Reason to Hope

Signs of life!

Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter there have been many, many people who have suggested that his management will run Twitter into the ground and kill it. I'm mystified -- not because I think Musk is somehow infallible -- but because everyone who says this seems to be trying to warn people about Twitter's demise. Or, more often, cast themselves as prophets by picking out some negative news about the company and saying, "See, I told you so," in an attempt to convince readers they are indeed the people smart enough to see what was inevitably going to happen.

Although since the ruin of Twitter was supposed to be inevitable once Musk purchased it I can't see how pointing out the signs of that ruin verifies their "told you so" status.

In any event, this talk of Twitter's demise is all cast as though it would be a bad thing. I could not disagree more. I don't believe that a great deal of our modern animosity was caused by Twitter, or that the current pathetic state of journalism directly stems from journalists' use of the platform. But I do believe that Twitter has enabled the worst elements of cultural disagreement to push to the front of our national stage. And I do believe it has enabled the herd instinct of reporters who all go to the same schools and come from the same economic backgrounds to metastasize into the group-think that passes for political and national-issue reporting at most major news outlets.

When you acquire a kitten, you notice immediately its habit of attacking things that aren't there, as well as its habit of attacking things much larger than itself, such as the foot of the human who feeds it. This total hostility towards so many things can be ignored because kittens are cute and because they weigh less than a pound. Should someone for some reason find a way to enlarge young kittens with the size and weight of, say, an elephant, then they could do major damage. They would now have the size to allow their psychopathic tendencies to matter.

Twitter has become whatever the thing would be that would change tiny homicidal fuzzballs into six-ton homicidal fuzzballs. Anything that lessens its ability to magnify and instantly transmit some of the worst of humanity should be welcomed.

Besides, you can't even calm it down by scratching its head.