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

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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.

If you post something to twitter, a social media platform by which ideas are shared, and you don't want people to comment on it or provide their opinions, you can use many tools on twitter (locking account, changing who can reply).

Calling disagreement "disrespectful" is bizarre

If you wish to curate replies, you have many options. First, you can change who can reply.

"Everyone can reply" opens it up to the world
"People you follow" ensures that people you've selected are only able to reply
"People you've mentioned" means just that - specfically.

/2

note that this does NOT stop retweets nor does it stop "quote tweet replies", an annoying type of reply that twitter SHOULD allow you to block if you choose.

/3

Alternatively, you can select individual replies you don't like, and remove those from the conversation. In response to this, i'm picking on the lovely @dranniehickox's reply (i'm happy with it!)

Note: people will see "the author has hidden this, would you like to see?"

/4

Another excellent option is to lock your account. This means that you can 100% control who sees your content, and your content is not re-tweetable.

/5

OK. I may get slaughtered here, but there is a kind of pundit who doesn't know what he doesn't know. I'm not talking about ordinary people on @Twitter who shoot the shit on a variety of topics, but people with millions of followers, readers. 1/

These are usually men, who will assume expertise because they've always been told they were the smartest in the room, were given a platform because of who they are, and feel no sense of humility when they decide to ramble off and take down others. 2/

Here I am talking about @NateSilver538 @mattyglesias and @DouthatNYT who have decided they are the arbiters of truth in science and public health. 3/

It started with the #ACIP recommendations on the next phase of #COVID19 vaccination (which as far as I know is still pending). All three of them are suggesting that #ACIP doesn't know what it's doing because there are discussions happening about how to manage trade-offs. 3/

All three believe age-based allocation is the only way to triage vaccine delivery and they've been scornful of the deliberation of #ACIP for talking about things like equity, essential workers, etc. 4/

I didn't drink alcohol for 2020 and now I want to talk about it in a long twitter thread that should probably just be a blog post, but here goes:

(I get into topics like alcohol abuse, mental illness, homphobia, and parental death, just fyi)

Some background first: every year I do some kind of restriction. Last year I only re-read books, another year I didn’t buy any clothes. My dad is catholic and even though I hate the religion, something about the ‘fasting’ elements of lent and advent stuck with me.

I enjoy cutting myself off from things to create space in unexpected places. It's where Innovation and creativity flourish. I did some of my best work for Momofuku Nishi, and @davidchang told me I had to create an Italian cocktail program, but nothing could come from Italy.

My family also loved wine and used connoisseurship to cast consumption in a virtuous light. Opening that 4th bottle of Chateauneuf-de-Pape was *educational*

My mom once yelled at a wine steward for not letting my then-17-year-old brother have a glass of wine with our dinner.

Wine is great though! Beer, spirits, etc. They’re all fascinating things to study on many levels. (Hello I wrote a whole cocktail book)

Plus, they’re fun to drink and usually taste delicious and accompanied most major rituals in my life: birthday, Christmas, weddings, funerals…