We're referencing an old story - there was a guy who insisted he needed an assault rifle to keep his children safe from feral hogs, because they travel in packs.
Twatter is not the place we live in though. At best the hogs are destroying the ramshackle trap house at the edge of town that no one likes or uses anyway
It isn't the trolls who destroy Twitter and the other Smile networks, it's the executives. They yammer about "free speech" yet the only speech that's really free is theirs, and that which favors the rich.
Twitter is one big Birkenau train platform and the algorithm is Dr. Mengele, pointing to one side for the jerks and the other side for the real people.
Jesse, I hope you realize that there are thousands of us out here who subscribe to your Newsletter because we are discerning intelligent consumers of news who appreciate your highly ethical and insightful journalism. I'm a tenured professor in the social sciences. I was trained to evaluate empirical evidence and arguments and trust your work more than the vast majority of so-called journalists employed by the legacy media. Please stay off Twitter. You don't need the validation of a bunch of stupid, shallow-minded people to have a wildly successful career. You probably make more subscription revenue from your Substack and the BARPOD than most Times staffers could ever hope to earn because people like me value your reporting and insights enough to pay for them.
If you need to engage online, why not participate more in these forums with your community? We can provide you with more useful feedback and better word of mouth to boost engagement than a bunch of liars on Twitter. Delete the account and never look back. You don't need Twitter because you have a bigger and better platform already. Most people on Twitter could never attract one paid subscriber let alone thousands, that's why they post mindlessly for free all day. Your ideas are more valuable than theirs. Act like it!
"Jesse Singal's career is over!" almost makes sense as sentiment from people whose own 'career output' consists wholly in lazily regurgitated Twitter memes.
I had let my subscription to Singal-Minded temporarily lapse (heat and hay bills are brutal), but I promptly re-subscribed after listening to B & R this morning to support the Jesse's courage. I hope he gets a micro brew and a good slice and finds some solace in knowing how many support him.
Eh if heat and hay bills are an issue I don't want you spending money on this. Shoot me an email and we can work out a way for you to access it without paying unless/until your situation improves.
This really touches me--and without being overly earnest shows what compelled me to follow B & R. I will be fine (perhaps I'll cut back on a bottle or two of wine <3 ). I found you and Katie not through the internet or Twitter (don't subscribe) but through your book. After reading it and finding it compelling, I wanted more. Your ethical journalism & commitment to good writing and serious thinking combined with wicked irreverence opened up a new, younger universe of heterodox thinkers to me. No kidding, your resilience is one of the things that inspired me last year to sign the Haidt's open pledge about academic freedom. Moreover, you personally have informed my pedagogy. In my core curriculum classes I hold your work and statistical rigor especially up to the students as a model (I teach English and Comparative Lit, but I get get journalism and psych students in the 100/200 electives). I hope you realize the impact your relentless commitment to truth without ever submitting to wanton cruelty has on the larger culture. Take some time from Twitter and exhale.
Likewise, I too am a paid BAR supporter and just upgraded to paid here to support your important work. You take a lot of undeserved shit from those lunatics and I admire your ability to press on. Thank you.
I'm trying to figure out how this haven for the psychologically disordered became so critical to public discourse. I assume because it has long been centered on media types, but of course anyone is free to pile on. Also, I still don't fully understand how transgender topics became the third rail, because it seems like that's coming from the top down and magnified by a lot of extremely online people. Anyway, I think you're doing the right thing and more people need to walk away from this dumpster fire, or at least keep their interactions to a minimum.
Twitter IS the postmodernist vision of reality where anything and everything can be true because you want it to be and you say it to be REALLY LOUD. Its like a shitty version of kindergarten. I gave up participating ages ago and only follow a few humour accounts every now and then.
The really bizarre thing is that these liars tend to think they are the salt of the earth and that their political opponents are evil. These people justify any tactic, no matter how low.
Alejandra Caraballo is a piece of work. She is always screeching about hate, yet she doles it out herself. When she was called out about this when she testified before the House recently, she said that she didn't see it that way, i.e., that she is a hater.
Well of course not. The Caraballos of the world are not transparent to themselves.
Jesse, these people are the left-wing equivalent of QAnon, not serious adults looking for a grown-up discussion. Your mental bandwidth is too precious to be wasted on imbeciles like these, and frankly, it was high time that you stopped humoring their mental diarrhea. Hang in there and keep up the good work. All of us here in the sane people community appreciate everything you're doing.
Yup. Nothing's getting fixed until we recognize that Internet-induced confirmation bias, groupthink, tribalism, hysteria, and collective psychosis are bipartisan phenomena. Being left-of-center is no defense against getting brain broken by social media, as Alejandra Caraballo, Gretchen Felker-Martin, and their lovable cohort continue to prove over and over again.
Time to take care of your mental health. It’s hard for logic/truth minded people to accept that logic and truth are not valued by others. Grieve and move on.
We are having calm, respectful conversations (of course, because we are a self-selected group who agree on some basic things, such as your journalism being good).
I am gradually spending more time here in the Substack comments than on Twitter because I can read interesting commentary and post my own thoughts without fear of a pile on or watching people insult each other.
This was sadly predictable, but it's a case where it didn't matter what you did. If you had left the account up and just ignored these people, they would have said, "He has no answer to our obviously flawless logic. He is definitely going to jail!" Sigh. Twitter was a nice idea, but it's become a vulgar insult to actual birds, the original twitterers.
I know it's an old and corny saying, but it applies here:
Don't wrestle with pigs. You just get muddy and the pigs like it.
I normally agree with this but in this case feral hogs are destroying the town we all live in.
I’ve got 30–50 of them in my yard as we speak
I’m imaging if fifty Alejandras Caraballos or fifty literal feral hogs is worse and can’t decide.
You still don't get a machine gun, Luke.
Dangit
Please tell me you are related and this is a real problem you both talk about.
We're referencing an old story - there was a guy who insisted he needed an assault rifle to keep his children safe from feral hogs, because they travel in packs.
Why didn’t he just study Pig Jitsu?
Twatter is not the place we live in though. At best the hogs are destroying the ramshackle trap house at the edge of town that no one likes or uses anyway
It’s the place a lot of people with more influence than I feel comfortable with live.
I can't see wrestling feral hogs improving anything either... may want to take them out at range.
Follow that analogy into the digital space and that’s my solution.
It isn't the trolls who destroy Twitter and the other Smile networks, it's the executives. They yammer about "free speech" yet the only speech that's really free is theirs, and that which favors the rich.
Twitter is one big Birkenau train platform and the algorithm is Dr. Mengele, pointing to one side for the jerks and the other side for the real people.
Doesn’t have to be and there seems to be some progress to move it in a different direction. Wish it was faster and more clear visioned though.
Jesse, I hope you realize that there are thousands of us out here who subscribe to your Newsletter because we are discerning intelligent consumers of news who appreciate your highly ethical and insightful journalism. I'm a tenured professor in the social sciences. I was trained to evaluate empirical evidence and arguments and trust your work more than the vast majority of so-called journalists employed by the legacy media. Please stay off Twitter. You don't need the validation of a bunch of stupid, shallow-minded people to have a wildly successful career. You probably make more subscription revenue from your Substack and the BARPOD than most Times staffers could ever hope to earn because people like me value your reporting and insights enough to pay for them.
If you need to engage online, why not participate more in these forums with your community? We can provide you with more useful feedback and better word of mouth to boost engagement than a bunch of liars on Twitter. Delete the account and never look back. You don't need Twitter because you have a bigger and better platform already. Most people on Twitter could never attract one paid subscriber let alone thousands, that's why they post mindlessly for free all day. Your ideas are more valuable than theirs. Act like it!
Agreed.
Well, at very least there are 57 of us so far. :-)
I promise that in a few weeks you’ll realize that the only people who care are the other idiots/clowns on Twitter.
Continue to write things of value literally anywhere else.
"Jesse Singal's career is over!" almost makes sense as sentiment from people whose own 'career output' consists wholly in lazily regurgitated Twitter memes.
Also, try to remember (in my late father's words) that you can't reason someone out of an opinion that they weren't reasoned into in the first place.
I had let my subscription to Singal-Minded temporarily lapse (heat and hay bills are brutal), but I promptly re-subscribed after listening to B & R this morning to support the Jesse's courage. I hope he gets a micro brew and a good slice and finds some solace in knowing how many support him.
Eh if heat and hay bills are an issue I don't want you spending money on this. Shoot me an email and we can work out a way for you to access it without paying unless/until your situation improves.
This really touches me--and without being overly earnest shows what compelled me to follow B & R. I will be fine (perhaps I'll cut back on a bottle or two of wine <3 ). I found you and Katie not through the internet or Twitter (don't subscribe) but through your book. After reading it and finding it compelling, I wanted more. Your ethical journalism & commitment to good writing and serious thinking combined with wicked irreverence opened up a new, younger universe of heterodox thinkers to me. No kidding, your resilience is one of the things that inspired me last year to sign the Haidt's open pledge about academic freedom. Moreover, you personally have informed my pedagogy. In my core curriculum classes I hold your work and statistical rigor especially up to the students as a model (I teach English and Comparative Lit, but I get get journalism and psych students in the 100/200 electives). I hope you realize the impact your relentless commitment to truth without ever submitting to wanton cruelty has on the larger culture. Take some time from Twitter and exhale.
edit out the extra THE....
The journalist of the American farmer!
Call it "Trans news from Lake Wobegon"
... where all the trans women are strong, all the trans men are good looking, and all the Substack posters are above average...
Likewise, I too am a paid BAR supporter and just upgraded to paid here to support your important work. You take a lot of undeserved shit from those lunatics and I admire your ability to press on. Thank you.
I'm trying to figure out how this haven for the psychologically disordered became so critical to public discourse. I assume because it has long been centered on media types, but of course anyone is free to pile on. Also, I still don't fully understand how transgender topics became the third rail, because it seems like that's coming from the top down and magnified by a lot of extremely online people. Anyway, I think you're doing the right thing and more people need to walk away from this dumpster fire, or at least keep their interactions to a minimum.
Journalists use it because it lets important things rise up to prominence quickly, like Katie's retweet of the Tanzanian fashion designer
Twitter IS the postmodernist vision of reality where anything and everything can be true because you want it to be and you say it to be REALLY LOUD. Its like a shitty version of kindergarten. I gave up participating ages ago and only follow a few humour accounts every now and then.
"Its like a shitty version of kindergarten."
So true.
Of course kindergarten does have its share of poop accidents anyway...
The really bizarre thing is that these liars tend to think they are the salt of the earth and that their political opponents are evil. These people justify any tactic, no matter how low.
Alejandra Caraballo is a piece of work. She is always screeching about hate, yet she doles it out herself. When she was called out about this when she testified before the House recently, she said that she didn't see it that way, i.e., that she is a hater.
Well of course not. The Caraballos of the world are not transparent to themselves.
Jesse, these people are the left-wing equivalent of QAnon, not serious adults looking for a grown-up discussion. Your mental bandwidth is too precious to be wasted on imbeciles like these, and frankly, it was high time that you stopped humoring their mental diarrhea. Hang in there and keep up the good work. All of us here in the sane people community appreciate everything you're doing.
Yup. Nothing's getting fixed until we recognize that Internet-induced confirmation bias, groupthink, tribalism, hysteria, and collective psychosis are bipartisan phenomena. Being left-of-center is no defense against getting brain broken by social media, as Alejandra Caraballo, Gretchen Felker-Martin, and their lovable cohort continue to prove over and over again.
Let them live in their fantasy world, surrounded only by people who agree with them 100% of the time. They are in a cult and you are free. Rejoice.
Time to take care of your mental health. It’s hard for logic/truth minded people to accept that logic and truth are not valued by others. Grieve and move on.
i dont often use the C word but these peoples....these peoples are actually Crazy
I would describe Alejandra Caraballo as a psychopathic obsessive. She is the definition of psychopathic obsessive.
Join us over here on your comments, Jesse!
We are having calm, respectful conversations (of course, because we are a self-selected group who agree on some basic things, such as your journalism being good).
I am gradually spending more time here in the Substack comments than on Twitter because I can read interesting commentary and post my own thoughts without fear of a pile on or watching people insult each other.
Obi-Wan: "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."
Not to mention cluster B personality pathology.
This was sadly predictable, but it's a case where it didn't matter what you did. If you had left the account up and just ignored these people, they would have said, "He has no answer to our obviously flawless logic. He is definitely going to jail!" Sigh. Twitter was a nice idea, but it's become a vulgar insult to actual birds, the original twitterers.
I've thought all along that the name was derived from the word "twit".