My updated recommended follows for February 20, 2021. Let me know if you want to be removed or added. To be added, we need to be following each other.

After spending a couple of days engaging with #DisruptTexts and its most vociferous Twitter defenders, here is what I've learned:

1. Many of its most outspoken defenders are also outspoken racists. Almost every one that I spoke to focused on my skin color and whatever stereotypes they could fabricate from it in their responses.

2. On a related note, their primary means of argument seems to be largely ad hominem. There was very little discussion of the actual issues. Instead, insults, insinuations, and mockery seemed to be the rules of the game.

3. I think this need to focus on ad hominem arises from the ideological rather than evidential nature of #DisruptTexts itself. There's a lot of social justice jargon and feeling used to support it, but no talk that I saw about student outcomes or efficacy.

4. Relatedly, there is a religious feel to the whole thing. Heresy is not to be reasoned with but rooted out and destroyed. Only the truly initiated understand the secret gnosis. The plain meaning of words is disregarded in favor of a mystical interpretation.

LMM @LifeMathMoney has built one of the strongest brands on Twitter, brilliantly using mental models, here the top 10.

Thread

1. Scientific method:

LMM continually tests and monitors the impact of each tweet and blog post.

He measures the impact of their ideas, which are sometimes radical, seeking to have a loyal rather than broad follower base.

2. Leverage:

Everything LMM does is leveraged. Guides, tweets, blog... he writes once and he reaches thousands of people.

He is one of those who best understands that the internet is a huge lever, which allows to disassociate time and money.

3. Compound interest:

LMM has been adding value for 2 years, from the beginning, knowing that time plays in favor of compound interest.

Its growth is brutal, reaching 200k followers. The more people LMM knows, the more his ideas will spread and the stronger his brand will be.

4. Resilience:

LMM writes a lot about the mindset. He knows that resilience, getting over the bad times is the way to success.

In today's society, where everything is effortlessly wanted, LMM relies on the fact that a fall is not fatal, it is just a lesson along the way.

So - that was quite a twitter/media day for me, and welcome to my new followers; 3 threads coming up - introducing myself, explaining my background and COIs (this one); technical aspects of the new strain from my vantage; commentary on what is means for the future

(for the people who know me, skip the rest of this thread!)

A brief tweet portrait of me; I am deputy director general of @embl and co-direct (with Rolf Apweiler, not on twitter) one it's six sites, @emblebi which is based just south of Cambridge, UK.

is the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, a European treaty organisation that does science, similar to CERN. EMBL does molecular biology from high end atomic structural biology to development - and in the future, bridging to Ecosystems.

EMBL is Headquartered in beautiful Heidelberg, Germany and has 5 other sites; Hamburg (Germany also), Grenoble (France), EMBL-EBI at Hinxton (UK), Rome (Italy) and Barcelona (Spain).

#Twitter once again suspended our acct. Their targeted harrassment of us has never ended since day we began using 3 yrs ago under massive shadowban ever since 99% of the time. Once again they wrongly suspended us. We did a study on it to share & learn since they provide ZERO info

2/
We strongly invite @twittersupport to enter a deep dive discussion on this since they provide ZERO support, NEVER answer questions in over 100+ tweets we sent them, 8 appeals letters ignored & months & months of unlawful arbitrary suspensions without cause EVER mentioned.

3/
We have NO IDEA what they suspended us for here & of course their TOS says nothing about it nor could anyone EVER possibly discern what they could possibly be complaining about. Their TOS ALSO protects our Freedom Of Expression in the EXACT WAY we spoke the tweet under #18.

4/
Since Twitter's Dorsey has been COMPLETELY CLEAR that it is not the position of twitter to answer appeals but for ppl to languish in suspension unless they delete the tweet, & 37+ day suspensions when waiting are common & to be expected otherwise according to Dorsey on TV, Del

5/
This explanation in DETAIL is what is needed by Twitter on their website but they have REFUSED to EVER do this. They should do it for EVERY CASE have some commentary section for explanations so people can learn but they deliberately choose against this. Why? it seems obvious

I’m not a scientist, so obviously do correct me if I’m wrong. (Heck, this is twitter, I don’t need to ask that do I?)

BUT a virus doesn’t mutate in *nothing*, does it, it doesn’t mutate when it’s on the handle of the supermarket door or even in the air you’ve just breathed out.

It mutates *in a host*. And the most sure fire way for a virus to find a wide variety of hosts in which to mutate is to do precious little to control the spread of the virus. To have policies which amount to “take it on the chin”. To have an ‘acceptable’ death level.

To allow the virus to run absolutely rampant through one section of the population (children) because stopping it doing so would mean making a politically unpopular decision (closing the schools).

Seen some people (scientists, I mean, not your uncle Jim) saying this virus is now more transmissible in children and like... what did they THINK would happen if you allow the virus unfettered access to kids?

It adapts! It adapts to its fucking hosts! It becomes better at infecting them! Like, the whole fucking point for a virus is to be able to make copies of itself. It’s actually not that arsed about killing or harming you.