Thread: People love to rag on Nate Silver for his arrogance & they should, but he's merely an example of a larger issue that the web has made it easy to draw inferences from data without knowing the context in which it lives. 1/x

Thread: Meaning and loss in American conservatism

I've written a lot about how Christian supremacism (expressed and implicit) is the underlying objective of most Trump supporters but the psychology of American conservatism is very important in its descent into madness.

We're seeing it manifested heavily in the present moment as Trump and his followers are forced to contemplate the loss of the presidency but it's important to realize that losing is the psychic core of the U.S. right.

Trump's repugnant demeanor and prior history of political moderation is what made him so reviled by conservative activists and donors in 2015 but his angry victim complex so deeply resonated with the GOP base that this is why he won the primary.

American conservatism has been obsessed with death and loss since it emerged in the 1940s. The utter humiliation of Herbert Hoover and the rapid growth of federal spending and regulation under FDR was an existential moment for the corporate barons who started the U.S. right.

The rise of explicitly atheist Marxist-Leninism was also immensely triggering of long-time fundamentalist fantasies of persecution and death before the return of Christ. Most Christians don't see John's Apocalypse as a literal text but fundamentalists do.

Conservatives love to complain that everyone is against them: professors, journalists, intelligence officers, social media companies, and so on.

I used to as well until I considered that maybe having problems with everyone else isn't their fault, it's yours.

I was reminded of that realization when I read this important NYT article about how Facebook keeps weakening news source quality controls because conservative content gets disproportionately effected by them.

Unfortunately, this great piece of reporting by @MikeIsaac, @sheeraf, & @kevinroose didn't mention the greatest challenge in AI news signal processing: Humans can barely separate conservative & far-right content. Which means computers can't either.

This techno-semiotic conundrum originates from the fact that in the US, because there is no moderate conservative tradition, the gravitational center of the right is far removed from the political center.

More plainly, this means that almost all the energy and organizing on the right exists on the far right.

This is not the case on the US left where there is a strong moderate tradition capable of organization and force projection. Ask Bernie Sanders if you disbelieve.

As a former conservative activist and journalist, it has been so frustrating to see my former compatriots spreading wild and unchecked claims about "voter fraud." @jacknicas of the NYT took a deep look at claims of "dead" people in Michigan voting. Link in next tweet.

While examining claims made by right-wing activists who are not credible individuals is a thankless task which elite media editors despise, this is vital and important work in this age of fake news. Here's the link:

As the co-creator of NewsBusters, the most prominent anti-media website, I was part of a decades-long tradition of complaining about media elites being "unfair" to conservative views. There is still much to that argument, but eventually I saw that I was missing context.

What I did not realize until I began expanding my work into creating actual media and reporting institutions such as the Washington Examiner (I was the founding online editor) was that U.S. conservatives do not understand the purpose of journalism.

This became evident to me as I saw that conservative-dominated media outlets were MUCH more biased than outlets run by liberals. The latter had flaws that arose from a lack of diversities (note plural) but they operated mostly in good faith. That's not how the former operated.

Thread: Rush Limbaugh and the conservative Id

On the day of his passing, it's worth doing a brief retrospective on how Rush Limbaugh's personal life almost perfectly paralleled American conservatism...

One thing that's not commonly known about Rush Limbaugh is that he began his career in sports, doing sales for the Kansas City Royals baseball team. That's significant because much of the tribalism and dumbed-down rhetoric in American TV news directly came from sports media.

Television journalism in its earliest days was a fantastic product with real investigative reporting, no filibustering live interviews, and no soundbites. This began changing in the 1970s when ABC Sports president Roone Arledge was put in charge of ABC News.

Limbaugh tried to be a conventional FM deejay but kept getting fired because his personality was too abrasive. After working with the Royals, he began a small political talk show for a Sacremento station. The Reagan repeal of the Fairness Doctrine made his show possible.

Rush Limbaugh's Sacramento show started in 1984 (he replaced Morton Downey Jr) and after 5 years, he was picked up by ABC Radio which was trying to copy some of the sensationalism that ABC News television had started. It was a perfect fit.

For the past 6 years, I & a few other journalists have been trying to get the mainstream press and political elites realize the major danger posed by the radical right. Unfortunately, moderate and liberal elites deluded themselves into thinking that conservatism wasn't a cult.

There is no secretly powerful "Republican establishment" that will fix things. There are thugs, deluded people, and there are quislings. There is no one else in the GOP. Instead of focusing on the radical right's danger, editors wanted stories about Trump tweets.

Instead of calling out the dangerous radicalism of the GOP, television debate shows and opinion pages invited the enablers of fascism to speak and write about how we all needed to give powerful insane people the benefit of the doubt.

Unlike Trump, who walled off the White House months ago into a fortress, Nancy Pelosi did not take the terrorist threat seriously enough to demand better security. She has the budget and the authority and did nothing similar. Now, fascists are on the floor of Congress.

Of course, it is Trump who bears the responsibility for this but the Capitol Police have totally disgraced themselves by not fortifying the building the way that the Secret Service did to the WH.

This is the view of numerous congressional staffers of both parties.

20 lies that the world feeds us everyday

A thread...

Lie 1:
If you don't settle in your 20s, you are gone!
This is the decade.
You don't get another chance.
Study fast, get a job, get married, kids, that car, that house.
Quickly!
Time's running.
Look at everyone else doing it!

Lie 2:
People who are poor are lazy.
People who are rich are hardworking.
It is your fault if you haven't made it in life.
Look at everyone else who made it.
There is nothing granted or gifted in life.

Lie 3:
Those in corporate jobs, are unambitious.
They have sold their soul.
They are addicted to the salaries.
They could have done so much more with their life.
But they decided to spend it working for someone else.

Lie 4:
Starting your own business is the surest way of making money.
You can never get rich earning a salary.
You can never get rich working for someone else.

I'm married to an Australian. I returned to Australia from the UK in October.

This is my experience of what happened to me when I arrived in the country during COVID.

I think it will help people understand how criminally bad our government's response has been. (a thread).

On arrival, passengers were escorted from the plane by armed police.

We were allocated a government-mandated hotel, and told to wait in a holding area.

Once processed we were led to a coach. Members of the Australian army lined the route to make sure no one tried to escape.

Once at the hotel we were taken off the coach one by one

An Australian police officer escorted me to my room, telling me in no uncertain terms that if I left it in any unauthorised circumstances for the next two weeks, I would be spending up to two years in an Australian prison.

During the next two weeks I was fed three times a day in polystyrene and with plastic cutlery. Below are some examples of the food. It was fine, but there was no control or choice.

After about eight days I was tested for COVID.

This was mandatory, and the first time I’d seen another human since the quarantine started.

Even though I was negative, I was told I could leave only once my 14 days of isolation were over.

10 Signs of Social Intelligence 🧠

1-Smile
2-Good posture
3-Strong eye contact
4-Fluid hand gestures
5-Let’s others talk more
6-Listens & relates
7-Comfortable Touching people
8-Walk with a swagger
9-Speaks at slower pace
10-Keeps calm under criticism

[ QUICK THREAD ]

1-Smile

How do you feel when you see someone that looks angry?

It’s a downer

No one will want to interact with you if you look pissed all of the time, it’s just negative energy

Plus, smiling is a sign of confidence and boosts others moods

2-Good posture

Don’t walk Into any social setting looking like the hunchback

It’s weak and makes you look low energy

Plus, you’re displaying low status with weak posture

Stand up straight with your chin up & chest out like a god

Walk like you’re proud of yourself

3- Strong eye contact

Ever shake someone’s hand & their eyes are either looking down or darting?

It’s weak & you probably won’t trust them

Or in conversation?

Eye contact while talking means you’re listening and paying *Attention*

Strong eye contact displays confidence

4-Fluid hand gestures

Use your hands to talk & express your points

Don’t stand there like a robot

Using the hands can make what you’re talking about exciting

It can also be used to emphasize

Exciting = positive emotion

Remember, making people FEEL is what’s important

10 Life Lessons You Don't Need to Learn Any Other Time But Now.

Previously, I might have given some lessons I have learnt in 24 Months,

By nature man should learn, adapt and survive,

It's through pain that you learn the greatest secrets of life, things we ignore but really matter,

Which lessons?

Let's see,

1. Be ready to unlearn anything- by unlearning, chances of anything happening are infinite,

People change,

Times change,

Feelings change,

When this happens, take a step back, don't bitch around, feel, heal and move on. Create your reality.

2. Relearn- Your existence is random, nature would be so unfair or fair to have you where you are. It's your life, YOU,

It is what it is, just does not work,

You have to make it work, so you must learn,

Faster to even outrun your capabilities.

3. Every man is intimidated by your success- Your success is ONLY important to anyone if it's beneficial to them in a way. It's not about you, it's about them,

Be careful with heights, it's slippery and way too far down.

//Thread of wisdom//

The modern mind is overstimulated and the modern body is under stimulated and overfed. Meditation, exercise, and fasting restore an ancient balance.

~ @naval

Retweet to add another.

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.

~ Galileo Galilei

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool.

~ Richard Feynman

Your best work involves timing. If someone wrote the best hip hop song of all time in the Middle Ages, he had bad timing.

~ @ScottAdamsSays

When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you.

~ Lao Tzu