Some alternatives to Twitter
We certainly need them.
Perhaps there are too many choices for one to have really caught on, because forums like Twitter need to reach a critical mass to work well. Twitter was the first to come up with the format, and now it’s a behemoth that’s interested in stifling conservative thought as opposed to leftist thought.
I don’t tweet. I look at Twitter now and then when someone calls my attention to something interesting that’s happening there. But if you like the idea of Twitter but you hate Twitter itself, here’s a post about an alternative called Parler.
In the comments, several people have mentioned that Gab is getting popular, too.
You might want to give one or both of them a whirl.
Parler is good..
and Bitchute for alternative to youtube…
but may i point out exposing yourself has consequences when regimes change…
I deleted my Twitter account some time ago.
I have a Gab acct, lightly used (you’re welcome to connect to me if you’re there)
I got the Parler app this week but during setup it required my phone number … not sure I want to expose it thus on hold.
the Revolution ALWAYS eats its own — and damn the facts because they are counter to the NARRATIVE that must be broadcast without fail
https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2020/06/24/chait-progressive-listserv-meltdown-shows-identity-politics-destroying-professional-left/
Chait: A Progressive Listserv Meltdown Is A ‘Case Study’ Of What Is Happening In The Progressive Universe
JOHN SEXTONPosted at 7:21 pm on June 24, 2020
I just got on twitter and learned how to use it this year. Now conservatives decide to leave?
What were people doing the last 10 years anyways?
I guess recent events was the feather that broke the conservative back.
This might seem ridiculous, but I’m not sure I have ever understood the exact theory behind Twitter specifically. The little bird I guess was supposed to represent a member of a flock of something, doing something to some purpose. But I have never known quite what.
That said, and though I don’t read or follow them, it does seem that a commu ity platform which enables the issuance of bulletins , communiques, and updates on a more or less at-will basis could prove highly effective. And apparently Donald Trump has figured tbat out.
Actually, no one in my family uses either Twitter or Facebook to any significant degree. I was somewhat surprised to find that neither of my much younger sisters or their families do either.
I did learn about a month ago that there is a Facebook grpup dedicated to postings concerning the history and development of the former lumber town, now a resort community, where our vacation cottage ( actually a farm) Is located. That, seems to make sense. The guy could probably have set up a web site or a blog, but the platform is free, and he probably gets a great deal more participation the way he has done it.
He will put up an old photo of, or vacation image postcard from, a resort or hotel on the lake, and people will respond with memories of their folks renting one of the cabins in the summer, or a boat from the livery. Pleasant enough stuff, and some of it interesting social history.
The opportunity for wholesale, and free peer to peer community communication in a public forum is what motivates users I guess. If so, it then becomes obvious that social managers and engineers of any stripe would have a problem with it. What one does about disruptors, libelers, and trolls, I don’t know.
I was reading a first hand account about the settlement of Missouri the other day. In those largely anarchic conditions, people who were without exception self-reliant, would nonetheless self-organize, cooperates, and even establish protocols for exchange credit and mutual assistance. There was a super abundance of good will, and fellow feeling in these semi settled conditions.
However, it was not long before a few miscreant families might move into a district, and their mongrel good for nothing offspring then disturb life in an entire county for years. They knew just how far to push and offend and encroach without getting the whole community to tbe point of just wiping them out.
It seems that there are always some people waging an internal war against life itself, and that they dedicate most of their free time to making sure others feel the effects of it.
Usually, it was only resolved by violent death or expulsions after years of brewing trouble. The parasites and exploiters seem to know their business quite well; always dancing on the edge and then pulling back just far enough to remain barely tolerable for the present.
I never signed up for twitter, but I can read what is on a person’s “page” using my laptop or kindle. Of course, I can’t comment, but I don’t want to comment.
I checked out Parler, but I can’t figure out how to read a person’s comments without signing up. Any ideas??
I have no interest in Twitter. It seems to be concerned with spreading rumors.
Facebook I use to connect with family and a few friends. I do have facebook friends that I have never met in person. One sent me a copy of my book to sign for him. I am sending it back today. I also belong to sailing and basset hound groups.
I liked Twitter only as a news feed, and have followed a few people who provide interesting links. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten into any discussion there. Gab seemed like a cesspool when I last waded into it. If a few of my ‘follows’ on Twitter switched to Gab or Parler I would switch as well.
I try to stay out of politics on Facebook and just use it to communicate with friends or be a part of specific groups (like a college alum group, though that is full of political crap too).
Like Liz, I have looked at Parler and can’t figure out how to just read it without signing up.
Facebook is optimal for keeping track of your cousins. I really hate it as a venue for political discussion, perhaps because most of the Democrats on our Friend list have the unfortunate property of being obnoxious cranks. (Our Republican friends post pictures of their grandchildren and do not make contentious political statements).
Just not interested. I have become convinced that social media has become a blight on society.
I suppose it can be a useful vehicle for mass communication. But,in my opinion all of these social media vehicles encourage too many people to say things that are better left unsaid.
WRT to Twitter, don’t need an account. Anything of general interest, and a lot that isn’t, is repeated on multiple public sites.
My wife is becoming addicted to Facebook; another social media site that I tried and abandoned. She primarily follows family and close friends but is venturing out. I caution her to take care about what she reveals on a public forum; and she assures me that she does.
I prefer phone calls for remote communication. They are a bit more personal; and I like to hear the voice of any person I am interested in interacting with. Text and email have are useful alternatives at times. It is always nice to get a hand written note, which indicates a little extra effort to reach out.
Then, of course, public forums such as this one give me a chance to express my deepest thoughts to a wider audience; and do so more or less anonymously (hallelujah).
I plan to delete my Facebook account when my very old dad dies, assuming he dies before me. He is in his 90s, high functioning, spry and a Marxist who obsesses over his wealth. I love him. But he is a foul human being in so many ways. Nonetheless I use FB to keep him in the loop of our extended family. They are all Leftists, btw. When he goes, I expunge the lot of them from my life.
My spouse and our kids are sensible conservatives. All I need. And a few sites like this.
The main thing to remember is this:
NOBODY NEEDS TWITTER.
It is a completely superfluous application and system. Everything it does can be done better by other systems. Everything important anyone says on it can be accessed and searched through a web browser also. Anything that “trends” on it gets announced as “trending” in other web-based news sources.
You miss nothing by simply not participating in it.
And by participating in it, you are sending money to your political enemies.
How much strength-of-character is required, really, to just not subsidize your enemies?
From the Chait link
Heh.
DNW, 8:28 It’s still early but I feel sure that your description of the early settlers in Missouri will be the best thing I read all day, thank you.
Jeanne, write more about your dad if you will. One of the aims of a few ( or at least one, me) of us who have no leftist family members, is to try and gain some understanding of the psychology, rationales, and fundamental metaphysical and/or justifying anthropological assumptions of hard left people.
I’ve been pestering anyone who comes here ( to the annoyance of some others) and admits to it, to try and explain the reasons and basic operating assumptions of their relatives.
Neo, most notably of those in that category, as stated that she could not explain the whys and wherefores.
Maybe you can.
For my own part I should admit that I am not an ideological conservative, either. But as a small “L” libertarian with pretty conventional interests and lifestyle, I am at least capable of understanding their reasoning right down to the bedrock … which they are generally not shy about revealing.
With leftists, it seems there is much that is left unsaid, if not hidden out of sight ….
I sure wish our friend from Italy would have gone into some detail about his Red mother. Maybe he will yet.
Man has all these different types of associations, from chess clubs to marriages to armies to political parties to friendship groups to families to faculties to student bodies to Houses of Representatives to sports teams to editorial boards….
In all of these, there has to be a little bit of orthodoxy, I.e. common belief, else they wouldn’t have the intellectual glue to get together in the first place. Some groups have more need for common belief and some less.
It seems the progressives, and subsets thereof like Jim Jones‘ et al, need lots of orthodoxy. They want everyone to believe the same thing. This seems to be for the preservation of power for the leader, but it may be to preserve a weak idea that they fear could be demolished by argument.
I was trying to think of those groups that need, or have, the least orthodoxy, those that have the most heterodoxy and the widest range of beliefs and the most iconoclasts.
Groups that are bound by love and genetics instead of common interests are pretty rowdy and raucous sometimes; they come close, like wild family political discussions with everyone yelling. But it would be refreshing to have more groups like this—even Oxford debates are getting predictable. We hate heretics.
Tribes have to be very orthodox for survival. Stress on a group, like COVID, probably pushes groups toward less democracy and more orthodoxy and more need to follow a leader. After all, tribes are the default organizational structure of man. I think we see this clearly in BLM and in CHOP. I wonder if Covid is screwing with our hive brain? or do progressives just sense a vulnerability in the rest of us?
re: Parler. I’m told that if you join on a laptop instead of a phone app you are not required to give a phone number.
DNW it will be interesting to learn if Jeanne can explain the thinking of her Leftist family. My daughters, and grand children are decidedly left of me; and I have no clue how they resolve the various contradictions. I know what they say; but, it does not align with reality. I tell them that I am a Constitutional conservative; and they look at me as though I am speaking a foreign language.
To a large segment of the mostly younger population, the constitution is not the greatest governing document ever written; it is an impediment to progress.
A story that might amuse some. My younger daughter who is normally very disciplined and is a compassionate Liberal, is given to rare, but impressive, displays of road rage when she feels wronged. (She is a Southern Californian by birth, residence, and attitude.) A year or so ago, we were on a family outing to a tourist attraction when another driver took a parking spot that my daughter thought was rightfully hers. An impressive, even frightening, eruption ensued. Daughter would be mystified if I accused her of racism for berating the Black driver of the other car; because she toes the line when it comes to condemning endemic and systemic racism in the U.S. There were no racial inferences, but we know that now racism is an amorphous concept.
I’ve been pestering anyone who comes here ( to the annoyance of some others) and admits to it, to try and explain the reasons and basic operating assumptions of their relatives.
I don’t fully understand it myself, but I’ll take a stab. My parents both grew up in the Great Depression, and absorbed the prevailing essentially socialistic ideas swirling around at the time, seeing the world as workers vs capitalists, free markets as cruel and unstable, and (big) government as the savior. Government is there to help people, not to secure liberty, enforce contracts, etc., and the immediate “needs” of people trump any quaint notions of rule of law, constitutionality, and the like. The consequences of casting those notions aside for the long-term viability of the republic nowhere enter their thinking.
DNW:
When did I say I could not explain? Of course, I can’t fully explain, and one size doesn’t fit all – but I’ve explained and explained and explained.
My own political development and why I was originally a liberal has been fully explained. I’ve talked and talked about the Gramscian march through education that has deeply influenced the younger generations. I’ve discussed how few people actually think for themselves. I’ve talked about the basic appeal of leftism to people who just want to do good in the world. I’ve recommended the books of Thomas Sowell, such as The Quest for Cosmic Justice, as well as Milan Kundera’s works and Allan Bloom’s, all of which deal with the question and attempt to answer it. I’ve talked about some of my older relatives who came from places that were very oppressive, and who decided that leftism was the way to go, and who raised their children that way.
I could go on and on and on, and already have, so I’m mystified as to why you think I haven’t explained.
R. C.:
The people I know who like Twitter (really, just one person I know) like it because they enjoy the flame wars.
I enjoy reading this blog and the comments for the thoughtful and deep approach to current events. Even though many of you don’t enjoy Twitter or Facebook, you’re all needed on social media for your wisdom and ability to be articulate. These digital, social media platforms have an immense reach and affect the opinions of especially the younger generation. Often, foolish positions are stated there and stand without any reasonable rebuttal. If an intelligent person posts a thoughtful response, some will be stirred to think more deeply about an issue. We often talk about conservatives ceding ground and liberals educating the younger generation, well, here’s an opportunity to educate without having to leave your house!
I’ve never used Twitter.
@Neo:
Re:
Ah.
Perhaps that disorder ought to be added to DSM-5?
(I kid, I kid. Okay…mostly I kid.)
I was referring to relatives and their personal outlook and the exposure of their conditioning assumptions and justifications. In your case I was thinking of the virtually Stalin excusing Marxist uncle whom you have described as especially vehement and somewhat inexplicable.
I’m well aware that herd animal types are easily conditioned to behave in a certain way. Their opinions, insofar as their impulses can be termed opinions, are of virtually no interest to me.
What I am searching for is what assumptions these others, these Marxist family members, use, in order to justify their adherence to a set of collectivist ideas that routinely imply the suppression of liberty, individual choice, and the devaluation of the individual person.
DNW:
I’ve been pestering anyone who comes here ( to the annoyance of some others) and admits to it, to try and explain the reasons and basic operating assumptions of their relatives.
A partial explanation is that people align their beliefs with the group[s] they belong to or want to belong to. In recent years, this has been called “virtue signaling.” Assistant Village Idiot has had a number of postings over the years about different Tribes in America. For example, a lot of liberals belong to the Arts & Humanities Tribe. Tribes @ Assistant Village Idiot. I suggest you read some of his postings.
My first exposure to the notion that people align their beliefs to the group they belong to came in my freshman year in high school. A junior wrote a snarky line in the school paper about a group in junior high – which shared the same campus as the high school- that met to indicate its support for the movement in the South to add blacks to the electoral rolls. IIRC, the group called itself “Young Citizens for Equal Voting Rights.” The snark in the school paper went something like this: ” ‘We don’t have anything to do on Friday so let’s do it,’ as sung by Bill and the entire junior high gang.”
The author of the snark had nothing against adding blacks to the electoral rolls. After all, this was New England in the ’60s. He just wanted to snark on the junior high kids- which included his kid sister. Come to think of it, his snark was also an example of tribe versus tribe: senior high versus junior high.
In my sophomore year, a senior -coincidentally a friend of the snarker- informed the locker room that his father had signed a petition against the Vietnam War that appeared in the NY Times. He further informed us that a lot of “cool people” had also signed the petition. Which of course made his father and by extension his son, also cool. Tribes, Tribes….Lest one assume that such tribal thinking is confined to those of lesser intelligence, bear in mind that this guy was a National Merit Finalist- top 0.5%.
As a lampooning of Tribes and political affiliations from that era, consider Tom Lehrer’s song, The Folk Song Army
My high school years had a further influence on my leaving the left. Having seen group conflict in the town where I went to elementary school, and also having seen group conflict at the regional high school I attended in an adjacent town, I concluded that all of us have in-groups and out-groups. All of us are capable of bigotry and prejudice- a conclusion that many liberals never reach.
Liberals/Progressives want to belong to the “good guys,” so they are going to denounce racism at the drop of a hat.
@ Jimmy on,
I think that that’s a pretty good answer so far as run-of-the-mill 20th century working class liberals go … or went.
You can say what you like about the deficiencies of education with regard to history or civics since the 1960’s, but for working class grade or trade school graduates, or even high school graduates of that era, they probably had almost as little idea of the workings and principles of our political system then, as the woke crowd does now.
DNW
What I am searching for is what assumptions these others, these Marxist family members, use, in order to justify their adherence to a set of collectivist ideas that routinely imply the suppression of liberty, individual choice, and the devaluation of the individual person.
In a nutshell: you have to break some eggs to make an omelet. IIRC, Robespierre is the originator of the phrase. The assumption is that following the Marxist/Leninist/Maoist template will result in heaven on earth, so what’s the problem with a “few” bodies fallen by the wayside? Unfortunately for the true believers, the Marxist/Leninist/Maoist heaven never arrives.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Brit Communist author Eric Hobsbawm was asked if 20 million (whatever) dead would have been worth it if the Marxist/Leninist/Maoist template had resulted in heaven on earth. Yes, Hobsbawm replied. Unfortunately, like the song says, Tomorrow Never Comes.
Tatyana:
Even though many of you don’t enjoy Twitter or Facebook, you’re all needed on social media for your wisdom and ability to be articulate. These digital, social media platforms have an immense reach and affect the opinions of especially the younger generation.
For the same reason I do not put a Trump bumper sticker on my auto, nor do I wear a MAGA cap. On Neo I can blog anonymously. Yes, I am afraid of the mob.
@ Gringo,
As in the case Jimmy on, I think that you make some good points regarding what are basically, or at least somewhat, unreflective motivations for aligning with, and promoting the slogans of a seeming high status in-group to which one aspires.
And I suppose in order to get a better and deeper answer out of the people you and Jimmy describe, one would have to bind them to a chair and interrogate them remorselessly … until they finally broke down and began to see connections between the political choices they made and the anthropological view, or idea human nature and morality, which their alignment endorsed: and until they then either renounced the ultimate implications, or shrugged and said, “So what? It’s just the cost of my getting the kind of life I want out of others.”
You know, till they either shrugged and said. “Oh well, omelets require broken eggs, and existence is ultimately meaningless anyway” or recoiled and said, “I never thought about the duties or sacrifices I was requiring others to undertake”
Hahahaha.
I swear Gringo, I did not see your use of the phrase before I used it to describe the “mid-level” thinker’s explanation.
Yes. And What I am looking for is the commenter here, who can more or less quote a “Marxist” relative as coming right out and saying so. Saying in effect, that they are willing to kill others in order to corral everyone into a cooperative which will bring about the order they envision, because there is no “metaphysical” or anthropological reason, to refrain from doing so.
Now, Marx said more or less just that. The Soviet theorists said as much. But all these bold, swearing, threatening American Marxists, seem to stop just shy of issuing a challenge to throw-down.
I wonder why. Well … no, I guess I really don’t.
But if they will not, for obvious reasons, walk up to some redneck and say, “I’m going to hang your ass from a lamp post before long because I want what I want”; will they not at least confess their moral principles to their closest friends and relatives?
Apparently, they are reluctant to do so much as that, either.
Ideology – look it up, consider that it allows all sorts of individual pathologies to develop. But that is too obvious to consider. There must be a deep philosophical reason, and a pony under there somewhere.
“After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Brit Communist author Eric Hobsbawm was asked if 20 million (whatever) dead would have been worth it if the Marxist/Leninist/Maoist template had resulted in heaven on earth. Yes, Hobsbawm replied.” – Gringo
They don’t seem to consider that you can’t get to Heaven, on earth or elsewhere, by making it into Hell first.
“will they not at least confess their moral principles to their closest friends and relatives?” – DNW
They are doing it remotely via Twitter etc, sometimes under their own names.
Maybe their friends and relatives ought to check that out.
And maybe some of those friends and relatives agree with them.
Tatyana: there might have been some point to your suggestion even a year ago (and there are a LOT of conservative writers on Twitter & Facebook), but why sign on now just to be censored or doxxed by the mob?
DNW:
My Marxist relatives are either long deceased, or very distant relatives I’ve had little contact with for years. So I have no access to the thoughts of my Marxist relatives.
I have leftist relatives, though. More of them, however, are liberals than are leftists. Many are very bright but IMHO are politically what the Soviets might call “useful idiots.” I doubt very much they would ascribe to the egg/omelet thing, even to themselves. They are naive, but that is not the same as being Marxist.
I also had a Marxist relative (somewhat distant; didn’t know him well) who believed that it was possible to get Marxism right this time. A very idealistic person. The new Marxism would not resemble the old at all. I don’t think he thought any eggs would need to be broken.
The Marxist relative I knew best is long gone, however. He was of a much earlier generation. From what I heard him say over the years, he was 100% able to justify anything the Soviets did. I never heard him directly address the issue of Stalinism and its murders, but I have little doubt he would either deny that it happened or justify it if he admitted (even to himself) that it did.
I think I might be the only one on this blog who can claim to have two friends, one was in the Hitler Youth and the other was and is a Stalinist. Politics is something that was not discussed. No, the two never met.
Tatyana: there might have been some point to your suggestion even a year ago (and there are a LOT of conservative writers on Twitter & Facebook), but why sign on now just to be censored or doxxed by the mob?
Sign on to change minds one at a time. Not everyone on Twitter and Facebook is a die-hard idealogue. I find that there many who mouth the party line not realizingg that there might be a legitimate, thoughtful other option. I don’t engage with those online who are thoroughly brainwashed and unwilling to think.
There’s lots of great content on twitter that has nothing to do with politics.
I follow several bird photographers, for example — these people wait for hours and hours to capture the perfect shot, and those of us who follow them get to see great photos with no effort just for fun.
This gal feed birds by hand, and posts the videos: https://twitter.com/JocAPhotography/status/1276178536437624834?s=20
Another fun account is Dancer on Film, which neo might enjoy; I just came upon this impressive clip of Gene Kelly: https://twitter.com/DancerOnFilm/status/1276228668860190720?s=20
If you keep following pleasant people and keep unfollowing those who post unpleasant things, eventually most of what you see is positive. Then you get more and more good stuff. Here’s one of my favorite videos ever — this was posted a few weeks ago and I have no idea where it is or who originally posted it, but it’s just nice to know this happened, such a sweet scene:
https://twitter.com/Brink_Thinker/status/1262552729752305664?s=20
Andy
I think I might be the only one on this blog who can claim to have two friends, one was in the Hitler Youth and the other was and is a Stalinist.
I don’t think anyone can top that. My late brother-in-law came over from Germany in 1948, but he was too young to have been in Hitler Youth. I found out decades after the fact that a classmate of mine was a red diaper baby- his father had been a full time CPUSA operative ( they paid his salary) from 1945 to 1956, when news of Nikita’s Stalin speech prompted him to quit.
My hometown had refugees from both Hitler and from the Iron Curtain (both Europe and China). The girls I went out with in high school included a girl whose mother fled Mao’s China and a girl whose parents had fled Hitler.
I read Watherman Mark Rudd’s memoir. He mentions meeting relatives who had survived the Holocaust- whereas those I knew had gotten out of Europe before the war. I suspect that one reason I didn’t go the SDS route in college was because I had grown up with a number of Iron Curtain refugees.
The more stress on a culture, the less free it becomes.
Covid may be messing with our social brain. The unemployment itself is a big stressor.
I’m on Twitter for the funny memes and jokes, as well as the videos of event from people on the ground which rarely makes it into the news.
I just joined Parler because Bookworm posted that she was going over there.
DJT Jr is only on twitter, so that’s enough reason for me to stay.
I never joined Twitter, but I did just sign up for Parler on my laptop (and no, I wasn’t asked to provide a phone number).
Just an acknowledgement to Oldflyer before it escapes me.
The middle two sentences of your first paragraph nicely sum up a large part of the puzzle which ardent progressives seem to pose to me,
The question I’ve been harping away on with regard to relatives (because it seemed to me that if anyone had an insider’s chance of getting to the truth, it would be another relative) is actually a layered or multiphased one.
The obvious one I’ve been asking is how they justify their progressive values to others, given the cost to traditional liberties and rights which these programmatic progressive values impose. The other aspect, or level, is how they came to prioritize these collective values above all other life interests, such as self-direction, voluntary association, and a strict allegiance to truth.
I suppose it is all of a piece from one angle. But if by some circumstance one could ethically strap a progressive in a chair until he yielded up honest and forthcoming answers, the next question after “What primary facts of reality or nature compels your progressivism?”, would be, “How did you come to the conclusion that this selection of facts were primary?”
Yes, the inherent contradictions and overall incoherence. As you say, you, ” … have no clue how they resolve the various contradictions.”
And neither do I.
DNW & OldFlyer — the cognitive non-dissonance of progressives & leftists seems to be a feature, not a bug.
Liberal turned conservative David Mamet famously said:
“In order to continue advancing their illogical arguments modern liberals have to pretend not to know things.”