Chief Twit

[Bwana]

And -

WRONG!
It's the letter g!

[Bwana]

the advertising side is starting to go wrong for him.

Any idea why - are advertisers responding to the potential for change or reacting to an actual change?

Are there particular types of companies that advertise there?

I think it's because there's uncertainty over the direction Twitter will go under his leadership.

It was the big companies pulling out, like VW, Ford, Pfizer, GM etc that will do the damage, those won't be small accounts and a platform that relies on ads for 90% of it's revenue can't afford to lose too many.

Musk himself says the platform has started losing money massively, but he's blaming "activist groups" instead of knowing when to shut his mouth and not talk the company into oblivion. He's wanting to rely less on adverts and more on subscriptions but doesn't realise that people will just move to another platform that's free.

If he's not careful, Twitter will be talked about alongside MySpace and Bebo.

I sent PMs to a few posters after I found the thread closed last night (one was sent just a few moments ago - I fell asleep mid-draft and found it this morning, hit send and then wandered in here to find it open again). The load of bollocks to follow is a copy & paste job of one of those PMs that fits into this discussion neatly. It's the perspective of an American, so y'all can point and laugh at will.

As I see it, Musk has made a few fatal mistakes with his recent purchase.
1. He paid quite the price for it.
2. If he's going to let polemics back in to run amok, it's going to have the natural effect of driving away everyone who isn't a Trump fanatic.
3. The handwriting is on the wall, the Republican party is disintegrating. Corporate America may not like this, but they know which side their bread is buttered on. The party has ticked all the boxes for fascism. All of 'em. A significant number of Republican politicians are blindly following Trump as they fear his base. This is happening while minority populations are growing in number and us whities are going to no longer be a substantial majority. Their demographic consist mainly of older white men. They've turned off a significant number of women with the Supreme Court's recent decision on Roe v Wade. Several Republican dominated states have passed restrictive legislation for voting under the premise that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud, which is a load of shit.

The outcome of the election that will be over in a few short days will determine what happens next in this country.

If Republicans dominate at the state level, they will have seated a number of officials that won't hesitate to disenfranchise a fairly large number of voters - and it isn't as if they've not already succeeded in several states. Actually this is nothing new - for decades the favorite target has been blacks. Significant numbers of polling places in "certain" areas have been eliminated such that large numbers of voters have to stand in ridiculously long lines and wait for hours to vote. In Georgia recently passed law makes it illegal for people to hand out food and drinks to people waiting in line. We will be leaning into becoming a one party state with sham elections.

If they dominate at the federal level, things are going to get really tough here. Republicans have been itching to kill Social Security and Medicare. Both of these programs are supported by payroll taxes that are paid by both the worker and the employer. Self employed people pay both portions. Many Americans, probably the majority, rely on Social Security as a significant source of income after they retire. If Trump runs and wins in 2024, or if a Trump clone runs and wins, like Ron DeSantis (governor of Florida) then the transition of the US to a fascist state is just a matter of time. The Republican party doesn't really have much of a platform apart from tax cuts that enable the wealthiest citizens to cash in, deregulation, and xenophobia

What's rather amusing is that Musk's Tesla autos appeal primarily to people looking to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, i.e. Democrats/Liberals (there's a nice discussion to be had elsewhere on carbon footprints of electric vehicles being heavy enough that the break even point when comparing them to comparable ICE powered vehicles comes in at around 100,000 miles). His purchase of twitter and subsequent handling of it - letting all manner of conspiracy theorists back in unchecked, sparing with popular users over his desire to charge a fee for a blue check by their name, not understanding or anticipating the advertiser's response to this change - means twitter is apt to turn into a right wing echo chamber. That will turn off any civil discourse, further killing off ad revenue.

This is probably an oversimplification of the process as it pertains to Musk's/Twitter's downfall but it ties in with American politics. I remember a time when bickering was over policy. Now it's just nasty vitriol. There is little to no reaching across the aisle anymore. I give full credit to the American right for this. They're under the impression that the left has shifted to an extreme position. I suspect that we've shifted very little in the 44 years I've been eligible to vote. The Overton window has shifted rightward in this country, so it gives the impression that the left has moved further away from center.

[Saga Lout]

... people mostly just want to tell others how wrong they are...

But they ARE wrong.

Well, some of them agree with me, but the rest are wrong.

[Felix]

Are we there yet?

[wheelnut]

This is probably an oversimplification of the process as it pertains to Musk's/Twitter's downfall but it ties in with American politics. I remember a time when bickering was over policy. Now it's just nasty vitriol. There is little to no reaching across the aisle anymore. I give full credit to the American right for this. They're under the impression that the left has shifted to an extreme position. I suspect that we've shifted very little in the 44 years I've been eligible to vote. The Overton window has shifted rightward in this country, so it gives the impression that the left has moved further away from center.

You’re right, politics has become polarised. But, ironically, I think the vast majority of the fault lies, not with the parties as such, but with the likes of Twitter and other social media. It gives a platform to those with the biggest mouths, while the rest of us just do what we’ve always done. The problem is that the views of the biggest mouths get taken as the status quo.

The reality is that the vast majority of us have the same middling views as we’ve always had and are happy to talk to our mates about it in a civil way and accept other people’s point of view.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Rather fitting comic, published today.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I'm thinking of buying shares in Bacofoil

[Ant]

Some of the comments now are back on track with, the left wing safe space being removed from Twitter, having to see someone elses point of view. If Trump goes on it again, so what? That's the sad fact of democracy, you can't all be wrapped up in a safe left wing vegan blanket for all of your lives.

[Greenman]

Some of the comments now are back on track with, the left wing safe space being removed from Twitter, having to see someone elses point of view. If Trump goes on it again, so what? That's the sad fact of democracy, you can't all be wrapped up in a safe left wing vegan blanket for all of your lives.

Thanks for the accurate summary so i can catch up...

I've been hosting our monthly Sunday Roast Club today so have had a few ciders and many roast potatoes.

We discussed musk blocking out the sun for a laugh, and the reality of that happening! As well as commenting on how good the Celeriac Puree was!

[Ant]

Some of the comments now are back on track with, the left wing safe space being removed from Twitter, having to see someone elses point of view. If Trump goes on it again, so what? That's the sad fact of democracy, you can't all be wrapped up in a safe left wing vegan blanket for all of your lives.

Thanks for the accurate summary so i can catch up...

I've been hosting our monthly Sunday Roast Club today so have had a few ciders and many roast potatoes.

We discussed musk blocking out the sun for a laugh, and the reality of that happening! As well as commenting on how good the Celeriac Puree was!

I bet you woke Bristolians have been coughing on your cous cous and mung beans over it!

"Pull down the statues" - hails Christian

"Down with these fascist folk who want to discuss everything openly!" - Said Rosie, with her pink hair and wonky fringe

"We hate anyone right of centre!!!" - Said Tim, a Hope not Hate member who wears a damp, overly large green hemp jumper, corduroy trousers and sports a ginger beard.

[Screwdriver]

OK, I googled it. It seems the World Economic Forum (WEF) seems to want to sort out the economic mess following Covid.

I can't see a complete takeover there (but then I'm not a conspiracy theory person) so I may have missed something critical. It seems the WEF was set up in 1971. Are they the Lizards? Probably not as the Lizards must have been around longer but that then calls into question their abilities to control us they're clearly not very good. Maybe the planet is too cold for cold bloodied Lizards - is climate change something they are doing so that they can be a bit more pro-active in a warmer climate?

I still need to be enlightened and subsequently convinced but I doubt anyone on here can actually do that - the people in control will probably stop it dead.

No. They want to use the COVID pandemic to hasten the process. I sincerely doubt if there is a single person in Davos who would give a flying fuck on making things better for the general populace, it is all about power, greed and personal profit.

"The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world" - Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum.

The lizard nonsense you spout is beneath contempt so I'll ignore it if you don't mind.

The tools they intend to use are digital currency, social media scoring and land grab (food production/farming). I expect increased leveraging of "carbon emission" bollocks as another tool they may try and use, similar to the COVID pandemic population control. For example, you might run out of carbon credits on your social media score and be prevented from travel (like they do by other means in the CCP). You can't refuse because your digital money won't be allowed to buy carbon rich goodies and they'll probably switch off your electric car too...

Tinfoil hat time? Perhaps but some of these measures have already been proposed if not actually put into action. With the Canadian truckers protest, Trudeau (another WEF poster boy) simply switched off their bank accounts.

It is happening right now with Bill Gates being the largest farmland owner in the USA by a country mile. Why does BG want to control vast tracs of farmland? It's all laid out in the great reset. Denmark (who's PM is another WEF puppet) is having its farmers priced out of business, same thing just happened in New Zealand. It is a deliberate and calculated plan to take control of food production, in this case using climate change as the excuse to bankrupt farmers and buy up their lands on the cheap.

The most chilling phrase from Klaus Schwab: “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy”




FWIW, I don't think it will happen. The great reset that is. It can't work because as soon as the world wakes up to what the super rich are up to and it dawns on people that they are now subservient to an unelected body of super rich wannabee Bond villains, there will be chaos. Until then, I guess I will carry on presenting evidence of this nonsense and have to accept that people who refuse to accept this is actually happening will want to poke fun as if it's not.

[Greenman]

Some of the comments now are back on track with, the left wing safe space being removed from Twitter, having to see someone elses point of view. If Trump goes on it again, so what? That's the sad fact of democracy, you can't all be wrapped up in a safe left wing vegan blanket for all of your lives.

Thanks for the accurate summary so i can catch up...

I've been hosting our monthly Sunday Roast Club today so have had a few ciders and many roast potatoes.

We discussed musk blocking out the sun for a laugh, and the reality of that happening! As well as commenting on how good the Celeriac Puree was!

I bet you woke Bristolians have been coughing on your cous cous and mung beans over it!

"Pull down the statues" - hails Christian

"Down with these fascist folk who want to discuss everything openly!" - Said Rosie, with her pink hair and wonky fringe

"We hate anyone right of centre!!!" - Said Tim, a Hope not Hate member who wears a damp, overly large green hemp jumper, corduroy trousers and sports a ginger beard.

lol...

Us Bristolians are fine.

It's a tricky Q to answer now though with a lot of Londoners moving here and working from home..

[wheelnut]

It is happening right now with Bill Gates being the largest farmland owner in the USA by a country mile. Why does BG want to control vast tracs of farmland? It's all laid out in the great reset. Denmark (who's PM is another WEF puppet) is having its farmers priced out of business, same thing just happened in New Zealand. It is a deliberate and calculated plan to take control of food production, in this case using climate change as the excuse to bankrupt farmers and buy up their lands on the cheap..

Can you put into context how much farmland BG has bought (as a proportion of total US farmland)?

[Screwdriver]

Google it yourself.

[Bwana]

This is probably an oversimplification of the process as it pertains to Musk's/Twitter's downfall but it ties in with American politics. I remember a time when bickering was over policy. Now it's just nasty vitriol. There is little to no reaching across the aisle anymore. I give full credit to the American right for this. They're under the impression that the left has shifted to an extreme position. I suspect that we've shifted very little in the 44 years I've been eligible to vote. The Overton window has shifted rightward in this country, so it gives the impression that the left has moved further away from center.

You’re right, politics has become polarised. But, ironically, I think the vast majority of the fault lies, not with the parties as such, but with the likes of Twitter and other social media. It gives a platform to those with the biggest mouths, while the rest of us just do what we’ve always done. The problem is that the views of the biggest mouths get taken as the status quo.

The reality is that the vast majority of us have the same middling views as we’ve always had and are happy to talk to our mates about it in a civil way and accept other people’s point of view.

It goes back to well before the internets were invented by Al Gore!

Talk radio (virtually all conservative yappers) has been around for a long time. Rush Limbaugh spent years othering liberals. I'd pick up on some of his broadcasts while traveling long distance. Lots of shouty vitriol. Simultaneously we had politicians like Reagan and Newt Gingrich looking down their noses at anyone not in lockstep with them. Shit like HIV was God's gift to gay men (lesbians were always peachy keen if they let us heteros watch). The slow march to the modern Republican party probably goes back to Nixon rather than Reagan. At least the party recognized what a shitty thing he'd done and was on board enough that he was going to be successfully impeached and convicted so he resigned ahead of time. His veep got shamed out of office too. That was when Republicans and Democrats could actually work together to get things done.

Reagan's economic policies get credit for starting all the tax cuts that have yielded the widening wealth gap in this country with his trickle down economic policy fallacy. George H. W. Bush, during primaries, nailed the folly by calling it voodoo economics. After he lost the primary and was tapped to become vice president on Reagan's ticket he seemed to have forgot about that little detail.

We've endured years of the Republican portion of the Senate under Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) making a point of rat fucking any and all efforts at policy promoted by Democrats when they've been in the majority and then accusing them of getting nothing done. He's also given us a bench of shitbags on the Supreme Court through his obstructionist shenanigans. Which brings us to our current predicament regarding abortion.

[Bwana]

It is happening right now with Bill Gates being the largest farmland owner in the USA by a country mile. Why does BG want to control vast tracs of farmland? It's all laid out in the great reset. Denmark (who's PM is another WEF puppet) is having its farmers priced out of business, same thing just happened in New Zealand. It is a deliberate and calculated plan to take control of food production, in this case using climate change as the excuse to bankrupt farmers and buy up their lands on the cheap..

Can you put into context how much farmland BG has bought (as a proportion of total US farmland)?

Gates owns around 270,000 acres of farmland. That's out of roughly 900 million acres. Bill Gates isn't the only wealthy person to own large tracts of farmland either. There aren't many small farms left. Evidently there are about 283 million acres of farmland that are leased by farmers rather than owned by them. I don't think Mr. Gates can be found on a tractor very often.

[Yambo]

The lizard nonsense you spout is beneath contempt so I'll ignore it if you don't mind.

Phew, thank fuck for that!

It is happening right now with Bill Gates being the largest farmland owner in the USA by a country mile. Why does BG want to control vast tracs of farmland? It's all laid out in the great reset. Denmark (who's PM is another WEF puppet) is having its farmers priced out of business, same thing just happened in New Zealand. It is a deliberate and calculated plan to take control of food production, in this case using climate change as the excuse to bankrupt farmers and buy up their lands on the cheap.

As Bwana says, how often are you going to see Bill Gates on a tractor?

Bill Gates needs 'little people' to work his enormous tracts of farmland. Being super rich may allow you to own things but the bigger those things are, the more you're going to need other, poorer people. Now, you can of course afford to 'buy' clever people to run those things for you and you can pay them well. Bill Gates' wealth may well make those vast areas of farmland very productive. In your eyes that may be a bad thing but would it be?

There's another side of the coin though and the Chinese (especially their sparrows) know all about that.

The most chilling phrase from Klaus Schwab: “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy”

Do you think he'll be any happier? He's 84 and you know what, his great reset doesn't mention anything about him living forever. He won't even own the bit of land he's buried in or that his ashes are scattered on. The best he can hope for is that he will die peacefully in his bed because I'm sure that the more he goes on about shit, the more people there'll be who want to make the end of his life quite nasty.

FWIW, I don't think it will happen. The great reset that is. It can't work because as soon as the world wakes up to what the super rich are up to and it dawns on people that they are now subservient to an unelected body of super rich wannabee Bond villains, there will be chaos.

There are a number of problems with being super rich and owning everything. The main one is that you can't control everything on your own. You need help. You'll probably need some sort of paramilitary force to keep the serfs in line and doing what you need them to do to keep your vast tracts of land from becoming a wasteland (You have to wonder about Putin, destroying as much of Ukraine as he can so that he can be in charge of a wasteland?). Who is going to print the WEF's currency when they own all the rest. What they gonna do when the printers go on strike? Subservience is going to require control, control of the masses requires people drawn from those masses. Eventually, the super rich rulers of the world will only be able to trust one person. You want to be their food taster?

I'll agree that a lot of what you see is greed, but greed isn't exclusive to the rich. Greed is universal. It's a path to failure.

[wheelnut]

It is happening right now with Bill Gates being the largest farmland owner in the USA by a country mile. Why does BG want to control vast tracs of farmland? It's all laid out in the great reset. Denmark (who's PM is another WEF puppet) is having its farmers priced out of business, same thing just happened in New Zealand. It is a deliberate and calculated plan to take control of food production, in this case using climate change as the excuse to bankrupt farmers and buy up their lands on the cheap..

Can you put into context how much farmland BG has bought (as a proportion of total US farmland)?

Gates owns around 270,000 acres of farmland. That's out of roughly 900 million acres. Bill Gates isn't the only wealthy person to own large tracts of farmland either. There aren't many small farms left. Evidently there are about 283 million acres of farmland that are leased by farmers rather than owned by them. I don't think Mr. Gates can be found on a tractor very often.

Aah, roughly 0.025% then. Puts in to context.

[Horse]

FYI

People own most farmland. Some 2.6 million owners are individuals or families, and they own more than two thirds of all farm acreage. Fewer than 32,500 non family held corporations own farmland, and they own less than 5 percent of all U.S. farmland. Farmland owners hold an average of about 280 acres each.


https://www2.census.gov/library/publica ... CIk7FCU1HH

[Count Steer]

Rich people and corporations owning productive and subsidy gathering land*? Tenant farmers? Good job that sort of thing never happened in this country.


Oh....wait....



*Farming, hunting/game bird shooting, coal mines, quarries....if you are/were a family lucky enough to have been handed a slice of 'The Dukeries' in Notts you have or had all of those.