amradio1989

Its mostly social anxiety. Which makes sense. Children have progressively been raised more and more on screens and devices. Teenagers rely more and more on technology to solve problems. Adults do too. No one has to interact anymore, which means many people no longer know how. Cue the anxiety.

In previous generations, you had to interact with others to get anything done at all. Kids had to play with kids, parents had to talk to the postman, the milkman, the newspaper boy, the telephone operator, the neighbors, you name it. It was a necessity for a functional life, so people did it.

Way to go Rob! Thanks for owning up to it. And for being persistent about correcting it.

Ah but you see theres the rub. It’s not factual. It’s almost all supposition. I don’t think he should be pulled from the air by the way. Let’s go line by line.

> We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately -snip-

Pretty loaded statement. Desperately? On what basis?

The “fact” is that MAGA didn’t have the slightest fear the shooter was one of them. They all assumed he wasn’t bc it made the most sense given context and available evidence.

Anger? Sure. Desperation? No lol.

> trying to characterize this kid

That shooter is 22. That’s a full blown adult. Calling him a kid is not only false but also gross in this context. It’s an attempt to evoke sympathy for a murderer.

> as anything other than one of them

Another false supposition. They are actually trying to characterize him as a far left nutjob. Not just “anything”, but “Liberal”. The thing about propaganda is certain words aren’t allowed in certain contexts.

Second, it implies the shooter was likely one of them which was highly improbable to all concerned — most especially to MAGA.

> and doing everything they can to score political points for it

What political points Jimmy? It’s more likely they are just upset that a good friend got shot and killed in broad daylight for speaking his views. Charlie Kirk was a huge ally of MAGA and a friend to many of them. So they want justice.

Of course Jimmy can’t say that (propaganda has rules), so here he is acting saying it’s about vague political points (sounds convincing) and not genuine grief/outrage.

ABC was certainly complicit in what Jimmy Kimmel was doing. But they are now throwing Jimmy under the bus.

Jimmy was wrong to say what he said. At best it was a bad-faith assertion, at worst it was propaganda. It wasn’t even true, or likely to be true given what we knew.

The fact is that someone is dead. That is the strongest form of censorship. That is the strongest attack on “free speech”.

Jimmy pulled indefinitely? In my opinion it’s unfair. ABC is not innocent here.

But at least Jimmy didn’t have a bullet put into his neck.

To be clear, are we talking about agitators the likes of Martin Luther King? Or something else? Because I fail to see how anything in politics changes without agitators. Without agitators, we'd all still be living under monarchies, dictators, and who knows what else. I'm curious about what you mean.

As for taking sides, I'm not sure why taking the side of a man who was wrongfully murdered irks you. Its basic ethics. You don't have to agree with him, or even support their views, to denounce his murder.

Unless you have an issue with people like Kirk being allowed to live, I'm not sure where the conflict is.

Okay, you disagree with him. I get that. But why are you telling us? Are you venting? Are you responding to an experience you had in another thread?

Right now it feels like you've dropped us in the middle of an argument without any context regarding 1) who you're talking to 2) what you're responding to.

You've quoted the OP, but your response seems directed to something else. I don't think the OP lionized anyone, or at the very least, they didn't discourage discussing Charlie Kirk's views. I'm not sure what prompted this response.

Are you saying you don't agree with civil discourse? That you don't believe we should learn to talk to each other without vitriol, poison, and anger? That we shouldn't be able to listen, and say what we mean, without being mean?

The key takeaway is: we are all human. And humans are easily hackable under the right circumstances.

Your story is humbling, and a good reminder that anyone can get “got”. We shouldn’t think ourselves above such incidents.

Shocking. Kidding, of course. People have been shouting about censorship from social media companies since COVID.

Ostensibly, that’s why Elon Musk bought X. Ostensibly, that is why Rumble rose as an alternative video platform. I say ostensibly because the truth is often different than appearances.

So no, this article did not uncover a social media censorship crisis. That was uncovered years ago, and roundly ignored by at least half of the country.

This too, will probably be ignored as well. The unfortunate truth is that people tend to silently — or not so silently — support censorship of views they don’t like. The irony is that this empowers censorship of views or ideas that you DO like.

We would be better off if we divorced ourselves from these social media platforms. They are shaping public discourse in unhealthy ways.

I suppose we disagree. It requires effort, but I couldn’t call it difficult. What’s your experience?

You can pull unprecedented amounts of information about nearly anything. It’s easily accessible.

It was not even possible to verify the kind of “facts” we can today, much less at the speed we can do it now.

Correct; however, in the internet age it is all too easy to verify information if you are remotely neutral. It would be nearly impossible to be ignorant of facts that contradict a story.

Generally, these news publishers are more interested in entertainment than truth telling. They get paid for monetizing attention, not telling the truth. They can’t outright lie, but they are certainly not bound by facts.

As the old saying goes, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story”. A newsroom mantra if there ever was one.

All that to say defamation suits are always a risk. The bar is high, but most “victims” are not rich enough to fight them. Those that are get settlements.

Let’s talk about it. What are “left wing issues” and what are “right wing issues”?

We can probably agree on what an issue is. But I’m not sure we have any idea what right wing or left wing are.

How far right is right wing? And right of what, exactly? What about the left? Where is the center point?

Here’s a fun one. To whom belongs the issue of racism? Is that a right wing issue or a left wing one?

It’s neither of course. It’s a human issue. And you have victims of racism across the entire political spectrum who care deeply about it. Yet discourse would have you assume it’s a “left wing” issue, when it’s anything but.

WSJ click baited me so hard and I can’t even be mad about it.

Semi-annual seems reasonable. I never found a single quarterly report to be useful.

The period covers March24-March25. Two years prior to March24 is March22. It would have been the 2nd year of Bidens presidency.

I’m starting to think political definitions only have use as propaganda. Definitions are definite, yet political definitions are anything but.

In the US, much is made about “the left” and “the right”, but we can hardly describe what these things mean. “The left” is simply more liberal than I, while “the right” is more conservative than I. On what issues, no one knows, because we hardly ask.

The point, I think, is simply to label the opposition while hiding any commonality or points of agreement. Useful for propaganda, but useless for substantive political discourse; you know, the kind that underpins a healthy democracy.

AGI is where the real money is. Gen AI is okay but mostly benefits the consumer.

Gen AI is not nearly powerful enough to justify current investments. A lot of money is going to go up in smoke.