Another commenter said this doesn’t depict 2084, but 2034. I think it depicts 2021.
Perhaps I’m incapable of laughter, but I think enough of the younger folks have recognized the tendencies of the pathologically online and are getting away from social media that incentivizes this kind of thing that this piece reads as an outdated caricature. Ironically, this is caused at least a little bit by the enshittification of those same platforms at the hands of Zuck, Musk, et al.
My personal opinion: Almost all Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/Mastodon activism is performative, intended primarily to discharge feelings of guilt. The phrases “circular firing squad” and “leftist infighting” appear a lot. This is because the social problems of our age are almost completely beyond the average person’s ability or willingness to meaningfully affect. When they choked out George Floyd, everyone with a blog lamented it publicly, said their piece about white supremacy and antiracism, millions marched in the streets, and very little happened after that. Kudos to the people of Minneapolis and Capitol Hill for going one step further, but even that was over inside of, what, a month?
I see journals and other post-Floyd cottage industry tchotchkes that say things like “what’d you do today to end white supremacy/patriarchy/cisnormativity/...?” These are well-intentioned but promote exactly this kind of thing. They need to say “your social media does not count towards this exercise.” Are you willing to risk your life for a perfect stranger? House a homeless person? Care for the suicidal? Self-immolate in front of a government building? No? Okay then, donate to the SPLC or ACLU or Lambda or whatever and kindly STFU about how you’re one of the good ones. You’re the equivalent of the white moderate that MLK and Malcolm X so famously disparaged.
Torrey Peters wrote what I consider a near-perfect metaphor for the cases of “cancellation” that actually affect someone’s livelihood (Isabel Fall, Lindsay Ellis) as opposed to the ones that the supposed “cancellees” turn into books and comedy tours. It’s mainly applicable to trans people, since that’s who Peters was writing for, but the thrust of the argument (we don’t have sufficiently many elders to help us navigate the world because they were systematically/stochastically repressed or murdered) can be adapted to other social groups and movements.
Welcome to the website! (Or, at least, the land of the non-lurkers.) You may enjoy The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies by Bryan Caplan.
Another commenter said this doesn’t depict 2084, but 2034. I think it depicts 2021.
Perhaps I’m incapable of laughter, but I think enough of the younger folks have recognized the tendencies of the pathologically online and are getting away from social media that incentivizes this kind of thing that this piece reads as an outdated caricature. Ironically, this is caused at least a little bit by the enshittification of those same platforms at the hands of Zuck, Musk, et al.
My personal opinion: Almost all Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/Mastodon activism is performative, intended primarily to discharge feelings of guilt. The phrases “circular firing squad” and “leftist infighting” appear a lot. This is because the social problems of our age are almost completely beyond the average person’s ability or willingness to meaningfully affect. When they choked out George Floyd, everyone with a blog lamented it publicly, said their piece about white supremacy and antiracism, millions marched in the streets, and very little happened after that. Kudos to the people of Minneapolis and Capitol Hill for going one step further, but even that was over inside of, what, a month?
I see journals and other post-Floyd cottage industry tchotchkes that say things like “what’d you do today to end white supremacy/patriarchy/cisnormativity/...?” These are well-intentioned but promote exactly this kind of thing. They need to say “your social media does not count towards this exercise.” Are you willing to risk your life for a perfect stranger? House a homeless person? Care for the suicidal? Self-immolate in front of a government building? No? Okay then, donate to the SPLC or ACLU or Lambda or whatever and kindly STFU about how you’re one of the good ones. You’re the equivalent of the white moderate that MLK and Malcolm X so famously disparaged.
Torrey Peters wrote what I consider a near-perfect metaphor for the cases of “cancellation” that actually affect someone’s livelihood (Isabel Fall, Lindsay Ellis) as opposed to the ones that the supposed “cancellees” turn into books and comedy tours. It’s mainly applicable to trans people, since that’s who Peters was writing for, but the thrust of the argument (we don’t have sufficiently many elders to help us navigate the world because they were systematically/stochastically repressed or murdered) can be adapted to other social groups and movements.
Welcome to the website! (Or, at least, the land of the non-lurkers.) You may enjoy The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies by Bryan Caplan.