Even if his claims were true, and they are not, having more voters isn’t a threat to democracy. Ignoring election results is. It’s amazing that anyone listens to this tool.
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We would do well to remember that whatever we think of Ralph Nader and Jill Stein is what the Democratic Party will make us think of any third-party candidate who is running when a Democrat loses
If this current toss-up election goes the wrong way, we’ll never hear the end of how it’s Cornel West’s fault
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I think that’s where the suggestion of ranked choice voting comes in. Because even a principled, well-meaning 3rd party candidate can only act as a spoiler in the current system, and the Democratic Party isn’t wrong to point that out.
In a toss-up election like this one with razor-thin margins many people will say afterwards “this small sliver of voters motivated by issue X is what put the winner over the top!” And, regardless of the issue they’re talking about, they’re probably going to be right.
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I had high hopes for Mastodon, but it just doesn’t seem to be catching on with average consumers who can’t seem to wrap their heads around the concept of a de-centralised and federated platform.
My feeling now is that, if Zuckerberg is interested in throwing money at it, Threads will eventually supplant Xitter for organisations, advertisers, and users who want a “safe” non-Nazi bar. Still not great, because it’s a Facebook company, but there are a lot of unsophisticated people who don’t mind FB.
The good news is that Threads is using ActivityPub, which means that the protocol has a chance at wider adoption if Threads achieves success. At that point, journalists and organisations might finally see the benefits of starting their own Mastodon servers and still being able to connect to users on pseudo-centralised Threads.
First though, a critical mass news outlets and journalists that value their role as a liberal-democratic institution will have to leave a platform that clearly doesn’t respect the value of democracy.
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As of today, Mastodon users can follow Threads users that have opted in to Fediverse sharing.
Threads users can see who follows them from Mastodon.
Threads users can see likes from Mastodon.
Threads users cannot follow Mastodon users yet. It should happen eventually, but clearly there is no date announced yet.
Depending on who you followed on Twitter, there’s no single place they all went. When I moved, many went to Threads, a couple to Mastodon, some to BlueSky, and some to multiple.
Sports teams seem to be particularly slow to move, but I’ve seen a bunch start to cross post more to Threads now instead of just Twitter. Not everything yet though.
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Orwell thought Capitalism had already failed, and Britain would have to adopt Socialism to win WW2. A lot of what he wrote in 1940 failed to come true after the war, but a lot did. By 1947 the population had massively voted for a socialist government which nationalised a lot of industries and was creating a welfare state.
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And what exactly is a welfare state?
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There are plenty of articles you can Google.
Okay, what in your mind makes a welfare stste?
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oh! i know! the stste fly!
ok, back to sleep for me.
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Regardless of how he framed it, it all boils down to being another spin on the “Great Replacement Theory” nonsense. He’s not worried there will “be no more elections”, he just doesn’t want the “wrong kind of people” voting in these elections.
(Never mind his statement that the Biden administration is fast tracking citizenship of illegal immigrants in the hope that they will in return vote for Democrats is wrong on many levels.)
It’s also another great indictment of the Electoral College and why it should be abolished. That a few states hold the bulk of the power over who gets to be elected president is about as undemocratic as you get. But Republicans refuse to let go of it because it has allowed them to win while losing in multiple elections.
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Nicely put. And horrible.
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… or just be on the same side as Russia 
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So…putting aside the fact that this is premised on a lie, is Elon saying that the GOP is so repugnant that none of these folks would vote for them?
Hey Elon, remember the free market? If nobody is buying your shitty product, you might have to change it to something they do want!
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Government provision of healthcare, education, unemployment benefits, and old age pension, for the whole population.
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Even if the same party keeps winning elections (as he forecasts) there are still elections!
There is still an opposition party to vote for.
Try living somewhere the same party wins for years and years at a time, but elections are still close, even though the opposition rarely wins, and if it does, it rarely stays in office as long.
Welcome to the UK. But for all its egregious electoral faults and flaws (FPTP being the main one of several) it is still - just - a democracy.
Or - “that word does not mean what you think it means (=want it to mean), Elon”
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re: cyber truck
Paddled across San Pablo bay to get some excellent fish n chips a couple months ago at the sailing goat. After snarfing down some excellent fried fish and beer I got up to use the portapotty across the gravel road that bisects the pizza oven area from the main restaurant. A cyber truck comes zooming up the road and I had to backpedal right quick to avoid being run over by the hideous thing. Since I was very close to the driver side as he went by (way too fast for a crowded area with kids dogs, diners etc) I loudly said “WANK PANZER!” into his open window.
I’m just glad that f!ing idiot didn’t run over a child.
I’d guess Leon has been ingesting waaaaay too much ketamine and cocaine (and unbridled power fantasies) of late. Sad.
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Can’t speak for journalists at large but so far Mastodon and threads have managed to keep me personally connected to most of what matters. I do like the trend towards substack for a few reasons:
1 - it normalizes the idea that folks should pay for premium content but still offers authors the option of writing non-paywalled posts - this is a huge step up for the idea of having a vibrant ecosystem for journalism that isn’t ad-supported
2 - they’re trying really hard to woo the media from X, which really pisses Musk off as a bonus
The downside is that it’s a walled garden, even if it has peepholes of free content, with all the issues that bring. But it might be the best option for the moment, anyway.
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Remember, this is the same asshat who is suing companies for not advertising on his platform. Because obviously, he is entitled to their money and how dare they cease paying him? His idea of what is “Free Market” is a bit twisted.
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