Speaking from the Trump Regime of America no one changes their mind by simply being presented with facts. Social media had its moment to "democratize" information and discourse, something that was supposed to be a good thing. The medium is the message and it has spoken. It has failed and failed miserably. In my view, it is wise to leave the room when it is full of yapping hyenas no matter the political bent. To repeat, no minds will be changed or even made moderate and constructive. The discourse has morphed here from the political to the extension of politics, that is, war. And, as with all wars, it is no longer a case of why this is happening in America and how we make things better. This is a coup d'etat. There are no words. There is no common ground. Even the MAGAs are irrelevant. It is the trump regime in full body armor with one goal: to take over the US government. And as our midterm elections in November get closer and closer the trump regime will get more and more oppressive. They will steal the election to keep the profoundly corrupt and sycophantic Republicans in a majority lest they face justice. But only if we let them steal the election. To defeat the regime will require a Second Civil War kind of response. This is not the stuff of social media or Athenian forums. This is the American Rubicon and like Julius Caesar it must be crossed with an army. That's where we are here.
I agree with all you say, I do not want lefties to communicate more and in more creative ways because I think there is any basis for “dialogue” with the Trump regime. They should be jailed. The point I make is about being outward looking to the public. Find ways and forums to attract crowds who have not been exposed to left wing politics in an intelligent way before. You attract them with something else, but often debating your enemies will bring bystanders closer to you.
We agree. Your line says it: "You attract them with something else." I believe the something else is something other than social media. I know it's here and will continue to be here and we'd better figure it out but I am less optimistic than you of what social media can do constructively. It would be a great social project to remake social media, if such a thing is possible. From what I've learned, you are the kind of person who can work in that direction and over time help the medium evolve into something positive. I truly believe that. Not an easy task but it would be a world-changer.
I am all for in-real-life engagement over online, 100%, but for me, and really, these articles are often me giving myself a pep talk to myself, I want to observe more closely and engage more with a mass audience online, especially people I otherwise would not interact with. I want to study the algorithm as a user, get a deep understanding of it.
I mean there’s a pretty big difference between Athenian forums and corporate owned, algorithm driven online platforms where 90% of human communication is missing (tone, body language, etc.)
It’s worth noticing how many of us are moving to platforms that champion longer, spirited debates.
Very true. I find YouTube still booming despite the adds and clickbait very interesting. Substack is self explanatory why it’s winning. They are still nowhere near Twitter levels but unlike Bluesky it is so obvious that substack will have long term success.
No it isn't - Google Trends is a pretty bad way to monitor the health of a social media platform. It is far from the same level of growth that happened in end-2024 but a platform with four million posts a day is hardly "dying". https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats
I'm an older Gen X type and my overall take on ... everything ... is much different than yours and probably would still be if we were the same age, but one thing you're leaving out and/or mischaracterizing about why people left the rotten shell of Twitter, regardless of age, that i *think* you will agree changes the equation, is that people don't won't to give the evil sack of shit who runs it money or sufficient data to both verify their identity and let him add this to the Palantir databases he's creating with his stolen doge data. If you don't do either of these things, the algorithm will throttle you to the extent that even mutuals you've been friendly with for years (or in some cases that you see regularly in real life or even live with) will not only not see your posts without looking for them, but will have no idea that you've liked or replied to their posts and not even get notifications of DMs (and visa versa you not seeing their replies to yours when they finally do see and respond weeks or months later). That is not a public square or anything but a waste of time.
And I would quite literally rather be shot in the head than give that dipshit money. That those of us who left are depriving him if ad revenue is also a good thing. Some of those 10 million guardian followers are almost certainly people like me who've left. Alternative platforms will never succeed and Twitter will never be reduced to a right wing echo version of Bluesky if everyone stayed (i checked in last night; not quite there yet but heafong strongly that way, albeit some good accounts left, particularly want to give a rec to the wonderful dog rescue guy in Thailand and a bunny rescue place). But even aside from money and algorithm issues all l sorts of very good reasons to put your energy elsewhere than Twitter.
Also please note this is not a defense of Bluesky. I am not on Bluesky and according to friends who tried it and gave up on it in less than a week, I would get banned before I could give up on it even at my most polite, and even tho at this point I'm totally willing (and definitely facto already doing) to side with the batshit wokies against a common enemy (and quite honestly, I hate the crazy insane wokies much less, and have much more hope for them becoming what they could be, than the neolibs & libertarians, even tho i can have conversations with the latter groups; hell, keep us off politics and i actually like the wokies who can manage not to make every posdible topic of conversation about identity politics; the 3 groups of people i used to feel somewhat at home with are all now absorbed into wokism and ... all the other groups i used to be less fond of have also gotten worse, um, I'm way off topic but my initial point still stands, lots of legit good reasons to bail on Twitter and social media in general).
Disengaging from an intellectual sewer owned by a white supremacist isn't surrender. It's just the market at work. It won't die if we don't kill it.
The people who actually *like* Xitter aren't interested in reasonable debate. It is the gulag. Where rapists go to swap tips and racists go to feel better.
No not really, nor does everyone need to stay on x. But people on the left who consider themselves to be political influencers should stay in touch with these platforms, and be aware. And build a follower base, not necessarily on Xitter, but don’t kid yourselves that bluesky is it.
Some worldviews are just so brittle that they reflexively recoil from vigorous debate. Experts and managerial class functionaries like to pretend that their positions are just SO much more righteous and superior than those of dissenters that no discussion is required... but they never seem to want to debate the issues. One thinks that maybe they would enjoy dismantling the ideas of their opponents, if they were so feeble.
I suspect that deep down these people know that they don't know as much as they pretend to, and so they take refuge in moral disdain and bullying and silencing critics. It is a meaningful fact that they have proven to be wrong about every major cultural and political debate tat we've achieved resolution on.
What really matters in this argument isn’t just who stays online and who opts out — it’s what gets ceded when we withdraw from the public square. Social movements don’t grow in sanitised echo chambers; they grow where institutional memory, strategy, and confrontation co-exist.
Your point about seasoned activists leaving and taking historical knowledge with them cuts to something deeper: the left often externalises its own strategic infrastructure while insisting on principled purity. Retreat becomes virtue signalling, and what’s left is a bunker of comfort without leverage.
The challenge isn’t just dealing with hostility — it’s acknowledging that political change happens in messy, contested spaces where influence, narrative, and structural understanding actually collide. Ostracising our own elders and mentors doesn’t make the right weaker — it leaves us with fewer architects of change.
Thanks! I think social media polarised us more and then we decided that bridge making is no longer possible, but it’s still just impossible to built any political
movement without it. I like Joshua Citarella’s idea about building a pipeline for people from broader political backgrounds (or lack of) to find you and connecting them to thinkers and ideas they otherwise don’t get exposed to.
Speaking from the Trump Regime of America no one changes their mind by simply being presented with facts. Social media had its moment to "democratize" information and discourse, something that was supposed to be a good thing. The medium is the message and it has spoken. It has failed and failed miserably. In my view, it is wise to leave the room when it is full of yapping hyenas no matter the political bent. To repeat, no minds will be changed or even made moderate and constructive. The discourse has morphed here from the political to the extension of politics, that is, war. And, as with all wars, it is no longer a case of why this is happening in America and how we make things better. This is a coup d'etat. There are no words. There is no common ground. Even the MAGAs are irrelevant. It is the trump regime in full body armor with one goal: to take over the US government. And as our midterm elections in November get closer and closer the trump regime will get more and more oppressive. They will steal the election to keep the profoundly corrupt and sycophantic Republicans in a majority lest they face justice. But only if we let them steal the election. To defeat the regime will require a Second Civil War kind of response. This is not the stuff of social media or Athenian forums. This is the American Rubicon and like Julius Caesar it must be crossed with an army. That's where we are here.
I agree with all you say, I do not want lefties to communicate more and in more creative ways because I think there is any basis for “dialogue” with the Trump regime. They should be jailed. The point I make is about being outward looking to the public. Find ways and forums to attract crowds who have not been exposed to left wing politics in an intelligent way before. You attract them with something else, but often debating your enemies will bring bystanders closer to you.
We agree. Your line says it: "You attract them with something else." I believe the something else is something other than social media. I know it's here and will continue to be here and we'd better figure it out but I am less optimistic than you of what social media can do constructively. It would be a great social project to remake social media, if such a thing is possible. From what I've learned, you are the kind of person who can work in that direction and over time help the medium evolve into something positive. I truly believe that. Not an easy task but it would be a world-changer.
I am all for in-real-life engagement over online, 100%, but for me, and really, these articles are often me giving myself a pep talk to myself, I want to observe more closely and engage more with a mass audience online, especially people I otherwise would not interact with. I want to study the algorithm as a user, get a deep understanding of it.
I mean there’s a pretty big difference between Athenian forums and corporate owned, algorithm driven online platforms where 90% of human communication is missing (tone, body language, etc.)
It’s worth noticing how many of us are moving to platforms that champion longer, spirited debates.
Inshallah Substack will replace Xitter as the public square
Also, Bluesky is dying...Everyone's coming here and YouTube. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=Bluesky&hl=en-GB
Very true. I find YouTube still booming despite the adds and clickbait very interesting. Substack is self explanatory why it’s winning. They are still nowhere near Twitter levels but unlike Bluesky it is so obvious that substack will have long term success.
No it isn't - Google Trends is a pretty bad way to monitor the health of a social media platform. It is far from the same level of growth that happened in end-2024 but a platform with four million posts a day is hardly "dying". https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats
Declining?
QUICK MORE PERFORMATIVE ARTS AND CRAFTS
THAT WILL STOP OUR COALITION FROM BEING GUTTED FOR ITS OBVIOUS ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES
I'm an older Gen X type and my overall take on ... everything ... is much different than yours and probably would still be if we were the same age, but one thing you're leaving out and/or mischaracterizing about why people left the rotten shell of Twitter, regardless of age, that i *think* you will agree changes the equation, is that people don't won't to give the evil sack of shit who runs it money or sufficient data to both verify their identity and let him add this to the Palantir databases he's creating with his stolen doge data. If you don't do either of these things, the algorithm will throttle you to the extent that even mutuals you've been friendly with for years (or in some cases that you see regularly in real life or even live with) will not only not see your posts without looking for them, but will have no idea that you've liked or replied to their posts and not even get notifications of DMs (and visa versa you not seeing their replies to yours when they finally do see and respond weeks or months later). That is not a public square or anything but a waste of time.
And I would quite literally rather be shot in the head than give that dipshit money. That those of us who left are depriving him if ad revenue is also a good thing. Some of those 10 million guardian followers are almost certainly people like me who've left. Alternative platforms will never succeed and Twitter will never be reduced to a right wing echo version of Bluesky if everyone stayed (i checked in last night; not quite there yet but heafong strongly that way, albeit some good accounts left, particularly want to give a rec to the wonderful dog rescue guy in Thailand and a bunny rescue place). But even aside from money and algorithm issues all l sorts of very good reasons to put your energy elsewhere than Twitter.
Also please note this is not a defense of Bluesky. I am not on Bluesky and according to friends who tried it and gave up on it in less than a week, I would get banned before I could give up on it even at my most polite, and even tho at this point I'm totally willing (and definitely facto already doing) to side with the batshit wokies against a common enemy (and quite honestly, I hate the crazy insane wokies much less, and have much more hope for them becoming what they could be, than the neolibs & libertarians, even tho i can have conversations with the latter groups; hell, keep us off politics and i actually like the wokies who can manage not to make every posdible topic of conversation about identity politics; the 3 groups of people i used to feel somewhat at home with are all now absorbed into wokism and ... all the other groups i used to be less fond of have also gotten worse, um, I'm way off topic but my initial point still stands, lots of legit good reasons to bail on Twitter and social media in general).
Disengaging from an intellectual sewer owned by a white supremacist isn't surrender. It's just the market at work. It won't die if we don't kill it.
The people who actually *like* Xitter aren't interested in reasonable debate. It is the gulag. Where rapists go to swap tips and racists go to feel better.
You want we should join 4chan as well?
No not really, nor does everyone need to stay on x. But people on the left who consider themselves to be political influencers should stay in touch with these platforms, and be aware. And build a follower base, not necessarily on Xitter, but don’t kid yourselves that bluesky is it.
Luckily, I don't consider myself a political influencer. I'd like to think those love be would stage an intervention if I were.
I could not with a straight face pretend I am not one
Some worldviews are just so brittle that they reflexively recoil from vigorous debate. Experts and managerial class functionaries like to pretend that their positions are just SO much more righteous and superior than those of dissenters that no discussion is required... but they never seem to want to debate the issues. One thinks that maybe they would enjoy dismantling the ideas of their opponents, if they were so feeble.
I suspect that deep down these people know that they don't know as much as they pretend to, and so they take refuge in moral disdain and bullying and silencing critics. It is a meaningful fact that they have proven to be wrong about every major cultural and political debate tat we've achieved resolution on.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/quietly-correcting
What really matters in this argument isn’t just who stays online and who opts out — it’s what gets ceded when we withdraw from the public square. Social movements don’t grow in sanitised echo chambers; they grow where institutional memory, strategy, and confrontation co-exist.
Your point about seasoned activists leaving and taking historical knowledge with them cuts to something deeper: the left often externalises its own strategic infrastructure while insisting on principled purity. Retreat becomes virtue signalling, and what’s left is a bunker of comfort without leverage.
The challenge isn’t just dealing with hostility — it’s acknowledging that political change happens in messy, contested spaces where influence, narrative, and structural understanding actually collide. Ostracising our own elders and mentors doesn’t make the right weaker — it leaves us with fewer architects of change.
Thanks! I think social media polarised us more and then we decided that bridge making is no longer possible, but it’s still just impossible to built any political
movement without it. I like Joshua Citarella’s idea about building a pipeline for people from broader political backgrounds (or lack of) to find you and connecting them to thinkers and ideas they otherwise don’t get exposed to.