Twitter and NFTs

 Darren Addario put this up on Post.  I have to agree with his perspective.

What makes me angriest about what Musk's done to Twitter, in addition to the nazis and the way he's mistreating his employees, is that he took away an important community from some people, who because of distance or disability or age, are living a remote life in many ways. It was a key support system for these folks.

Random White Guy posted the following on Post.  I really hope he's wrong, but it doesn't feel that way. 

A fragmented opposition has always been the goal.

Sat down to read, fell asleep, woke up to a massive twitter purge of journalists. 

Musk’s thin skin is not really the cause, deplatforming opposing voices is. 

I’m convinced that Musk is the point person in an effort to destroy Twitter’s effectiveness as a vehicle for pro-democracy voices. The authoritarian right has been on the rise, so it’s only logical for the oligarchs to take the next step and undermine our public squares. Places where the left can freely interact in the open and on a world stage.

Free pro-democratic speech alarms authoritarians, but they are terrified by the idea of those pro-democracy voices having a place to meet, share ideas, and organize. 

The right has many such places, most are in the shadows. 4-chan should come to mind. 

Mostly, the left keeps its work out in the light. Destroy those places the left meets to organize and you set the cause of freedom and democracy back until such spaces can reform. Maybe by a few years, but maybe by a decade. 

Running Twitter into the ground is the plan, not the result of poor management. 

A fragmented opposition has always been the goal. 

Divide and conquer public spaces. 

Drive liberal voices into the shadows where they struggle to grow. 

Deny left leaning audiences access to voices that represent their ideas and only present them with the authoritarian’s views. 

$44 billion is a small price to pay for the world's oligarchs. Protecting their power, privilege, and property is priceless.

Yesterday, Elon suspended a bunch of left leaning journalists, accusing them all of publishing his locations in real time and making him a target for assassination.  None of it is true, he's just lying.  He really is pathetic.

How about those NFTs the orange dumpster fire is selling?  Supposedly, the 45,000 digital trading cards priced at $99, sold out in 12 hours. Bullshit!  If they did, that's $4.5M in money that just flowed to him from who knows where.  Foreign governments maybe?  Here's how collecting said NFTs is going for some of the base.

I don't understand NFTs at all.  What is the "it" that was sent to a random wallet?  I think wallet in this context indicates bitcoin (which is really good for money laundering), but that's an entire domain I do not know about and don't want to.

It's gotten colder.  The trees are covered in frost and it stays.  There has not been much sun, which is making it dismal and somewhat gruesome.  However, in Tucson it routinely hits 100F in late April/early May, and it stays hot until the end of October.  That's six months of really hot.  The two years we owned the house, there was no monsoon.  I think 2020 we had a day and a half of rain, the desert looked burned and it, too was dismal and gruesome.  Every where a person lives will have a bad season.  Thus far, I'm not hating winter as much as I thought I would.  Of course, after the upcoming Polar Vortex arrives, I may feel differently.  The thing about the heat, is you can't dress for it.  If it's cold, we put on another layer.  I have totally and completely embraced wool socks.

Today we got the car washed at the touchless place that washes the salt off the car undercarriage.  It's good, I wish they were a little closer.  This is the wax stage of the washing.  The paint looks really good with the repeated applications of wax.  It's quite attractive on the wind shield.

Other than this paltry offering, I am out of things to say.