david robertsNov 22, 2022

RT @[email protected]

It's impossible to overstate how much the big tech CEOs and VCs are being radicalized by living within their own bubble. The level of paranoia and contrived victimization is off the charts, and they increasingly only consume media that they have funded, created by acolytes.

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/anildash/status/1595108616969019393

find me at @[email protected] or anildash.com on Twitter

“It's impossible to overstate how much the big tech CEOs and VCs are being radicalized by living within their own bubble. The level of paranoia and contrived victimization is off the charts, and they increasingly only consume media that they have funded, created by acolytes.”

Twitter
Show threaddavid robertsNov 22, 2022
I'm increasingly of the mind that if you want to understand the (bizarre or seemingly irrational) behavior of powerful people, you have to figure out the character of their epistemic bubble. Who do they listen to? What do they hear?
Melissa PaceNov 23, 2022
Show threaddavid roberts
People are always accusing lefties of operating in a bubble, but to me the more significant & somewhat shocking phenomenon is how easy it is for powerful/wealthy people to draw their own bubble around them like a blanket, to hear only what flatters their ego & prejudices.
Nov 22, 2022 at 11:23pmWeb
Show threaddavid robertsNov 22, 2022

To take an example: Sam Alito. How can he be such a shitty legal analyst, such a dickhead on a personal level, & then at the same time go around whining about how people are being mean to him & the court?

Thing is, all of that makes sense *from inside the RW media bubble*.

Show threaddavid robertsNov 22, 2022
It's a bizarre feature of our info age, which I haven't quite been able to put into words. When you disagree w/ someone now, you're not looking for what features of a shared world you disagree about. You have to ask, "what world are they living in?"
Show threaddavid robertsNov 22, 2022

You can't really assume any baseline of shared history or facts or precepts. It calls less for logic than for a kind of forensic anthropology. Disagreement is less about argument than translation.

I can't quite put it into a snappy aphorism but obviously that won't stop me.

Show threadRaymond Neilson has moved to cosocial.caNov 22, 2022
@drvolts It's a war of predicates
Show threadGrumbleNov 22, 2022

@drvolts I assume that once, when the world was a larger place, one had to take pains to travel to find people sufficiently outside one's culture where there was no longer a shared baseline of history, facts, and precepts.

I assume such a situation (regional homogeneity of shared history/facts/precepts) existed for most of human development.

This new state of affairs could be unprecedented in human history. It's like we're all constantly living in a cultural crossroads.

Show threadBruceTomanNov 23, 2022

@drvolts
This. Absolutely.

btw German has a word for this. Lots of people have heard of "Weltanschauung" but behind that is "Weltbild" - the world you have a view on!

Show threadElishevacarlNov 23, 2022
@drvolts an insight shared by Jane Austen: https://www.janeausten.org/persuasion/chapter-6.php
Persuasion Chapter 6

Original text of the Jane Austen book, Persuasion.

Show threadjoel hanesNov 23, 2022

@drvolts

Long precedent for different realities between the adherents of different religions.

Show thread@batyalee 🌿Nov 23, 2022
@drvolts I don't feel any need to understand neo-fascists' perspectives who spew lies or are thrashing around in pools of confusion. I don't need to hammer my thoughts into their skulls. We offer words from our own minds to strangers who can either pay attn or not. IDK - maybe some of "them" are more interested in understanding about the greater world than they realize. Why else would they waste their time online?
Show threadGreengordonNov 22, 2022

@drvolts

Why do high-profile, high-agency people willingly put themselves in that bubble? Perhaps because they agree with much of it, like the white supremacy?

Show threadSmokeyGeoNov 23, 2022

@drvolts I am not a fan- eg. of the Dobbs decision. But a lot of people support his claim an unenumerated right, like the right to abortion, is made-up. And many fought long to win many elections to get Roe vs Wade overturned- they thought it was an injustice.

It's important to distinguish whether you like the outcome from the logic that arrived at it. He also has a point that in a democracy, where people disagree, what's wrong with letting elections decide controversial issues? (too bad he doesn't apply that to gun rights too)

Show threadAlex Varley-WinterNov 23, 2022

@drvolts I don’t know if making sense is what being right wing is about... It’s become a gamified ideology. Is saying ‘ow, the court is wounded’, simply appealing to the fragile base?

Regarding that fragility — in the U.K., Tortoise Media earnestly pierced a transatlantic paranoid filter bubble for their Hoaxed #podcast, & found a weak state of denial. On the conspiracist end of the RW spectrum, contrived stories function like dirty bombs & “InfoWars” was telling on itself.

Show threadRobynNov 22, 2022
@drvolts They don’t want to feel uncomfortable. Learning opens your mind to the possibility you were wrong and they don’t ever want to admit to that either.
Show threadM HorstmeierNov 23, 2022
@drvolts the CEO bubble is strong. There is no one there to remind you that you have been promoted to your level of incompetence and you start believing the myth that you are selling to your investors
Show threadRabbitPelletsNov 23, 2022

@drvolts The "exclusive lifestyle" is populated by such dullards. The world of uber expensive house, cars & boats, clothes, gardener, elite private schools, country club, expensive restaurants, hotels, vacations, shopping - from which these people poor into their insufferably phony (but swanky!) social events where they can talk about nothing else.

Have the right look, the right job & superman complex for climbing the ladder. Incapable of envisioning anything else, of an original thought.