Sometime today, Twitter began to mess with links to Substack. Some posts that featured links could not be engaged with (in that you couldn’t “like” or “retweet” or reply to them). Sometimes, I couldn’t post a link to Substack at all. It definitely looks
At nightclubs, you often see what are called "mooks": affluent, socially awkward professionals (usually doctors or lawyers) who roll up, drop five grand on bottle service, and then hang around awkwardly before going home. They're paying to feel like cool kids, but it's obvious they don't belong there. You can't buy cool.
Elon is a mook with regards to Twitter. He desperately wants to be a meme or a poaster or whatever, but he just comes off as fake. His tweets suck. His jokes aren't funny. His use of the language is so off. He literally owns the site and it's still not enough: he will never be the person he wishes he could be. As Horace said: Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.
This is the same thing I ran into with facebook, for a period of about six months in 2021, because my posts had been removed from facebook - and hours of work lost - I started posting on Substack, and then posting links back to facebook. They booted me off in February 2022 for a "security violation" alleging that my account had been hacked. One of their "security questions" was for me to verify that I had made certain posts - and they listed every single post which had a link to my Substack. I think their intent was obvious, to protect their stranglehold over their users, to protect their monopoly. It was like being kicked out of the phone book, of turning into a non-person overnight. I lost contact with over 1000 people, including close friends and surviving family members because of this, because I looked at facebook as a communications provider - and not as a profit-driven business with a very enforceable monopoly. I haven't been on my account since. The isolation in the beginning was intense, it put me in a deep depression which was hard to get out of. I eventually worked hard to re-establish contact with about five people whose phone numbers I had - I still have no contact with family who perhaps think I still can reach them through facebook - many probably think that I have died - and certainly the exclusion has the effect of "social death".
It looks like Twitter is trying the same kind of thing - protecting its monopoly by abusing its users. Both Twitter and facebook are communications providers, just like Ma Bell - the Phone Company - used to be - and everyone knew that "you don't mess with the phone company."
I’ve been using email since 1978 on local networks, on the ARPANet since 1981. My relatives conceive of nothing pre-2005, pre-Facebook - but they were never research scientists. So email is simply terra incognita to them. If you disappear from Facebook, if you stop posting, stop responding to Facebook-mediated, Facebook-monitored, Facebook-censored messages (and before I got kicked off, I had messages to individuals censored because they violated "community standards"), they automatically assume that something is wrong - that you've died. Facebook, for all intents and purposes, socially murdered me, it made me into a non-person, an Invisible Man (in the sense of what Ralph Ellison wrote about in the sense of his book by the same name) - I essentially had no mouth even though I tried to scream - referencing Harlan Ellison's story "I have no mouth but I must scream" - which nearly 50 years later seems oddly prescient. Facebook cancellation is social death, I have been cancelled, I am (like the dead), a non-person, at least in the "virtual community" of Facebook, which is the only community that so many people know of nowadays. See this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfTZ82SxvHg
Thanks. I'm still in recovery from my Facebook addiction, the daily messages I get from Facebook are like half-filled bottles of whiskey by the side of the road, but you know if you pick it up... so I don't. In the first two weeks, I tried, they were constantly pumping me for personal information - in exchange for promised access - and I gave in, a bit, the attraction was too great, but I stopped, realized that I *was* addicted, and broke it off. Some of that information was used in phishing attempts on other "places" like LinkedIn - but I quickly recognized it for what it was... I go for personal contact, nothing on the net if I can avoid it. Phone convos are OK, but then there's AI and text-to-speech, so nowadays you never really know who you're talking with - a real person or a manipulated AI construct... Here, have a look at this - https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/why-has-society-become-so-polarized
It's kind of sad in a way that Musk has more money than a small country, but still doesn't have the one thing he craves - public approval - and the more desperately he reaches for it the less likely he is ever to find it.
At nightclubs, you often see what are called "mooks": affluent, socially awkward professionals (usually doctors or lawyers) who roll up, drop five grand on bottle service, and then hang around awkwardly before going home. They're paying to feel like cool kids, but it's obvious they don't belong there. You can't buy cool.
Elon is a mook with regards to Twitter. He desperately wants to be a meme or a poaster or whatever, but he just comes off as fake. His tweets suck. His jokes aren't funny. His use of the language is so off. He literally owns the site and it's still not enough: he will never be the person he wishes he could be. As Horace said: Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.
Well put!
This is the same thing I ran into with facebook, for a period of about six months in 2021, because my posts had been removed from facebook - and hours of work lost - I started posting on Substack, and then posting links back to facebook. They booted me off in February 2022 for a "security violation" alleging that my account had been hacked. One of their "security questions" was for me to verify that I had made certain posts - and they listed every single post which had a link to my Substack. I think their intent was obvious, to protect their stranglehold over their users, to protect their monopoly. It was like being kicked out of the phone book, of turning into a non-person overnight. I lost contact with over 1000 people, including close friends and surviving family members because of this, because I looked at facebook as a communications provider - and not as a profit-driven business with a very enforceable monopoly. I haven't been on my account since. The isolation in the beginning was intense, it put me in a deep depression which was hard to get out of. I eventually worked hard to re-establish contact with about five people whose phone numbers I had - I still have no contact with family who perhaps think I still can reach them through facebook - many probably think that I have died - and certainly the exclusion has the effect of "social death".
It looks like Twitter is trying the same kind of thing - protecting its monopoly by abusing its users. Both Twitter and facebook are communications providers, just like Ma Bell - the Phone Company - used to be - and everyone knew that "you don't mess with the phone company."
Very sorry to hear it! I hope you can restore those connections
It's been 14 months, so it's not going to happen.
have you never heard of email? why would your family think you have died??? i don’t understand.
I’ve been using email since 1978 on local networks, on the ARPANet since 1981. My relatives conceive of nothing pre-2005, pre-Facebook - but they were never research scientists. So email is simply terra incognita to them. If you disappear from Facebook, if you stop posting, stop responding to Facebook-mediated, Facebook-monitored, Facebook-censored messages (and before I got kicked off, I had messages to individuals censored because they violated "community standards"), they automatically assume that something is wrong - that you've died. Facebook, for all intents and purposes, socially murdered me, it made me into a non-person, an Invisible Man (in the sense of what Ralph Ellison wrote about in the sense of his book by the same name) - I essentially had no mouth even though I tried to scream - referencing Harlan Ellison's story "I have no mouth but I must scream" - which nearly 50 years later seems oddly prescient. Facebook cancellation is social death, I have been cancelled, I am (like the dead), a non-person, at least in the "virtual community" of Facebook, which is the only community that so many people know of nowadays. See this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfTZ82SxvHg
Ok, hard for me to relate personally, but sorry to hear. Hope things are improving. Take care.
Thanks. I'm still in recovery from my Facebook addiction, the daily messages I get from Facebook are like half-filled bottles of whiskey by the side of the road, but you know if you pick it up... so I don't. In the first two weeks, I tried, they were constantly pumping me for personal information - in exchange for promised access - and I gave in, a bit, the attraction was too great, but I stopped, realized that I *was* addicted, and broke it off. Some of that information was used in phishing attempts on other "places" like LinkedIn - but I quickly recognized it for what it was... I go for personal contact, nothing on the net if I can avoid it. Phone convos are OK, but then there's AI and text-to-speech, so nowadays you never really know who you're talking with - a real person or a manipulated AI construct... Here, have a look at this - https://streamfortyseven.substack.com/p/why-has-society-become-so-polarized
It's kind of sad in a way that Musk has more money than a small country, but still doesn't have the one thing he craves - public approval - and the more desperately he reaches for it the less likely he is ever to find it.
Musk will probably die on a rocket with long scraggly hair and fingernails.