Joel W.
Alasdair AllanMusk has used "Vox populi, Vox Dei" to justify reinstating Trump on #Twiiter. But the quote is from a letter from Alcuin to the Emporer Charlemagne urging him to resist such ideas, "Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit." Which translates as "And do not listen to those who keep saying, 'The voice of the people is the voice of God', because the tumult of the crowd is always close to madness."
Musk is not, of course, the first to use the "Vox populi, Vox Dei" quote out of context to justify dangerous actions. The phrase has been a political punching bag for centuries, notably in the 1700s amid the Jacobite rebellions. Although the use of the phrase in the opposite to the original context has been common since 1327 when the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Walter Reynolds, brought charges against King Edward II.
This is where I mention my SoundCloud, right? 🤷♂️
Hotmail Official 
@aallan
Lorem Ipsum, Musk is a fascist, anyway here's Wonderwall
Lorem Ipsum, Musk is a fascist, anyway here's Wonderwall
ArneBab@aallan What I’m still missing from this debate: what’s the percentage of bots in the votes?
q2rg ltkmr
TakingOff@straftanz @ArneBab @aallan also, it's insincere on Elon's part. If they had a pole asking whether he should abandon Twitter and just lose his 44 billion dollars, I think 80% would say yes. But of course he wouldn't obey that. Because, "Vocem suam credit esse vocem Dei." He believes that his voice is the voice of God.
Wu Evar 🇪🇺🇺🇦
Klaske Wijkstra 🌻
joosteto
Jose Paez@regionativo I guess that council is among the people Murks fired. @aallan
Comfortably Numb
Bruce_Ak
Andrzej_HS 
RatherOddPursuits 🦆
FeralRobots@ratherodd @ArneBab @aallan which is a good example of why an informal poll of users on a service known to have a serious problem with inauthentic accounts - whether they be bots or trolls - should not be treated asa proxy for democratic choice.
Abuse of Notation@aallan To be fair, this is not out of context this is a quote within a quote. Someone had been saying "Vox populi, Vox Dei" before and the above quote is a reaction to this.
@borko As I mentioned up thread, it’s not been properly out of context since 1327. Which, even for us Brits, is a while ago. Still think it’s amusingly ironic given the context he was using it in though. 🤷♂️
@aallan but it is *not* out of context - the quote cited is obviously not the origin of the phrase.
IAmDavid@aallan how interesting. Didn’t know that. Thanks for posting.
Charles J Gervasi ⚡🛡️🥥@aallan It's absolutely against what I believe for government and for social media. I want everyone to be able to get their ideas out on social media, but everyone should be able to choose if they read their ideas. I've heard there are #Mastodon instance that allow #MAGA mean-spirtedness and conspiracy theories, but the instance I'm on doesn't like them. I don't want to see those posts, but if I did, I could go find them.
🌻Kate a eu jusqu'à ici avec 💩@aallan He probably also thinks the Spartans shoulda won.
Buttons@aallan Powerful people augment (pervert?) reality (and history) to serve their needs; it has always been this way. Case in point, the most sold book of all time.
@aallan Wait - are people pretending that musk’s “Twitter poll” means something? Far as I can tell, it’s just an html widget, not something with a methodology and statistical significance. It’s just a widget that says whatever Musk wants it to. Thinking it justifies policy change by attaching a misquote in Latin is just pretentious stupidity, but pretentious stupidity is Musk’s special little power
Yves Garenne@aallan merci de cette précision ! Très utile.
@aallan Alcuinus was de raadsheer van Karel de Grote.
@aallan Thank you. Alcuinus was a wise man. As one of my teachers said: the world is changing, but humans don't, not really.
ShaneLee@aallan
Yes but sadly “Space Karen’s” followers worship celebrity and grovel at the feet of billionaire’s - they think Musk is brilliant he knows Latin - his followers will never bother to know the full quote.
Yes but sadly “Space Karen’s” followers worship celebrity and grovel at the feet of billionaire’s - they think Musk is brilliant he knows Latin - his followers will never bother to know the full quote.
Alex Kohls@aallan thanks for sharing the context. You better know your quotes 😂
📷@aallan Common quotations seem to make a habit of contradicting the author's original intent.
@erik365 Language is infinitely mutable after all! But it’s important to know your history, because you generally don’t want to be in the habit of reinventing it!
M Berberich@eskensaskia
Das mit „madness“gilt auch für Fraktionszwang, den sie verteidigen
Ein Land aus machttaktischen Gründen gegen die Wand zu fahren…
Das mit „madness“gilt auch für Fraktionszwang, den sie verteidigen
Ein Land aus machttaktischen Gründen gegen die Wand zu fahren…
Saskia Esken@m_berberich Wir bewältigen die durch Putins Krieg verursachte Energie(preis)krise mit Maßnahmen zur Sicherung der Energieversorgung, zur Entlastung der Bürger*innen und zur Deckelung der Energiepreise für private Verbraucher*innen wie Betriebe. Gleichzeitig modernisieren wir das Land, ermöglichen einen massiven Ausbau der Erneuerbaren Energien und werden so die Klimakrise bewältigen, Resilienz und Souveränität der Wirtschaft stärken und so unseren Wohlstand auch in Zukunft sichern.
Jolie Hawk@aallan thanks!
edgeoforever 🍎@aallan Even more so when the "crowd" is comprised of bots. You know, the ones he used as a pretext to wiggle out of buying.
Brayn@aallan that proves exactly the point. There might be a shadow of « madness » or I would prefer to say « disturbance » or « distortion » in Mr. Musk’s social platform.
Irgendeine@aallan
In addition - who mainly participated in this vote? Followers of Musk; and these are mostly fans of him, i.e. right-wing populists to right-wing extremists and at the same time fans of Lying Baron Trump + bots - many of them operated from Russia.
This was anything but a "democratic vote". For me, this was the pinnacle of bad news so far since Musk took over. 🤮
#riptwitter #TwitterTakeover #twittermigration
In addition - who mainly participated in this vote? Followers of Musk; and these are mostly fans of him, i.e. right-wing populists to right-wing extremists and at the same time fans of Lying Baron Trump + bots - many of them operated from Russia.
This was anything but a "democratic vote". For me, this was the pinnacle of bad news so far since Musk took over. 🤮
#riptwitter #TwitterTakeover #twittermigration
theseege@Nachtsucherin @aallan
Just so. It's like if phone polls were used for actual voting (silver lining, polls would be a lot more accurate!).
Just so. It's like if phone polls were used for actual voting (silver lining, polls would be a lot more accurate!).
Thanks for that compact reference!
Platypusman@aallan Might just as well replace “God” in that quote with Santa Claus, little green men, or any number of fantastical characters.
jrg
Oberst W Klink | Alfredo Yu
Jeff Sonstein<grin/> Sherman in a letter to his wife (dated 2 June 1863):
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00010103
see also Alcuin (c.735–804):
Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.
(And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.)
letter 164 in Works (1863) vol. 1 
Mxhrad@aallan Charlemagne was wrong, but that's because he didn't have bots.
Tom Delargy@aallan There is something I would add to this. Can we trust the poll to be legitimate? What percentage of Twitter members participated? How many were excluded because we didn't know about it since we'd blocked Musk? And can we be sure the world's richest man didn't rig the result, using an army of paid sock puppet accounts? Or maybe he just lied to everyone.
Hannah Mazetti@TomDelargy @aallan molekyler pretty skewed
@TomDelargy @aallan probably*
Luke@aallan I've always said Elon wasn't nearly as smart as his father's wallet was fat.
Dave Graham@aallan never underestimate the power of pull quotes out of context to assuage the fomenting tide of base humanity hungering for the next social revolution. Or, just ignore everything Elon says because 9/10's it's a masterclass on inanity.
@aallan so let me see if I get this right. You're saying that Elon likes to share stuff that sounds fancy and smart, without actually understanding what it means. And you're saying that he's too lazy to spend 30 seconds to Google stuff before he shares it? And you're saying that he's so incompetent he often accomplishes the opposite of what he intends? Have I missed something? :-)
@aallan so you are saying basically, “it’s ironic that Elon doesn’t realize the full quote is saying trusting the voice of the people is wrong”?
Do you agree with the full quote?