BC SOCIAL MEDIA

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Venkatesh Rao
@vgr 5 years, 8 months ago 1341 views

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social media use really calls for something closer to a driver's license than terms of service... most apparent bad behavior here is more incompetence than malice, like not knowing how to change lanes or take turns at a 4-way stop..

trump's history on twitter is something closer to a crazy car chase on LA streets than bad driving (with the cops MIA, but media helicopters in pursuit), but almost all unpleasantness around here is just poor driving skills

not that I'm advocating for a licensing regime... that would be a terrible thing. Do not need a social media DMV. But the underlying principles (as tested for eg. in the written and road tests) are pretty good.

Written test would test things like "safe following distance" (reply-guying = tailgating?)

Road test would actually expose you to routine provocations. Like, "make a left turn" = "deal with this concern troll"

As in the driving test, where an awkward, unnatural, and unintuitive bit, the parallel parking test, is the toughest bit, there would be some such awkward maneuver you'd have to learn (hmmm... what's the parallel parking equivalent on twitter?)

defensive driving = mutes and blocks

each medium would be a vehicle class... twitter is basic cars, FB is semi trucks, whatsapp is motorcycles in the 3rd world without helmets

Edgelords are like illegal street racers. There will be a Fast and Furious type franchise around edgelording in a few years.

Having an expensive luxury car and being a good driver are entirely different things.

Having a big following/reach and being a good social media driver are entirely different things.

But just like having a fancy sports car correlates with being a Hollywood type who drives dangerously, so does having certain kinds of social media following.

And just like cars, followings can be earned or unearned, bought, leased, borrowed, inherited,... even stolen.

Metaphor breaks down in some ways. Growing a big following by edgelording would be a bit like a Corolla transforming into a Maserati by being driven dangerously.

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Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

following a discussion at @yak_collective this morning, I came up with this chart to capture a hypothesis I have that the difficulty of creating communities scales exponentially with the the "depth" of what you're trying to do

thanks @grigorimilov for leading the discussion that sparked this.

The way to read the graph is: each line is a time history of difficulty. It starts dotted, goes through a criticality inflection point, and then crests in difficulty before coming down to a stable plateau.

The inflection points have different names depending on context, but are all topologically similar. They are the make or break moment when a network-effect either kicks in, or fails to. "Product-market fit" in the case of market is the best known such point.

Level 1 is a basic social community, such as a FB group, meetup etc. There are millions of successful ones, and 100s of millions of failures. The "fit point" is what I call a meme-mind fit, when some social object catalyzes a sustainable long-term conversation of growing richness

Almost everything I've helped instigate is Level 1. My contributions to the social-object soup have been things like the vocabulary around sociopaths/clueless/losers, legibility, 2x2s etc.

Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Heh, one thing the nyt piece managed was to do a Cunningham's law nerdsnipe-wmd at newspaper scale... now a bunch of people are energetically trying to post the right answer.

One other thing I should really clarify and that the @nytimes piece got *severely* wrong: while I believe there are very strong sociological and even causal links between rationalism and NRx (especially in the Silicon Valley homes bases) their ideological and methodological
— (((E. Glen Weyl))) (@glenweyl) February 14, 2021

IMO trying to correct whatever the NYT writer thought he knew/understood is futile. "Willing to be misunderstood by the NYT" should be the default stance unless you want to waste a lot of time correcting an obsolete 2013 map for people who don't care.

The thing is, the NYT still has enough normative cultural power, even as it has fallen from newspaper-of-record, that it takes a particular sort of heretical self-confidence to sort of ignore whatever they happen to be wrong about on any given week, whether or not it concerns you

A subtle shift has occurred in the workings of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. It used to be an individual private amnesia re: media ("I'll believe myself when I am certain they got it wrong because I'm an expert, but still believe them when I am not"). Now it's a collective effect

A sort of common-knowledge threshold has been crossed lately. "Everybody knows that everybody knows the NYT is wrong on X across largish subcultures." It's no longer mutual beliefs being validated occasionally 1:1.

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Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Reading my own old writing from 10+ years ago is rarely pleasant. It’s not that the ideas and techniques are worse/embarrassing by current tastes (though they often are), but that they have a brash energy I can’t vibe with anymore even where I can still stand by the content.

Most of that energy is not mine from a younger mindset personally (though there’s some of that) but a function of the era. 2010 generally had more of a brash energy going. An energy born of a widespread sense of the world making more sense and humans being more agenty within it.

2007-13: Brash energy. The GFC bloodied our noses but we still felt in control of the plot collectively.

2014-20: Angry-anxious energy. Everybody lost the plot. Winners and losers alike. Great Weirding.

2021 - : Mellow sadder-and-wiser energy on macro, brrr energy on micro.

Opening mood for 2021 feels like how a figure skater spins faster by pulling in tighter. Narrower horizons, more concentrated energy, easy to mistake conservation of momentum effects for an absolute increase in system energy. Shows up in everything from stocks to writing.

Its tempting to retreat to narrow horizons with primarily happy domestic cozy energy (these are really good times for anything that taps into domestic-scale psyche energy). But even the happiest broader thoughts are alloyed with that mellow sadder-wiser plotlessness.

Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Both this thread and the outraged response threads are... something.

So, yesterday my daughter (9) was hungry and I was doing a jigsaw puzzle so I said over my shoulder \u201cmake some baked beans.\u201d She said, \u201cHow?\u201d like all kids do when they want YOU to do it, so I said, \u201cOpen a can and put it in pot.\u201d She brought me the can and said \u201cOpen it how?\u201d
— john roderick (@johnroderick) January 2, 2021

This is why I never wanted kids. Way too much responsibility for another human’s development. Depending on the child, this might either be the day they discovered who they were or the day that traumatized them into a lifelong fuckup. Either way I don’t want to direct the show.

As far as the can opener goes, it wouldn’t even occur to me to try and turn it into a teachable moment. That sounds vaguely quixotic. I’d just show them how immediately. I think my default is to try and instruct clearly but not demonstrate unless the person is truly disoriented.

I think there’s basically a right answer here: show the kid. If the kid has the aptitude they’ll enjoy the mechanism so much they’ll develop the figure-it-out skill with other devices. If not, it’s a training data point that will build remedial levels of intuition more slowly.

I think perseverance is both misframed and over-rated as a virtue. Misframed as in: everybody has potential for it in some areas and lacks it in others. Aptitude is those areas where perseverance comes easily to you. Meta-skill of knowing where/why you persist is more important.

Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

There are only 3 real challenges to free speech at the tech level a) the need for CDNs at scale b) distortions of net neutrality c) nation-state firewalls.

All other claims are about social governance on private sites, where applying free speech doctrine is a stretch at best

Baseline free speech has expanded modestly since 1776 or whatever your reference point is.

About 20% beyond core case of government-critical speech in formally public spaces and media I'd say.

You can (for example) have more kinds of conversations in a bar without getting punched or kicked out by other patrons or management. You can teach more things in colleges than 100 years ago.

That's a genuine de facto increase in practical, informal free speech/expression.

But online free "speech" is, as @reneed has pointed out, not an expansion of free speech at all, but an expansion of reach. It is like the secondary freedom of the press to print as many copies as they can afford, not primary freedom to say what they want

If a newspaper wants to print more copies it has buy more printing equipment and front more upfront costs. Reach for a paper publication is not "free", but a function of desired circulation, which in turn is a function of demand prediction etc. But that logic is obscured online.

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Adrian Mario
@AdrianM_Ogy

THREAD ALT-COMM 🔄
I suggest @manyver_se as TW + FB replacement! It has no server, hence no shutdown! Everything reside on your + friends phone/or PC. You do posts as in TW/FB or private DM.
Generate an ID. Then share invite-codes with friends. See> https://t.co/2OMw7e0bUB ++>

Once you installed the app you can start post threads as "public". For the moment they will be stored on your device. Once you have contacts, they will share that. Is like offline blogging! ++>>

The huge advantage; no server can shutdown your communication! Friends share your posts, so it's resilient if not always online. Is an "off-grid" optimal solution. Is a bit tedious to share "invite-codes" but it's worth. Check>

The most obvious way to CONNECT, is to invite each friend with his special [DHL] generated code. https://t.co/ayurByEtmV Can be shared via mail, or any other means. Use a secure mail like @TutanotaTeam or @ProtonMail ++>>

If some group leader wants, he can do a pub-server where only contacts reside. You must get here an invite-code to to access that server. On digital ocean we can employ one:

Sunshiny
@sunnshiiny

As we wait for the transition of power from despot to democrat, Facebook (Zuckerberg) has taken it upon itself to aid in the obstruction of that power transfer, facilitation of an insurrection narrative and disregard for the will of the American electorate.

If you thought disinformation on Facebook was a problem during our election, just wait until you see how it is shredding the fabric of our democracy in the days after.

Look at what has happened in just the past week.
— Bill Russo (@BillR) November 10, 2020

In other words, the Social Media monopoly Facebook commands globally has gone full fascist in an attempt to preserve the corrupt and criminal hold on power by Republicans and Trump Administration.

Aiding and abetting a coup d’état.

As if there weren’t enough other reasons to dismantle Facebook’s monopoly, Zuckerberg is playing his cards and revealing clearly that Cambridge Analytica election interference was not just a onetime anomaly, but is now a feature of Facebook’s business model.

Megalomaniac Marc has now revealed the true colours of Fascist Facebook.

Facebook is a weapon to manipulate the masses. A tool to carry out disinformation campaigns with impunity.

And the response of the left... is to delete their Facebook account.

As if the deletion of a Facebook account will do anything. It might send a message that your virtues are principled, your morality superior. But it enables the weapon to be continued to gaslight and manipulate the electorate.

An inherent flaw in the left’s critical thinking.

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Toby ☕️
@tobydoyhowell

1/ Creating content on Twitter can be difficult. A thread on the stack of tools I use to make my life easier

2/ Thread writing

Chirr app

Price: Free

What I like: has a nice blank space for drafting and a good auto-numbering feature

What I don't: have to copy and paste tweets into Twitter after thread is drafted and can't add pics

https://t.co/YlljnF5eNd

3/ Video editing

Kapwing

Price: Free

What I like: great at pulling vids from youtube/twitter and overlaying captions + different audio on them

What I don't: Can't edit content older than 2 days on the free plan

https://t.co/bREsREkCSJ

4/ Meme making

Imgflip

Price: Free

What I like: easiest way to caption existing meme formats, quickly

What I don't: limited fonts

https://t.co/sUj13VlPiO

5/ Inspiration

iPhone notes app

Price: Free

What I like: no frills & easily accessible. every thread i write starts as an idea in notes

What I don't: difficult to organize

David Kadavy
@kadavy

An annoying feature in an "influencer" career is that it seems like you'll be much better off if you're "nice" to everyone.

You can always collaborate or "swap." You don't like their work, or maybe even them as a person, but gosh can you pass up this opportunity?

This might be an illusion. You're probably better off ignoring everyone and focusing on your own work.

Then again, it might not be an illusion. It's something I've noticed with successful Hollywood people. They're so damn nice. Either they are extremely agreeable people, or they have to fake it.

However, it's a much more people-oriented business than publishing.

Ryan Nystrom
@_ryannystrom

It makes me smile every time I notice IGListKit at work in Instagram. We put a lot of work into making and improving it. Proud to see it holding up 4 years later.

🧵 with some memories on how it was built:

At Instagram, product work slowed around the holidays, so we used the time to pay down tech debt. In winter 2014 I reviewed a +12k line refactor from UITableView to UICollectionView.

We recently dropped iOS 5 so we could use the new 6+ APIs without backwards compatibility.

That review taught me a lot about UICV: data sources should mutate in one place else risk out-of-sync exceptions, the first view layout may reloadData, sticky headers make good perf hard, and many more UICV tidbits

We used reloadData for everything and it worked, for the most part.

Except two things bugged the hell out of me:

1. No animated changes (duh)
2. Images could flicker and the like animation could cancel

I dug into the latter and learned that if you reloadData, every cell on screen gets reused. So even if nothing in the UI changes, you still reuse (or init) cells, bind data, set images, etc. that’s a lot of work!

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LESSER KNOWN DETAILS ABOUT THE BATTLE OF PRATAPGAD - THIS YOU ALL SHOULD READ

In the 1659 Adilshah sent Afzalkhan with the army of 75000 soldiers to destroy Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj with his empire. He was the main soldier, warrior and minister in Adilshahi Sultanate.

He was the Subhedar of Wai province.

He was very powerful physically. His height was 7.3 ft. due to same he was very popular as a strong man from Adilshahi Sultanate.

Whole India was not daring to fight with Adilshahi due to Afzal Khan.

Badi Begum Sahiba sent him to kill Chhatrapati Shivaji on any cost.

Voluntary he decided to destroy Chhatrapati Shivaji’s empire with him. He started his operation against Chhatrapati Shivaji from "wai". He destroyed many temples like as Tulja Bhavani Temple.

He destroyed so many villages, killed villagers to torture Chhatrapati Shivaji.

DETAILED VIEW- Running commentary

1. Chhatrapati Shivaji chose Pantaji as a lawyer to communicate with Afzal Khan. Pantaji was very sharp minded, who did his job very nicely.

2. He presented Chhatrapati Shivaji is fearing Afzal Khan and he wanted to invite him in his kingdom near Pratapgad.

3. Pantaji succeed in the communication with Afzal Khan and he brought him as per the planning of Chhatrapati Shivaji.

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Reshu Nath
@ReshuNath

'Tera mera rishta kya, hindu, hindu,hindutva' is a clear take on 'tera mera rishta kya,la ilaha illallah'. As much as Hindutva hates the monotheistic religions especially Islam, there's a strange wistfulness and subliminal need at display now, to BE that they hate. 1

Charlie Hebdo doesn’t come up as a cautionary tale now but rather 'why cant we be like that'?
Growing up, Hanuman was an adorable deity for us, who swallowed the sun, or who couldn’t figure out what was Sanjeevani booti so he picked up a whole mountain and came back with it. 2

Or he was loyal, admirable and when he cleaved his chest, you saw both Ram and Sita. Now we have a lot of “Angry Hanuman” stickers. Why is a cute childlike God angry? We don’t know. It's a convenient blank space where to paint all the angst of Hindu Khatre mein hain narrative. 3

The other strange thing that has started happening is pictures of Ram appearing sans Sita. “Jai Siya Ram” has become “Jai Shri Ram”. Some people disingenuously explain it as being the same thing - because Shri is a name of Lakshmi. Not really. Siya is an apbhransh of Sita. 4

Shri is a prefix of respect in this case. Hinduism is being militarised. A woman/Sita has no place in it. Even the militaristic Goddess that is Durga has no place in this conception of neo-Hindu divinity, as evidenced by Dilip Mandal wondering where Durga came from. 5

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श्रीमाली हितेश अवस्थी...
@HiteshAwasthi89

#Thread
Benefits of writing SRI RAMA Jayam!!!

Writing Sri Rama Jayam is known as Likitha Japam- Writing Meditation. This gives one a complete sense of surrender to an inner conscience and peace while writing or chanting the mantras.

#Sri_Rama_Jayam #RamaNavami

Cont 👇

You can write this in any language of your choice. It is the connecting chords with the divine and your inner self.

Below are some points that we came across on the benefits :

Cont 👇

1. Vedas tell that as the sun dispels the darkness, the chanting of Rama Nama dispels all evil and obstacles of life. It is a way of liberation and salvation of human suffering.

2. When you think, that all roads are blocked to walk away from day to day problems..

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writing ‘Sri Ram Ram Ram’ gives you the most needed clarity of thoughts to find away out of odd situations.

3. It was told that a calmness engulfs as one indulges in writing the Sri Rama Jayam bringing in more clarity of mind, tolerance & strength to withstand obstacles in life.

4. Devotion of service of life and its varied forms is devotion to God. So there is no right or wrong way of writing this. The very thought and process to write is a connection with god and finds a inner meaning.

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Vibhor Varshney
@nakulvibhor

On the occasion of youtube 20k and Twitter 70k members

A small tribute/gift to members

Screeners

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thank you

positional one

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intraday screeners

5- 15 minute Stock Breakouts
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Thank you