Impermissible Notions
Or, Things That Will Not Be Tolerated On Twitter.
The thing in question this time is a cartoon, an illustration of an idea. It was shared, briefly, yesterday by biologist and Quillette contributor Colin Wright, and was promptly censored by Twitter’s moderators. Mr Wright has apparently been suspended from said platform until a confession of hateful wrongdoing – as yet unspecified hateful wrongdoing – has been extracted. Given the cartoon’s scandalous properties, I’ll reproduce it below the fold. Do feel free to grip the arms of your chair.
This, apparently, is what’s verboten on Twitter. Note that no inflammatory commentary was added to the image. The image itself was deemed a basis for both indignation and speedy action. And so, the enormous list of things to which Twitter’s moderators take exception now includes the suggestion that strident activists often do harm to the cause they ostensibly champion. A phenomenon seen all but daily, and on many fronts.
The article that the illustration accompanies, by Eliza Mondegreen, can be found here. Readers are welcome to comb through it in search of seething hatred or some great urge to oppress.
Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
When you’re getting flack you’re over the target.
Elsewhere on Twitter, the return of Adam Kotsko. He’s an educator, you know.
For those who missed his first appearance.
The article that the illustration accompanies, by Eliza Mondegreen, can be found here.
Looks like the Twitter moderators are proving her point.
For those who missed his first appearance.
Enrichment.
Enrichment.
Well, the point being that it’s easy to advocate modish policies and attitudes, while waiting for applause, and to disdain and smear those who disagree, and thereby fit in with your peers and social circle, if you don’t actually have to deal with the less edifying consequences of those same policies and attitudes. Such that the posturing, which is what it is, is always, conveniently, at some other sucker’s expense.
See also fellow academic, and cartoonish hypocrite, Simon Schama, here.
“How astrophysics helped me embrace my nonbinary gender identity—in all its complexity”
https://www.science.org/content/article/how-astrophysics-helped-me-embrace-my-nonbinary-gender-identity-in-all-its-complexity
…the return of Adam Kotsko.
“…people shouldn’t be living there in the first place…”
“…except me…”
I know, I was mad to expect consistency or logic.
When you’re getting flack you’re over the target.
I recommend more napalm.
Elsewhere on Twitter, the return of Adam Kotsko. He’s an educator, you know.
He’s still on the faculty at Shimer College.
Elsewhere on Twitter, the return of Adam Kotsko. He’s an educator, you know.
You can dig further into his Twitter feed for more fascistic filth. He really does personify the sort of smug, urban soy-commie who badly needs to be the target of the sorts of evil policies that he wants to unleash on others. That won’t happen, but we can at least hope that he gets mugged and thus maimed for life.
Still more napalm.
“generous grants” — I can’t get over he thinks he’s being generous!
Looks like the Twitter moderators are proving her point.
The assumption of Designated Victim Groups – i.e., favoured groups, members of which must seemingly be spared from realistic counter-arguments – is quite poisonous and would, I think, explain much of what we see. As, for instance, at Slate, where readers were told, pointedly, that, should any comments “contradict the author’s understanding of her own situation” – an inevitability given the article in question – they would of course be deleted.
And this is wokeness. Behold its majesty.
Well, the point being that it’s easy to advocate modish policies and attitudes, while waiting for applause, and to disdain and smear those who disagree, and thereby fit in with your peers and social circle, if you don’t actually have to deal with the less edifying consequences of those same policies and attitudes.
From the replies to his Tweets:
Do you like to eat food? Where do you think your food comes from? Come to the real midwest and spend a summer working on a farm, or the south on a ranch. Or, we “rural folk” can just stop selling food to city creatures. We stop being rural, you stop eating.
For a supposedly elite professor of the Great Books, Adam Kotsko is amazingly ignorant and arrogant. Perhaps he should have spent less time reading Plato and more time getting his hands dirty.
…Such that the posturing, which is what it is, is always, conveniently, at some other sucker’s expense.
Let’s abandon any remaining possibility that Professor Kotsko is merely ignorant and foolish, and accept that he is indeed deeply evil.
He’s still on the faculty at Shimer College.
“Shimer Great Books School”, now part of and located in North Central College in Napierville, which has basically become a bedroom community of Chicago and why trees seem to frighten him.
“Some of his better-known books include Why We Love Sociopaths (2012)”
From his apparent desire to cram people into Soviet style housing, one might wonder is there is a touch of self-diagnosis there.
The whole thread is not wanting for crackpots, though. I do like the wolf and bunny strolling together through the city, though.
I do like the wolf and bunny strolling together through the city, though
And in their Wildlife Corridor, note. “Wildlife Corridor” a fresh oxymoron to go with “Protected Wilderness.”
Kotso doesn’t like people living in remote rural areas. Hahahaha. Your food, lumber, fish, cotton for cloth, minerals, oil, coal all exist in rural areas ONLY. How urban-centric.
…their Wildlife Corridor…
I have seen places where there are over and underpasses for wildlife to cross highways, but one where they meander along next to an El in the middle of a city is a bizarre take.
We also have this Deep Thinker™ (a meme come to life) who inadvertently tells us he has never been out of a city.
Gender identity in all its complexity: eh? What is all this crap about gender complexity? Are these people hyper-aware of what they think are gender demands from society? Let’s see–go to college? Approved by society. Not marry or have kids? No one cares. Dress in pants? No one cares. Not wear makeup? No one cares. Be a lesbian? No one cares. What are they rebelling against?
What is all this crap about gender complexity?
Related, “The dangerous narcissism of the trans lobby”.
Yep.
Indeed it is. Read the whole thing.
He’s still on the faculty at Shimer College.
Well, if one is already employed at the worst college in the country, it’s probably difficult to get a new job elsewhere – except maybe as a janitor.
Re the non-binary astrophysics link, I read this pop-up:
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as
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Kotso doesn’t like people living in remote rural areas. Hahahaha.
He’s probably one of the many that thinks food originates in the supermarket so rural areas are redundant
He’s probably one of the many that thinks food originates in the supermarket so rural areas are redundant
Not Kotsko, but as the lady says, same energy.
an ‘internal neverending monologue’.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a common comorbidity.
Not Kotsko, but as the lady says, same energy.
It does still amaze me that anyone can instantly recognize what is in that aerial photo. I grew up in a city but knew about farms from an early age.
Take the ignorance of these “smart” city people as proof that they are intellectually (and morally!) unqualified to govern others–and especially to govern flyover country.
Good lord, the nitwit doubles down and goes full Bolshevik.
Unlike himself.
He’s still on the faculty at Shimer College.
Well, if one is already employed at the worst college in the country…
I don’t know much about Shimer aside from what has been discussed here, but I believe it has been mentioned now and then on Chicago public radio stations (and not to harshly criticize it.)
Good lord, the nitwit doubles down and goes full Bolshevik.
Like I said: Evil.
Young adults have to do a period of public service, and one option would be a “tour of duty” as a farm worker for a few years.
First the kulaks will have to be dealt with and then the wreckers will have to be rooted out; but after that, everything should go smoothly. Though, I personally favour the Pol Pot way that would ensure Kotsko wouldn’t miss his turn in the fields.
I personally favour the Pol Pot way that would ensure Kotsko wouldn’t miss his turn in the fields.
Didn’t the Pol Pot way feature the systematic extermination of college professors? Thus, Kotsko’s turn in the fields would be as fertilizer.
Good lord, the nitwit doubles down and goes full Bolshevik.
“My ideal land use distribution … ”
That’s one way of announcing not having to take responsibility for any of the many, many stupid opinions that immediately follow.
For those who missed his first appearance … “The only reason to be upset about demographic change is if you’re racist”
A little curious to know what reason he might attribute to someone enthusiastically celebrating demographic change?
A little curious to know what reason he might attribute to someone enthusiastically celebrating demographic change?
I somehow doubt that Dr Kotsko is overly inclined to self-knowledge. And given his disingenuous posturing and squirmy dishonesty, as touched on in the earlier thread, I can imagine why.
That thread has some real winners:
Farmers and people who work the land should live in rural areas and be subsidized to do it. People who make a lifestyle choice to live in a rural area shouldn’t be subsidized.
Ignore the whole weird “subsidy” thing right now and wonder how this amoeba brain feels that any “non-farmer” in rural areas is only there as a ‘lifestyle choice’ (even that phrase makes me twitch). Because, I suppose, a farmer shouldn’t be availed a small, nearby town in which to buy clothes or food or tools or toys for the kids or to see a movie or have dinner out or attend church … indeed, no police or fire or schools for that matter.
Just … argh.
Our refugee from a failed college turned into a book club at a midwest university no one outside of Napierville ever heard of pretends he knows the history of the USSR.
Olga Leonidova here was unavailable for comment.
Laughs in Mao Tse Tung (and all the rest…)
Good lord, the nitwit doubles down and goes full Bolshevik.
When he writes “My ideal land use distribution (based heavily on KSR)…” I believe KSR means Kim Stanley Robinson, a hard-core communist science fiction writer.
I somehow doubt that Dr Kotsko is overly inclined to self-knowledge…
Few in academia are.
…And given his disingenuous posturing and squirmy dishonesty…
Funny how so many professors of philosophy and theology are like that.
… indeed, no police or fire or schools for that matter.
There’d be a local Citizens Committee. What more could you need comrade?
I believe KSR means Kim Stanley Robinson
I thought he just dropped the second S from Kazakhstan Soviet Socialist Republic what with the great success they had in the ’20s and ’30s.
Such profs and intellectuals are always fond of redesigning the world to suit their conceits. That the world might have organized itself without their approval seems…distasteful. They ban new fastfood joints in poor parts of LA because the poor eat too much fastfood. Bloomberg bans large sodas (guess he was a fat-shamer before the term was popular). They ban using much of any info to decide if a renter of your property is a safe and reliable renter. The list is infinite.
Thus, Kotsko’s turn in the fields would be as fertilizer.
Yes. I meant to put “turn in the fields” in scare quotes. Kotsko would definitely end up in the killing fields.
I thought he just dropped the second S from Kazakhstan Soviet Socialist Republic what with the great success they had in the ’20s and ’30s.
Not much difference, I’ll bet.
I’ll also bet that the high praise KSR gets in various science fiction journals is largely due to his communist ideology.
Behold the enriching and vibrant diversity.
How idiots can wind up as “professors”.
On to Coledge!
It was shared, briefly, yesterday by biologist and Quillette contributor Colin Wright, and was promptly censored by Twitter’s moderators.
Looks like it’s back.
The Regents used to be a respectable and useful exam.
I thought he just dropped the second S from Kazakhstan Soviet Socialist Republic what with the great success they had in the ’20s and ’30s.
Cultural Learnings of Kazakhstan For Make Benefit Glorious Soviet Socialist Republic of America?
OT question for Heinlein fans…Which Trio book would you most recommend? The Puppet Masters, Double Star, or The Door Into Summer.
What do you mean by trio? And recommend to who?
There’s a book called Heinlein’s Trio containing those three stories. The first Heinlein book that I have found in any library, aside from the YA one (with large old people print for some absurd reason) I picked up about a year ago that was just too juvenile for me.
I have no idea what a Trio book is. And my recommendation would depend on the intended reader.
Looked it up. Odd choice to package together in one volume. I speculate that it was merely because Doubleday had reprint rights. I hope they did a good job of editing–not a lot of typos or other problems.
For an adult like you, I would recommend The Puppet Masters or Double Star.
The Puppet Masters is a pretty good alien-invasion story. Your book will have the earlier edition, edited (trimmed and censored) by Heinlein to please the publisher. The currently in print edition is a bit longer and has a bit more “adult” situations.
Double Star is a shorter novel about an actor hired to be a double for a politician. Also pretty good.
The Door Into Summer is okay (although its postulated future economics is Social Credit silliness) but it finishes with a creepy
MayMarch-September romance that I now take as a harbinger of future Heinlein sexual strangeness.There was an episode in Glory Road which bothered me the same way. In retrospect I wonder if that was a significant part of why Samuel R. Delany praised it.
Our Motto: “Think Different Like Everyone Else”.
I am surprised it isn’t racist.
Oh.
How about firing the lot of the useless SOBs.
Robbing from the rich, the spirit of Robin Hood lives on in Nottingham.
Another commie hot take.
Another commie hot take
And suddenly I’m thinking about helicopters…
Scraping the bottom of the barrel for police recruits. Almost certainly for the sake of DEI.
To mutate a quote from a book:
“Dear Professor Kotsko, he is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.”
Maccis is a tax collection agency?
“The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” and “Starship Troopers” would my two recommendations, @WTP.
Meanwhile at the Associated press is transphobic, “The USS Gerald Ford, she is a fine ship”.
And so, the enormous list of things to which Twitter’s moderators take exception now includes the suggestion that strident activists often do harm to the cause they ostensibly champion. A phenomenon seen all but daily, and on many fronts.
Sensible cartoon is “stochastic terrorism”!
AIR Nottingham was largely a West Indian diverseness, rather than an African American type of diversity. I think that is probably true of most UK black communities.
“The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” and “Starship Troopers” would my two recommendations, @WTP.
Mine, too, if we’re choosing from his entire body of work.
Sensible cartoon is “stochastic terrorism”!
That is a very strange expression. I wonder who coined it. Someone in academia, I suppose, given that it sounds like the product of an erudite mind while actually being utter bollocks.
Instead of “coined it” I should have written “applied it to speech that dissents from leftism”.
Mine, too, if we’re choosing from his entire body of work
Thanks. Given the suggestions, and the modern American library system being the worthless pile of shitbooks that it is, I’ll going with Double Star. Will let you know my take.
WTP: Let us know how you like it.
Also: Which was the YA book that you didn’t like? Depending on your answer, I might recommend a few of his better YA novels. Farmer in the Sky and Red Planet are decent. And in fact Farmer made enough of an impression on Gregory Benford when he read it as a kid that he wrote his own novel, heavily based on Heinlein’s premise., updating the science and egineering politics.
To be fair, Glory Road is a good novel. It’s just that the incident I alluded to stuck in my craw. (Much as you can find things to criticize in most artists’ work.)
I reposted this cartoon to Twitter, and I guess it is a testament to what little influence I wield over there, because it is still up, not a peep from the TW overlords.
At least we can drop “the great Lorenzo” references and @WTP will get it.
Also: “Proper conduct demands that one of us leave.”
At least we can drop “the great Lorenzo” references and @WTP will get it.
I liked the illustrations that Kelly Freas did for the original magazine serialization of Double Star. Most fans like Freas for his colorful, sparkly-starred paintings (his famous painting for “The Gulf Between” was an exception) but I think much more highly of his drawings: Lots of interesting faces.
(A lot of Freas’ art is rather pulp-y, but some of it rises well above that, and he was one of the most technically skilled artists in the field.)
Farnsworth M Muldoon | August 22, 2022 at 13:41: I have seen places where there are over and underpasses for wildlife to cross highways, but one where they meander along next to an El in the middle of a city is a bizarre take.
I remember looking out of an “El” car in downtown Evanston (fully urbanized inner suburb of Chicago), at the commuter rail track which is parallel there, and noticing an animal trotting along the right-of-way. “Odd looking dog,” I thought. Then I realized it wasn’t a dog, it was a coyote.
[Tech note: when I preview, edit, and try to post, I get “session expired”.]
Coyotes migrate around using the Chicago area train tracks and belts of parkway.
You will see “session expired” if you let too much time pass between when you load a page and when you finally click “post”.
What’s really funny is when you post a comment, hibernate your computer for the night, and, when you return the next morning see your comment in the Preview window right below the copy you posted the previous night. (I offer this only as a curiosity: I wouldn’t want David to spend even a minute investigating this, as that would take away from time compiling Ephemera.)
Good news.
https://twitter.com/SwipeWright/status/1563154195423043586