5 ms·

>Today, Twitter is just as important of a conduit as newspapers or the evening news. Twitter is a terrible medium for discourse. You wouldn't suggest that worl

>Today, Twitter is just as important of a conduit as newspapers or the evening news. Twitter is a terrible medium for discourse. You wouldn't suggest that world leaders communicate via TikTok, simply because it's popular.

mywacaday 6y ago
If it got younger people engaged why would it be a bad thing?
- everdrive 6y ago
  You can't talk about policy (in a meaningful way) with memes. Our discourse is already much too simple. If any group of people needs to be pandered to, then they're clearly not actually interested in politics.
  - Judgmentality 6y ago
    This seems pretty elitist. I think being able to communicate effectively and concisely is important. When Abraham Lincoln gave his famous speech it was noteworthy for lasting minutes when normally politicians would go on for hours. Many critics said the same thing about the Gettysburg Address as you are saying about memes. For the time, that was so much shorter than a usual speech, it was effectively a sound bite (and hey, people are still talking about it today, wadda ya know?). If someone can use memes to communicate effectively, awesome. Most people suck at discourse in general, it's not limited to memes.
    - everdrive 6y ago
      If elitism is the opposite of populism, then so be it. I also don't agree that the Gettysburg address is equivalent to speaking on Twitter.
      - Judgmentality 6y ago
        It seems pretty odd you have such a disdain for populism, but I'm guessing you believe in democracy. If most people prefer to participate that way and vote as such, are you saying that the people are wrong? Because the whole point of democracy is letting the people decide for themselves what they want. If you think democracy is fundamentally flawed though, then I guess your point makes more sense.
        everdrive 6y ago
        I genuinely don't want to take this to a negative place. So, please understand, I'm answering your question as best I can, and with positive intent. I believe populism can be quite bad, which is part of why the founding fathers designed a representative democracy, rather than a direct democracy. They were all well schooled in Greek and Roman history, and were afraid of the demagogues of Athens, and of other Greek city states. They believed that the will of the masses could be ignorant and capricious, and should be moderated by wiser more responsible representatives. Of course, they believed that the masses must have some say, (as do I) but that listening to every popular whim may not be the best thing for our country.
        Judgmentality 6y ago
        Fair enough. Let's just agree to disagree. Cheers.
        redis_mlc 6y ago
        > and were afraid of the demagogues of Athens Yet here we are with Nancy Pelosi, who is nothing but a demagogue.
        8note 6y ago
        Democracy allows for people to be wrong. Its mechanism for fixing wrong votes is to convince people that they should vote a different way, rather than forcing a new direction on them. Having disdain for populism is well aligned with democracy. Shooting or torturing populists is not
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    You can and people do it all the time. I mean, I create and consume memes about complicated topics all the time (mostly related to the field of software I am in), so there is no reason that they can augment any discussion regardless of topic.
- concordDance 6y ago
  Younger people are very engaged in the culture war, they're also extremely ignorant but think they're not. A dangerous combination.
_vertigo 6y ago
"Important" and "terrible for discourse" are orthogonal.
nine_k 6y ago
TV is even more terrible for discourse, but somehow people got used to top officials making appearance on TV. See, politicians are for people, not the other way around. They follow people to whatever venue people flock to, in order to be heard better.
- pbourke 6y ago
  In the ideal case, a politician would do AMA style engagements where they take questions from the public and give detailed replies. Since that won’t happen for most politicians, I’ll take a televised press conference with some back and forth between reporters and the politician over a tweet any day.

mywacaday 6y ago

If it got younger people engaged why would it be a bad thing?

everdrive 6y ago
You can't talk about policy (in a meaningful way) with memes. Our discourse is already much too simple. If any group of people needs to be pandered to, then they're clearly not actually interested in politics.
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  This seems pretty elitist. I think being able to communicate effectively and concisely is important. When Abraham Lincoln gave his famous speech it was noteworthy for lasting minutes when normally politicians would go on for hours. Many critics said the same thing about the Gettysburg Address as you are saying about memes. For the time, that was so much shorter than a usual speech, it was effectively a sound bite (and hey, people are still talking about it today, wadda ya know?). If someone can use memes to communicate effectively, awesome. Most people suck at discourse in general, it's not limited to memes.
  - everdrive 6y ago
    If elitism is the opposite of populism, then so be it. I also don't agree that the Gettysburg address is equivalent to speaking on Twitter.
    - Judgmentality 6y ago
      It seems pretty odd you have such a disdain for populism, but I'm guessing you believe in democracy. If most people prefer to participate that way and vote as such, are you saying that the people are wrong? Because the whole point of democracy is letting the people decide for themselves what they want. If you think democracy is fundamentally flawed though, then I guess your point makes more sense.
      - everdrive 6y ago
        I genuinely don't want to take this to a negative place. So, please understand, I'm answering your question as best I can, and with positive intent. I believe populism can be quite bad, which is part of why the founding fathers designed a representative democracy, rather than a direct democracy. They were all well schooled in Greek and Roman history, and were afraid of the demagogues of Athens, and of other Greek city states. They believed that the will of the masses could be ignorant and capricious, and should be moderated by wiser more responsible representatives. Of course, they believed that the masses must have some say, (as do I) but that listening to every popular whim may not be the best thing for our country.
        Judgmentality 6y ago
        Fair enough. Let's just agree to disagree. Cheers.
        redis_mlc 6y ago
        > and were afraid of the demagogues of Athens Yet here we are with Nancy Pelosi, who is nothing but a demagogue.
      - 8note 6y ago
        Democracy allows for people to be wrong. Its mechanism for fixing wrong votes is to convince people that they should vote a different way, rather than forcing a new direction on them. Having disdain for populism is well aligned with democracy. Shooting or torturing populists is not
- saagarjha 6y ago
  You can and people do it all the time. I mean, I create and consume memes about complicated topics all the time (mostly related to the field of software I am in), so there is no reason that they can augment any discussion regardless of topic.
concordDance 6y ago
Younger people are very engaged in the culture war, they're also extremely ignorant but think they're not. A dangerous combination.

_vertigo 6y ago

"Important" and "terrible for discourse" are orthogonal.

nine_k 6y ago

TV is even more terrible for discourse, but somehow people got used to top officials making appearance on TV. See, politicians are for people, not the other way around. They follow people to whatever venue people flock to, in order to be heard better.

pbourke 6y ago
In the ideal case, a politician would do AMA style engagements where they take questions from the public and give detailed replies. Since that won’t happen for most politicians, I’ll take a televised press conference with some back and forth between reporters and the politician over a tweet any day.