A short conversation-starting webinar aimed at sustainability scientists but useful for anyone trying to harness the enduring power of Twitter despite Elon Musk's disruptions.
Thank you for all these thoughtful tips and suggestions for how to use Twitter effectively, Andy!
Valuable in and of themselves. And yet more so in the wake of Musk's ownership of Twitter, as the platform's day-to-day environment becomes more variable and unpredictable.
Glad it can be helpful. It’ll be a long time before any other platform has the combined attributes of Twitter. Things could still go completely off the rails, but even if that happens all right since it will be temporary. Thanks for the comment
Andy writes, "So the technology at that time was telegraph, but it just shows you that the tools we have now are just like those then. They can be used for good or for ill. "
Speaking about technology in general, the important difference between the past and today is that the tools we have today are much bigger than previously, and getting bigger all the time, at an ever faster pace. The issue of scale matters a lot, because as the scale of powers grows, the room for error shrinks. The classic example is that one day with nuclear weapons is all it takes to remove all the accomplishments of recent generations.
The larger tools we have today can also be used for good of course, and that is how they will be primarily used. That sounds great, until we realize that when talking about powers of great scale the downsides have the potential to erase all the benefits. It's not like the past when there was some good and some bad, and we muddled along between the two while inching our way towards a better future.
That era ended at 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945.
Andy writes, "Jim Moffitt, a Twitter engineer who just quit two weeks ago, who I had on this show, explained, even as he's leaving, how much he loves it, and that it took ten years of nonstop programing, regulatory work and other work to create this thing we now know of his Twitter, so don't count on any of the competitors to be able to jump in to take that place anytime soon:"
Well, superior competitors existed before anyone ever said the word Twitter. They were called online forums.
I get the appeal and usefulness of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook for helping the general public have fun, connect with friends and family, post photos and recipes etc. Thumbs up for that. While I simply can not tolerate Twitter, I do have a Facebook account that I sometimes use for such purposes.
But I think the intellectual class made a big mistake when it abandoned forums and jumped on the social media platform bandwagon. These platforms were never designed for thoughtful, ongoing, in depth conversations on important topics. Trying to use these platforms for intelligent conversation is like trying to use a broken crayon to write a novel.
For a time I was building a nuclear weapons feed on Twitter in the attempt to become part of that community. These are all well educated very intelligent people with great intentions, but all they did on Twitter was relentlessly blast links and little quips at each other. It was sad.
Anyway, while I have no affinity for Elon Musk, when I read he had bought Twitter for a truly absurd sum (nobody gets ripped off like rich people) and was in the haphazard process of bringing Twitter to it's knees, I was quietly cheering from the sidelines. Go Elon, go, do your thang! :-)
It's a tool that many find incredibly useful - like me - but that isn't for everyone. The key, as with any tool, is to put it to use when you need that particular set of attributes is necessary (e.g., global realtime connectedness and search capacity that reveals people involved with a question).
Thank you for writing this. Here are several disconnected observations/questions:
1. You paraphrased Darwin as saying “as we advance in civilization, our tribal nature will ebb.” Robert Sapolsky or E.O. Wilson are just two scientist authors that come to mind who would disagree with this ebbing of tribalism. I think the tribal nature of primates is deeply imbedded in our evolution. The claim also sounds a bit utopian, alerting me to where the writer might be floating a little too far out from reality.
2. How to use Twitter without being abused by its owner? Really? Do you have any evidence that Musk has been abusing scientists writing about climate change? There are plenty of nuts out there, as you acknowledge, who were there before Musk and will be there after Musk.
3. Musk plans a crowed sourced check system that may or may not work, but if it works isn’t that an improvement over company employees being censors? You mentioned “the extinction of the passenger pigeon was abetted by communication technology”. I’m sure many horrible things in history, for example Hitler and Stalin, have been abetted by communication technology. But hasn’t the overall weight of history provided abundent evidence that the free expression of ideas (not threats and attacks) benefited humanity, while suppression has aided evil (as it did Hitler and Stalin).
4. You mentioned using Tik Tok. Isn’t there a real concern that China’s control of that system is a risk to our country?
These are invaluable points to explore. I was framing this piece mainly for folks who have felt somewhat freaked out by what’s going on. And your point about Darwin and tribalism sure is holding up. I cite that aspirationally really. As I wrote an earlier piece I think it’s important to look at the turbulence right now as the early stage of a journey toward better outcomes with this technology. And I think Musk’s moderation plan, which shares Wikipedia’s approach, could work well in the long run. My November 3 post explored the up side possibilities of Musk’s #twittertakeover https://open.substack.com/pub/revkin/p/all-hail-elon-musk-the-greatest-spur?utm_source=direct&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web I’ll use this comment as the seed for a fresh post in a few days. Thank you.
I agree tribalism is here to stay. I think Darwin may have misunderstood the source of tribalism, which I see to be divisive nature of thought, that which all human beings are made of psychologically.
Evidence: To my knowledge, every ideology ever invented has inevitably subdivided in to competing internal factions. The universality of this phenomena suggests the source of the divisions is something that all ideologies have in common, which can only be that which they are all made of, thought.
If tribalism is built in to the human condition, that has very important implications for our relationship with technology. If we can't get rid of tribalism, we have no other option but to limit the powers available to the warring tribes.
"Information environment"? Yeah we got one, well, many. It's good and bad.
Yeah for sure that's an issue. Everyone is in their own bubble of awareness unless they choose to poke a head up.
Thank you for all these thoughtful tips and suggestions for how to use Twitter effectively, Andy!
Valuable in and of themselves. And yet more so in the wake of Musk's ownership of Twitter, as the platform's day-to-day environment becomes more variable and unpredictable.
Glad it can be helpful. It’ll be a long time before any other platform has the combined attributes of Twitter. Things could still go completely off the rails, but even if that happens all right since it will be temporary. Thanks for the comment
Andy writes, "So the technology at that time was telegraph, but it just shows you that the tools we have now are just like those then. They can be used for good or for ill. "
Speaking about technology in general, the important difference between the past and today is that the tools we have today are much bigger than previously, and getting bigger all the time, at an ever faster pace. The issue of scale matters a lot, because as the scale of powers grows, the room for error shrinks. The classic example is that one day with nuclear weapons is all it takes to remove all the accomplishments of recent generations.
The larger tools we have today can also be used for good of course, and that is how they will be primarily used. That sounds great, until we realize that when talking about powers of great scale the downsides have the potential to erase all the benefits. It's not like the past when there was some good and some bad, and we muddled along between the two while inching our way towards a better future.
That era ended at 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945.
Andy writes, " My internal work here at Columbia is focused on building science and policy communication pathways that are about more than clicks. "
I'm interested in this. Where is the most appropriate place to discuss this work? Thanks.
Andy writes, "Jim Moffitt, a Twitter engineer who just quit two weeks ago, who I had on this show, explained, even as he's leaving, how much he loves it, and that it took ten years of nonstop programing, regulatory work and other work to create this thing we now know of his Twitter, so don't count on any of the competitors to be able to jump in to take that place anytime soon:"
Well, superior competitors existed before anyone ever said the word Twitter. They were called online forums.
I get the appeal and usefulness of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook for helping the general public have fun, connect with friends and family, post photos and recipes etc. Thumbs up for that. While I simply can not tolerate Twitter, I do have a Facebook account that I sometimes use for such purposes.
But I think the intellectual class made a big mistake when it abandoned forums and jumped on the social media platform bandwagon. These platforms were never designed for thoughtful, ongoing, in depth conversations on important topics. Trying to use these platforms for intelligent conversation is like trying to use a broken crayon to write a novel.
For a time I was building a nuclear weapons feed on Twitter in the attempt to become part of that community. These are all well educated very intelligent people with great intentions, but all they did on Twitter was relentlessly blast links and little quips at each other. It was sad.
Anyway, while I have no affinity for Elon Musk, when I read he had bought Twitter for a truly absurd sum (nobody gets ripped off like rich people) and was in the haphazard process of bringing Twitter to it's knees, I was quietly cheering from the sidelines. Go Elon, go, do your thang! :-)
Wouldn't it be simpler to just not use Twitter? I've never understood the appeal of that platform...
It's a tool that many find incredibly useful - like me - but that isn't for everyone. The key, as with any tool, is to put it to use when you need that particular set of attributes is necessary (e.g., global realtime connectedness and search capacity that reveals people involved with a question).
Ok, yes, it seems the primary benefit of Twitter is that everyone is there. The people have spoken, to each their own, and what's done is done.
Thank you for writing this. Here are several disconnected observations/questions:
1. You paraphrased Darwin as saying “as we advance in civilization, our tribal nature will ebb.” Robert Sapolsky or E.O. Wilson are just two scientist authors that come to mind who would disagree with this ebbing of tribalism. I think the tribal nature of primates is deeply imbedded in our evolution. The claim also sounds a bit utopian, alerting me to where the writer might be floating a little too far out from reality.
2. How to use Twitter without being abused by its owner? Really? Do you have any evidence that Musk has been abusing scientists writing about climate change? There are plenty of nuts out there, as you acknowledge, who were there before Musk and will be there after Musk.
3. Musk plans a crowed sourced check system that may or may not work, but if it works isn’t that an improvement over company employees being censors? You mentioned “the extinction of the passenger pigeon was abetted by communication technology”. I’m sure many horrible things in history, for example Hitler and Stalin, have been abetted by communication technology. But hasn’t the overall weight of history provided abundent evidence that the free expression of ideas (not threats and attacks) benefited humanity, while suppression has aided evil (as it did Hitler and Stalin).
4. You mentioned using Tik Tok. Isn’t there a real concern that China’s control of that system is a risk to our country?
Andy @Revkin
2 min ago
Author
These are invaluable points to explore. I was framing this piece mainly for folks who have felt somewhat freaked out by what’s going on. And your point about Darwin and tribalism sure is holding up. I cite that aspirationally really. As I wrote an earlier piece I think it’s important to look at the turbulence right now as the early stage of a journey toward better outcomes with this technology. And I think Musk’s moderation plan, which shares Wikipedia’s approach, could work well in the long run. My November 3 post explored the up side possibilities of Musk’s #twittertakeover https://open.substack.com/pub/revkin/p/all-hail-elon-musk-the-greatest-spur?utm_source=direct&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web I’ll use this comment as the seed for a fresh post in a few days. Thank you.
Actually, since I don’t use Twitter, I learned a lot from today's post. I sounded too critical before. Thanks.
I agree tribalism is here to stay. I think Darwin may have misunderstood the source of tribalism, which I see to be divisive nature of thought, that which all human beings are made of psychologically.
Evidence: To my knowledge, every ideology ever invented has inevitably subdivided in to competing internal factions. The universality of this phenomena suggests the source of the divisions is something that all ideologies have in common, which can only be that which they are all made of, thought.
If tribalism is built in to the human condition, that has very important implications for our relationship with technology. If we can't get rid of tribalism, we have no other option but to limit the powers available to the warring tribes.