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Dec 12, 2022Liked by Asha Rangappa

Thought provoking, thank you. I’m grateful to be learning new insights about what’s going on in the world now through these timely relevant posts.

I looked up “NB” and am sharing for others who may want to know what it means too. From Wikipedia: “Nota bene (/ˈnoʊtə ˈbɛneɪ/, /ˈnoʊtə ˈbɛni/ or /ˈnoʊtə ˈbiːni/; plural form notate bene) is a Latin phrase meaning "note well".[1] It is often abbreviated as NB.”

It’s sad what’s happening to Twitter, yet we’ve found another way to connect and that’s pretty awesome.

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Dec 12, 2022Liked by Asha Rangappa

I've been reading your free posts which are always very informative, but haven't subscribed due to a limited budget. (Canadian to US dollars hurts!) Your explanation of the Twitter Files and all the context in your post has sold me. I don't read Twitter very often and have never tweeted. Today my feed has tweets from people I don't follow, saying awful things about Dr. Fauci and Col. Vindman. Two of America's best. Mr. Musk has proven to me that regulations are sorely needed, even if Twitter goes bankrupt as advertisers flee. I believe the " free market" will kill the company but the time it takes is not worth the damage to what we (as a society) consider acceptable civil discourse.

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While I consider myself to be a " rational, fully-informed consumer", I am thankful for things like the Freedom Academy which help me to reach that goal.

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Dec 12, 2022Liked by Asha Rangappa

Excellent summary of the current environment on Twitter and the lack of value of the Twitter files. It was disappointing to see Musk allow that kind of 'junk investigation'. For some reason I expected better of him so shame on me for being gulled. He actually shocked me with the Pelosi attack smear.

Showed his juvenile 'mean girl' side. Twitter, as the information marketplace, is important for many of us so it needs the effort to develop good policies and oversight to enforce it.

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Dec 13, 2022Liked by Asha Rangappa

Full Disclosure: I own a Tesla. Purchased prior to the horror show Musk has revealed himself to be. So Musk's "transformation" is a bit personal for me. The fact is I love the car. But I wrestle with owning it now. Fortunately where I live people aren't giving me dirty looks or single-digit salutes. SMH. OK, as I said, full disclosure, FWIW. Now....

I suppose most, if not all, of us subscribers have come from your followers on Twitter. I know I have. And we're all in standby mode expecting Twitter to implode or become so toxic it no longer has value for us. I have a Mastodon account now and a Post account now. But I still load up my TweetDeck first thing to see what fresh horror has been made public.

Like any other source on the Internet, I don't assume anything I see there is Truth. I dig deeper and look for links to supporting articles, interviews, etc. I go to sources I trust on Twitter, sure. But I still want to see the receipts.

I appreciate this lesson, primarily about Musk and freedom of speech. I would like to see more here about Citizens United and SCOTUS's decision to equate $$$ w/speech. Wow! Talk about propaganda and the end of democracy!

So here we have the logical and extreme extension of that decision: A multi-multi billionaire buys up the entire free speech apparatus that was free of charge to any and all. Globally. And then immediately aligns himself with the worst of the worst of the political Right.

The only criticism I have of this lesson is calling Musk a "domestic rabble rouser". I think it goes far beyond that. I think his reach is global and "rabble rouser" is so much of an understatement as to be, well, hmmmm.... what's the word? "innocent"? "naive"? This person is [bad word starting with "f" and ending "ing"] dangerous. Not just to America. Globally. "...free speech to destroy free speech." Free speech to destroy democratic governance. Everywhere.

The question, at least for me, is how can he be stopped? Or even, can he be stopped? I would love to see your answer to these questions, Asha.

Thank you again for another interesting lesson!

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Lots of good insights in this piece. Thank you. Where is the Ministry of Truth when we need it?

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Dec 12, 2022Liked by Asha Rangappa

Two points from this essay appear to be in conflict. Or at least they require careful footwork, if both are to be accepted:

(1) The government can’t (and shouldn’t) police the accuracy of speech to ensure integrity of the information market.

(2) The government can (and should) have a role in preventing the marketplace of ideas from being controlled by anyone rich enough to buy it.

As for Point 1, the government can (and does) police the accuracy of speech in special cases, such as testimony under oath, and in libel and slander disputes. Although this policing appears to violate the First Amendment, everyone—including the Supreme Court—seems to agree that this is a justified violation. So the question is whether further expanding the reach of government’s meddling to include Point 2 is wise, and if wise, whether it would be tolerated by the Supreme Court. In my opinion, it is surely wise, but in the wake of Citizens United, with the Court dominated by conservative ideologues, with Republican politicians too terrified of their own base to acknowledge even the most obvious truths, I am pessimistic. But despair is unhelpful, and the Liar-in-Chief seems to be losing influence, so we must slog on.

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Dec 12, 2022Liked by Asha Rangappa

Thank you for that great explanation.

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Dec 14, 2022Liked by Asha Rangappa

Thank you for this. Spot on.

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Asha, thank you for writing this piece. I'm featuring it in the "Recommendations" section of today's edition of The Fearless Moderate.

https://fearlessmoderate.substack.com/p/why-religious-freedom-and-marriage

Have a great Wednesday!

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“And real users are apparently not rational consumers, as a perfect market envisions: A study by MIT found that false stories, including conspiracy theories, travel seven times faster on Twitter than true stories, mainly due to human user activity.”

As the old expression goes, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before truth can gets its boots on.”

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founding

Elon failed to get any traction with the "Twitter Files" so now he's attacking Fauci. I am doing my best to get kicked off Twitter by mounting an aggressive counterattack. @publiusbenedict

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founding

Social media has become the most effective authoritarian tool in the world in attempt to destroy democracy. In Strongmen by Ruth Ben Ghiat, Twitter and Facebook are utilized to exploit perceived demographic emergencies. They are also used by national projects with the aim to dismantle democracy by leveraging utopia - the desire for a pristine and perfect community; nostalgia for better times with the rulers VOW to make the country great AGAIN - the fantasy of returning to an age when male authority was secure and women, people of color and workers knew their places and crisis - justification for states of emergency and scapegoating enemies who endanger the country from inside the nation or across the border.

We all witness these strategies every day in every media outlet across the globe.

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Sort of seems many of yesterday’s conspiracy theories are today’s truths. Are there any studies (maybe just word searches by times mentioned in press organizations and internet sites) where the issue associated with the descriptives “conspiracy theory” or “propaganda” are tracked over time and analyzed down the road? Maybe also analyze which organizations use the two terms as a tool to better ensure the readership or listeners don’t consider alternative opinions or information that might upset the proverbial Apple cart. Decision making and risk assessment models require such robust analysis.

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If I may step in from my experience in financial markets. It is true that often there are market failures that do require government intervention. However, it is not automatically true that the chosen course of government intervention necessarily makes the situation better. Government involvement in the government sponsored housing market, as well as the Basel regulations are perhaps examples of how things were made meaningfully worse.

In making any intervention, government must consider what the unintended consequences of any action are extremely thoroughly, as well as the probability of failures of those intervention, and more importantly the actual impact of those tail risks being realised. We often jump to government regulation too quickly for immediate fixes - without thinking about the butterfly effect...

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From Mother Jones, an even deeper dive into deza slime (warning--not for the faint of heart or easily offended):

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/12/hunter-biden-laptop-bannon-guo-musk/

You can tell it’s gonna be bad from the first photo.

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