…it’s likely that – with the exception of sharing photographs on Instagram (more on that tomorrow) – I’ll probably not be on social media very much. Yes, maybe the occasional delve in just to check that there’s nothing that I’m missing, but generally, I’m hoping to be looking less at screens and more at real life.
I wonder if I’ll miss it?
I don’t think I’ll miss it.
It’s the beginning of the end
The car went up the hill and disappeared around the bend
Ask anyone, they’ll tell you that
It’s these times that it tends
To start to break in half, to start to fall apart
Hold on to your heart
It seems that being a bit of an arse to your staff isn’t the best way to be a boss. I think that this is fairly well understood, but sometimes, people get too detached from reality to remember these sorts of things, and so they persist in their being a bit of an arse to their staff, and things break.
It’s been a hilarious rollercoaster ride of fanciful allegations (most of which then turned out to be true), and subsequent backtrackery since the Loud Mouth Space Wanker bought Twitter, and immediately tried to change things that didn’t need changing, just to show what power he could wield.
That’s not to say that some things didn’t need changing. Twitter used to be great, but had more recently become a cesspool of misinformation, insults, hatred and division. Pretty much a metaphor for the rest of the world, but concentrated into one small app, so that the nastiness could really be amplified.
When Musk took it over, the only people smiling about it were the right-wing, anti-vax Trump fans. And that was a pretty good indication of where it was heading. But that was just on the surface. Beneath the crusty exterior, Elon was… well… being an arse to his staff. But apparently, there’s only so much boss arsery that staff are willing to take:
Who knew? Well, even I did: just check out the first sentence of this post.
So, is this the end for Twitter? To be honest, I’d been using it less and less over the past few years. But I’ll still miss it.
Maybe it’s for the best, given the direction it was clearly about to take. Of course, Musk doesn’t think so, but the replies to his tweet are exactly the reason that I’ll miss Twitter so much when it chooses (or I choose) to give up completely.
There are still many, many interesting, erudite, important, humorous and entertaining people on the app, and still plenty of useful information, from valid local and international sources, and it’s sad that those informal bonds and communities seem likely to die the death now.
Everyone is bailing (see Titanic and Old Testament references above) for other places, and yes, I am there (see the link at the top of the sidebar), but I’m really not sure I’m ready to start over with the 13+ years of building things up again. Maybe.
Still, if all else fails, this place will always* be here.
* T&Cs apply
It’s amazing to watch how someone intelligent, well-qualified, erudite and seemingly sensible can be dragged from their lofty perch into the depths of conspiracy theories, wild accusations, dodgy political affiliations and suggestions, and general weirdness. And it’s interesting to see how this decline gathers pace and the theories get more bizarre as the downward spiral progresses.
Like coins whirling around a gravity well. (You’ll know it when you see it.)
Yes, like that. Starting quietly and smoothly, seemingly all under control, but gradually getting faster and faster and more and more frantic before plunging into the big black hole.
It could have started with a little thing: maybe annoyance at CNN for alleged misreporting of any given incident, or perhaps their city council for not fixing a thing that they were supposed to. Before you know it, the US election was stolen and the mayor is a corruption-ridden gangster. And once we’ve done Trump and local politics, there’s Covid lockdowns and mask mandates. And suddenly we’re deep into accusing Hilary Clinton of paedophilia and delving ever deeper into the anti-vaxxer rabbit hole.
In a way, I think I understand the causes. It’s easy to feel powerless and unheard in this modern world. Like you’re the only one telling the truth, but no-one is listening as you scream into the abyss. And then, you find someone who tells you that they agree with you and you discover kinship and you begin to support their ideas too. Then there’s a group and suddenly, there’s strength in numbers, even when all they’re shouting out is complete bullshit.
It’s interesting to note a couple of things about this decline into insanity, though. Firstly, the way the information is shared by these people can often be very subtle. A quiet retweet, the sharing of a post, the mention of a controversial theory: nothing direct, nothing explicit. Almost like they know that they would be ridiculed if they outwardly and openly expressed their feelings or beliefs on the subject. And secondly, the limit of just how far they will go: there’s almost always an invisible line they won’t cross at the far-out nonsense of chemtrails and a flat earth.
Professor Timothy Cookbook is a prime example of both these approaches. But then there is plenty that he’s said and done that is every bit as bad as telling us that 5G is a New World Order plan to depopulate the planet, so we really shouldn’t applaud him for tacitly agreeing that yes, we all live on a big ball.
It’s almost funny to see these individuals spouting statements each one more desperate, more nonsensical and more demonstrably incorrect than the last, but of course there’s a serious side to it as well. Because when less intelligent, well-qualified, erudite and sensible people see educated, popular individuals saying these things, they may well choose to believe them. Well, of course you would, because these people are intelligent, well-qualified, erudite and sensible, so they must know what they’re talking about, right?
“With great power comes great responsibility”, sure. But sadly, with great power also comes great power, and that does seem to be all they actually care about. Because you must also understand that when everything goes to shit with the able assistance of these “thoughtleaders”, they’re not the ones who will suffer. They all have their comfortable lives and their escape plans.
We’re living in an ever more divided world, with viewpoints and opinions instantaneously amplified by social media echo chambers that support our every utterance and immediately decry and attack any dissenting voice. There’s no hope of rational argument or anyone’s mind being changed. Everyone is entrenched and knows their “truth”.
The only difference being that some of it is backed up by facts, and the rest is just a single tweet away from agreeing that the Lizard People and the Rothschilds are running the (flat) planet.
Sigh.
2 years into this nonsense and over a year after we started vaccinating people, and we’re still seeing this sort of thing:
Maybe this person just doesn’t understand, or maybe they just don’t want to understand. Either way, while sharing this, it’s important to note that “the vaxes and boosters” don’t put any spike proteins into our bodies. Nor do they cause our bodies to make any full spike proteins. The small protein fragments made by our cells in response to the mRNA vaccines are enough for the immune system to work its magic and produce antibodies which can target the real thing, should it become necessary.
So, the spike proteins that “the vaxes and boosters are putting into our bodies” don’t get “expelled after a period of time” (and thanks for clarifying what a period of time might mean, though), nor do they collect anywhere, simply because they never existed.
Just imagine if they did, though. What would happen if we keep adding more? Well, proteins are very, very, small, so this would take a while, but I would imagine that we would likely all become just one giant spike protein (but with legs, obviously.) It would be much easier to see who had been vaccinated and who hadn’t – none of this QR code or “passport” silliness – only people who looked like giant spike proteins would be allowed into bars, cinemas and shops.
We’d have to avoid the rain, of course. Important solubility consideration. Safety first.
But maybe the scientific community shot itself in the collective foot with how we went about naming the spike protein, anyway. After all, “spike” sounds so aggressive, nasty and dangerous. If we’d thought about it beforehand (and that would include allowing for this sort of social media lunacy) then surely the “cuddle protein” or the “fluffy protein” would have been a better, more socially acceptable term. It’s very had to imagine anyone being even vaguely concerned with a build-up of cuddles in their ovaries.
Or wherever.
But more seriously, the fact remains that there will always be people out there who can’t understand, can’t accept, or simply won’t believe what we tell them, no matter how simply we put it. I can’t imagine living my life that way – distrusting every single thing that anyone says. But then I can imagine giant spike protein people going to the pub, so maybe the joke’s on me.
There are important concerns and questions for the future of science, of scientific communication and of trust and credibility in our experts here. I’m sorry to say that I don’t have any answers right now.
Just wandering back through the anals of twitter (misspelling entirely deliberate), and came across this gem from 23 May this year:
I checked back to the 23 May on a handy graph supplied by google and found this:
Look what happened just afterwards. Tweet did not age well.
Officially, there were about 30,000 Covid deaths in South Africa in the “mythical” third wave, although the excess deaths figure, which many professionals believe to be far more accurate for this sort of thing, suggests nearer 3 times that number.
Surprisingly, the same account (which ticks all the usual boxes: pro-gun, pro-Trump, anti-vax, “the media have been bought off”, “there’s graphene in the jab”, “the earth is flat”, “Fauci is the devil”, “Nuremberg trial 2022”, “Ivermectin is the answer”) is now choosing not to believe that there is a fourth wave on the way. Talk about doubling down on a losing position.
That said, in one way – obviously – I actually wish that he was right.
But of course, sadly, he’s wrong again.
I do hope that his [checks notes] 84 followers will hold him accountable for his repeated mistakes.