Tay Zonday

@tayzonday

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3170 Followers

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Yes, it’s a tweet from when I tweeted.

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I think @chainleft’s broad point is that it’s hard to make an evidence-based argument that the American Government is less guilty of mishandling centralized American private sector data than the Chinese Communist Party— in light of Edward Snowden and other noteworthy cases. This is further muddied by the by paid use of American tech—from Meta face recognition to Google database tech—in the CCP’s social control and surveillance apparatuses. While I have not personally spent time in China, my sense from the anecdotes of friends is that— especially on a local level— grift and corruption and arrangements that blur the line between embezzlement and “dealmaking” are much more above-board and normative in China. Americans at least try to hide that corruption behind invocations of altruism, meritocracy, creative appropriations and margin-padding that a “free market” gets blamed for. Your view @lawrenceroman is that free market aspiration that fails is more trustworthy than never aspiring.

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This is a great question. I have purchased hundreds of Chinese-produced consumer goods from Chinese Amazon sellers and while I presume my deep data lies in Amazon’s Customer Relationship Management system, I’m not sure how much those sellers can access. I know that many Chinese Amazon sellers, at minimum, get my e-mail because a few actively bribed me not to leave negative reviews during the pandemic. One Chinese air filter manufacturer even false flagged my Amazon account for “racism” and I had all reviews deleted (“community privileges suspended”) because noting their terrible product was Chinese was “racism.” Also, American companies outsource more and more customer data management to India, the Philippines and jurisdictions that are presumably easier for foreign intelligence to compromise. I’m not sure that ownership location within China materially increases the Chinese Communist Party’s American consumer surveillance capability. Vectors are prolific and poorly monitored.

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There are so many things besides Tiktok owned by Chinese companies that aggregate American customer data. The recently launched Marvel Rivals game (made by NetEase) is one of them. Banning TikTok would be digging a hole in the water.

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I trended yesterday, but reach on @farcaster does feel like American real estate: The closer you began to the founding and Diamond-handed a theme, the more exponential the outcome. I’m also 47 different content genres here. The appeal Venn diagram is smaller than if I spun biz analysis, corny jokes, mental health, social policy, music, philosophy, history and non sequitur platitudes into separate umbrellas.

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A car is an asset that is guaranteed to depreciate rapidly when bought— and to be borrowed with you on the wrong side of a big profit margin when leased. It’s almost no indicator of financial status. Most people I know with high net worths drive a Honda or Chevy and keep investments quiet.

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Thunberg tweeted numerous damaging, context-free statements about NFTs such as “NFTs are destroying the Earth.” Because the environmental impact of fiat economics can be easily characterized as disastrous— one has to ask: Did Thunberg select NFTs as a target of ire— and not zillions of other equally valid “are destroying the Earth” targets like golf courses or iPhones—because it was a new and trending topic that was still being defined in the public mind? When movement-building, we must be very careful when we use “othering” language. If I say, without context, “blacks commit crime!”— I am making an objectively true statement. It is also objectively true that proof-of-work cryptocurrency (Ethereum NFTs) had an environmental cost. Both are true. However, “blacks commit crime!” is an irresponsible, diabolical thing to utter by itself. It’s predatory. It’s manipulative. It appeals to the worst in mob psychology to exile and degrade. So is “NFTs are destroying the Earth.”

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“Twitter left” probably cost me $10 million or so by hysterically attacking innocents for “destroying the Earth” during 2021’s NFT bull market, if the earnings of similar meme projects like Nyan Cat are an indication. At the behest of Greta Thunberg (who I agree with on vision but not tactics)—“leftists” using cell phones with 1. Raw material mined by child slaves in Congo because of fiat money 2. Shipped to China for inexpensive assembly because of fiat money, and 3. Wastefully packaged for western consumers because of fiat money ALL at apocalyptic environmental cost— . . . Used those phones to attack Ethereum NFTs as the most toxic environmental vice ever because Ethereum was temporarily Proof-Of-Work. Or because rage-bandwagoning on a trend builds clout. There are many reasons the right-wing DNC lost to righter-wing MAGA at the expense of genuine leftist advocacy. Innocent people losing jobs, careers, and businesses in misguided attacks did “leftists” no political favors.

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So, like me as an AI 🤪

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As a brief follow up, when I post this I'm not asking for anything, we are doing alright ourselves. If anyone wants to help out in some way I would suggest supporting the Prader-Willi Foundation which funds research into this rare genetic disorder (and more research finding is critically needed), or Seattle Children's Hospital which has been a life saver for us and so many others. I'll write more about this when I get the time to. But this gives you some idea of how big of an impact $bug creator fees will have for our family. Love you all! ❤️

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What REALLY gets word salad to the point is asking Gemini to rewrite it as a speech by “The Incredible Hulk.” Gemini Advanced is the best of its competitors now IMO. It used to suck but Google just gave it a “whenever, whoever, however, by any means necessary” blank check to “ResultsMaxx.”

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I can’t take a position on what leftists think. I can take a position on the language leftists use. There are definitely leftists, including on Farcaster, who use language that can imply that “liberalism” is like a terminal, transmissible infection that a leftist needs to quarantine from so they can stay safe. The practice of using terminology that reduces a complex phenomenon to an inaccurate “essence” is essentialism. Pretending that liberalism is always a voluntary choice rather than a choice coerced under duress is one type of essentialism. “Liberals think this” and “liberals hate this” are examples of essentialist language. We don’t say things like “cancers think this” and “cancers hate this” to describe people diagnosed with malignant neoplasms (cancers). The idea should be the subject in non-essentialist language. “Liberalism causes people to think this.” “Liberalism causes people to hate this.” “Libs” or “Liberals” are not “Liberalism.”

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Thank you for your thoughts. No, that’s not what I say at all. That was a subordinate clause in my post which means it subordinates to the primary clause. Just like in programming there’s “IF/Then” language— My statement reduces to “IF a person describes “liberalism” LIKE it is an innate and immutable identity of personhood [primary clause], THEN it should invite the following lines of inquiry. One of the subordinating lines of inquiry is, indeed, why it would be an immutable characteristic as articulated in the primary clause. Secondary clauses are usually ridiculous without their primary clauses. The most famous example is the U.S. second amendment, where partisans have ignored the primary clause (“a well regulated militia”) and chosen to interpret the “the right the people to keep and bear arms” in a vacuum: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”

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I asked Gemini to re-write what I typed above in the style of Dr. Seuss— Oh, the places you'll go when you critique the "libs"! But some folks on the left have gone off on strange trips. They sound like the Klan, all about purity's creed, Forgetting the dreams that each person may need. With black-and-white thinking, they squish all the hues, Like a box full of crayons where they only use blues! Your grandma, your friend, with a heart of pure gold, Judged only by phrases, whole story untold. Revolution's not costumes, or shouting out loud It’s opening doors for the whole diverse crowd. So open your mind, let your heart be your guide True change comes from love, not from fear or from pride. If you meet a loud "leftist" with a bullhorn so grand Remind them that kindness lends a much stronger hand. For the folks on the margins, with voices so small, Need a revolution that welcomes them all!

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Critiquing “liberalism” is great. We should understand attitudes and terms that can be used to erase and oppress. However— any “leftist” talking about “liberalism” the same way a KKK Grand Dragon talks about non-Aryan blood should make you wonder: You should wonder why they preach black and white “purity politics” rather than aspirational consciousness that offers to further any individual on their journey; You should wonder why their “revolution” reduces your family, friends and role models to a eugenic identity defined by the oppressor; You should wonder why their loyalty to a dogma resembles loyalty to a religion, and why that loyalty sounds like right-wing theocracy with a wardrobe change. If you see a “leftist” like this, remind them that the revolution has room for the willing. Remind them that loudly signaling “leftism” with a bullhorn is an unequal privilege denied to many who are marginalized and oppressed BY liberalism—and not a character attribute.

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“Government” becomes code for marginalized groups whenever it enacts policy to correct past majority wrongs to those groups. “Government” efforts to rehabilitate blacks into society became a meddling nuisance during Reconstruction (after the Civil War)—leading to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 and Jim Crow segregation. Overturning Roe V. Wade was simply the culmination of Ronald Reagan— who was formerly Pro Choice— saying that “government” is the problem in the 1970s. “Government” was understood to mean forced school integration, social services, legislated workplace equality for women and blacks, and separating church from state.

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Enslavement remains legal in the United States as punishment for crime. While it’s not selling human bodies on an open market like chattel slavery— the prison industrial complex has historically had a range of commercial and oligarchic motives that are divorced from public safety and rehabilitation. Douglas A. Blackmon’s history book “Slavery By Another Name” dives into this history in the eight decades after the Civil War.

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I dislike identifying as leftist, liberal, centrist, conservative or right-wing. I prefer to identify as the truth. That being said, I also dislike identifying as “black” in a discursive vacuum, but there’s a combination of historical realities that has made declining to do so untenable. Like blackness, leftism is a set of epistemological assumptions with real-world power dynamics. When in Rome, one may not always do as the Romans do but one sometimes has to speak as the Romans speak. It just so happens that species goals grounded in moral and socioeconomic truth are sometimes described as “leftist” the way that certain dermatological melanin lineage is “black.” My humanist goals can be articulated with modern monetary theory, poststructuralism, socialism, libertarian individualism and a range of other things— just like an application can be written in C++, Java or Swift. “Leftist” is where my humanist goals frequently fall in taxonomy by others just like “black” and “male.”

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I tend to be attracted to fierce critiques of my flaws. It’s probably one of the most reliable ways to appeal to me. That’s not to say I relish abusive or baseless criticism. However, criticizing me when the criticism has noble passion or factual merit primes my mind for hypergrowth, even if I don’t agree with the entire critique. This may be a characteristic where “treat others as you would have them treat you” isn’t always the best practice for me. There are times when I am thrilling in discursive head-butting and the thrill is not mutual. If I thrill the opposition with what thrills me— they aren’t necessarily energized nor inspired. One flaw I’ll openly admit— and one not unrelated to my experience of being autistic— is missing social cues when the type of passionate, earnest discursive conflict I non-judgementally thrill in is not mutually desired. I can be doggedly parliamentarian and not notice when parliament— as a mode of conflict with decorum and goodwill—is closed.

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