tweet is unavailable.
2
54
Clientelism leads to a spoils system. Re-instating Trump (whether or not he shows up) is a classic spoils style appointment. A guy booted off for flouting norms reinstated by royal appointment. Except of course trump thinks he’s a bigger king, and Musk a vassal of his.
Replying to
Realistically at this point I’m probably going to taper off usage in proportion to Musk’s creeping success in taking control of the public and morphing it from democratic to monarchic. The rate limiter is his need to make money.
1
21
I think his political goals are stronger than his financial goals, but despite claims to not care about profit, he does for both practical and vanity reasons. For this to be a financial failure will make the political project seem weak vanity. Purchased rather than earned power.
1
22
Presumably an internal bureaucracy that simply applied notability criteria in a pro-forma way for 90%. The edge cases would have been fraught but fundamentally less susceptible to strong capture because bureaucrats solve for stable self-perpetuation, not ideology.
Quote Tweet
Replying to @vgr
During the pre-musk era which group was in charge of knighting the blue check nobility? And was this group subject to idealogical capture?
3
18
The lurid moral panic of the Right about every bureaucracy (including Twitter HQ) being a nefarious extension of a Soros-controlled Deep State of pedo lizard people is…. a mix of projection and org illiteracy. *They* love kings and courts so they assume everybody does.
4
40
Straight-up financial corruption is actually kinda healthier than ideological capture. In the trump regime, I was always far more concerned about the ideologues like Miller and Bannon than the obviously rational grifters.
Quote Tweet
Replying to @vgr
tangential, but note that you could very much pay $50k (or less) to get a bluecheck for several years. i dont know exactly who internally was running that ring but it was an open secret by the end of 2021
2
31
Replying to
Do you mean to imply that it wasn't a spoils system before? Sorry, but when people start talking about norms, I see it as an assertion of tribal dominance.
1