I got lectured in Jan/Feb of 2020 for being alarmed about the (obviously incoming) pandemic, got lectured in 2012 for worrying about tech and the public sphere, etc.

Part of it is normal: people disagree. The dysfunctional part is the herding/groupthink. https://t.co/YjW7HQp18G pic.twitter.com/ppBQ9Ynw0Q

— zeynep tufekci (@zeynep) April 25, 2022

One of the reasons I knew the pandemic was going to be a big thing by February 2020 — other than not being a dumbass — was that I already read Zeynep. Finding people that can keep you from being a dumbass is key in life.

Discarding people who go down bad paths such as Ian Welsh, who were once ok but will turn you into a clown, is also very important.

All beauty treatments are gender-affirming. No hairdressers, make-up, eyebrow waxing/threading, for “girls“ under 25. No barbers, working out, etc for the “boys”.

— Feòrag (@Feorag) April 25, 2022

I wonder if this person is aware that a lot of girls work out? Apparently not. I’ve known more women who work out than men in my life.

There's just no getting around that authoritarians believe that vulnerability should be met by domination, so any time they perceive an imbalance of power their response is to impose a greater imbalance of power and strip agency from whoever they think has the least power.

— PallasRiot (@PallasRiot) April 24, 2022

I think that’s true (from the thread in the post below). They know they would abuse any power they have, so they assume everyone else will too. It’s projection. They can’t imagine not being petty authoritarians so they act as if it’s true in all aspects of life and for everyone.

@TrentTelenko @MalcolmNance
1-Let’s talk about night operations and the Russians inability to execute night ops or defend against them. Night operations take skill and time to master. Seemed the Ukrs we’re using their more elite units to pull these attacks off at 1st but now..

— George J Stathakis (@GJstathakis) April 23, 2022

Night ops are incredible hard. My old unit (82nd) trained constantly to be good at this. Most of my jumps were at night for just this reason. That the Ukrainians are mastering this is a good sign. When you get attacked and ransacked in the night with no warning — well, that’s just devastating to morale.

Feelin' vaxxed and relaxxed https://t.co/7Us0R3OR4t

— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) April 25, 2022

Vaxxed, relaxxed and leisure maxxed – cash in staxx, trouts for smaxx, stayin’ clear of the paranoiaxx.

file under: design history things i think about all the time.

why was AIM so good, and why are Slack/Discord so bad? https://t.co/pjhEY2Fhoc

— Amy Hoy (@amyhoy) April 24, 2022

A few reasons. Slack and Discord are mostly made to be friendly to corporations, not to users. The priorities are different therefore. Another is that the entire society has gotten more authoritarian and developers have followed right along with this. Devs believe they know better than the users they are developing software for, so offer fewer — and worse — choices.

But yes, AIM and ICQ were far better than Slack or Discord. So superior it’s not even a contest. Slack is fucking terrible, designed by complete clowns.