Indeed, Twitter’s modus operandi appears to involve routinely silencing those who defend social justice and enabling those who spread hate. In my short time on the platform, I have regularly come across hate speech from the sort of unreconstructed bigots who believe that there are only two genders, or that Islam is not a race. It’s got to the point where if someone doesn’t have “anti-fascist” in their bio, it’s safest to assume that they’re a fascist.
The permanent suspension only lasted for a day, but the experience was traumatic and lasting. I now understand how Nelson Mandela felt. If anything, my ordeal was even more damaging. Mandela may have had to endure 27 years of incarceration, but at least his male privilege protected him from ever having to put up with mansplaining, or being subject to wolf-whistling by grubby proles on a building site.
According to the robot programmed by a liberal, if you want to talk to somebody about hot-button issues over Thanksgiving dinner, the only acceptable responses are to agree with the liberal or to avoid openly disagreeing with the liberal. Anything else and you’re just an angry uncle.
But you don’t need some stupid bot to help you out, right? You’ve got a stupid blogger right here! Here are a few of my tips for getting through Thanksgiving dinner with people who disagree with you even though you’re absolutely sure you’re right.
No, this isn’t about the upper stage. Glad someone is asking the important questions:
Serious question for #medtwitter: If you show up at a code, and the patient is a centaur who had a cardiac arrest, ignoring the joules question, where do you think the defib pads should go? A, assuming the heart is in the human part, or B, assuming the heart is in the horse part? pic.twitter.com/OJt9haEgx3
What turns people into wicked punks while they no doubt continue to believe themselves to be decent and good? Bad ideas, that’s what, ideas that give people license to answer words and policies with terror. What’s the bad idea on the left? Control. The notion that the left’s cause is so righteous it needs to pay no mind to liberty but simply deserves to win by any means necessary. Let five judges on the Supreme Court make law and damn the “outdated” Constitution. Give unelected bureaucracies like the EPA the power to regulate people’s lives without appeal or oversight. Give ignoble gnomes like Peter Strzok the wherewithal to criminalize the political opposition. And of course, bring on the socialism: a philosophy that declares a person’s work, his time, his life, his property belong not to him but to the state. Control.
I’ve known Dave for decades, but this is the first time I’ve seen these.
I particularly like 39(s):
39. Any exploration program which “just happens” to include a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a launch vehicle program.
39. (alternate formulation) The three keys to keeping a new human space program affordable and on schedule:
1) No new launch vehicles.
2) No new launch vehicles.
3) Whatever you do, don’t develop any new launch vehicles.
This one is going to be harder for some than others. Sarah Hoyt has been pretty good about this, while I have always struggled. But if at all possible, when you sit down to write, don’t be a straight white male. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with being a straight white male — you were born that way, no fault of your own — it’s just that everyone hates you. So stop it.