ML2 @mathlover@social.cleverlibre.org

@frozennoodles
😢

Given the absurd politization of #COVID prevention in the US by both a large segment GOP supporters and a vocal crowd of extreme leftists, I've posted a Twitter thread to try to bring people there back to reality. We'll see what happens. I'm not optimistic for this, and I'm an optimist by default.

Here is the thread unrolled:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1277514374316462080.html

@frozennoodles What shit?

I'm surprised the mafia doesn't use cancel culture instead of paid hitmen. Why pay money to kill someone when you can get a mob to make the person do it, all for free?
(This is sarcasm, but it's amazing how out-of-hand cancel culture has gotten.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firing-innocent/613615/

@TruculentSheep
While I do not believe ACAB is true, there are definitely many, many metropolitan departments which are probably almost completely or completely rotten, and among rotten cops anywhere, what you are describing might very well be common.

So after I gave dad some advice to look on Google and gave him some keywords to look for, my mom came into his study. He openly wondered if paying my college tuition for me to get a bachelor's in mathematics was worth it.

He calmed down later and I was able to explain things, but still...jeesh. Talk about manipulativeness.

Apparently White Fragility is getting deservedly trashed: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-white-fragility

@design_RG I get it. 😀

I've heard of Excel and Lotus, but none of other spreadsheet software.

I didn't know anything about the period of software/computing history between the late seventies and early nineties until I looked it up online later in life. My parents were doing medical residency at the time, and due to the 36 hour shifts allowed back then, they had no time for anything else between working and sleeping. Thus, they do not know about that time: personal computing for them began with MS-DOS, and my father *still* thinks Gates invented DOS.

@Sphinx I know, I should be happy about it, but you'd think a guy who can use Google for anything else could figure out the fine art of Googling error messages.

I just love that my dad relies on me for help with Microsoft Excel (a program I never use and barely know and completely despise) because he can't figure out how to use Google to ask about his issues. /s

@coldwave
Honestly, I just want to get to scientific neomodernity at this point.

@lordalveric
I would say that the protests and riots have calmed down at this point, being mostly confined to a few cities, so if waiting is their strategy, it is playing out well.

Regarding the bit about fanning the flames: both parties have been stoking division for decades. Democrats have been stoking identity politics just as Republicans have stoked the culture wars. These protests aren't from that; they are coming from social media of the toxic kind (mostly Twitter and Facebook in this case) as well as the issue of increased economic inequality and decreased mobility—which Trump has done nothing to address and much to worsen—compounding massive lingering effects of historically institutional racial segregation on the economic and social fortunes of certain racial groups.

While Biden has faults, and Trump has positives, it is telling as to the character of both that, while the former had been staying out of the spotlight and generally quiet, the latter has been in the spotlight and generally brazen: by politicizing COVID prevention, mitigation, and science; by employing the politics of division in a time of conflict and unrest; and by doing all of this solely in an attempt to shore up his base, Trump has done far more harm than all the silent Democrats in the nation combined.

While I have come to hate Trump (I gave him a chance and he blew it; the final straw came with his handling of the COVID crisis) I do not extend that hate to his supporters or voters, nor do I hate, dislike, or like less any person simply because they voted for or support Trump. To do that would be to give into the politics of division; furthermore, people are kaleidoscopically diverse, strange, complicated, and beyond any semblance of a complete understanding on my part: to reduce anyone to their vote would be to ignore that fact.

@lupyuen I strongly suspect at this point that renaming is mostly pointless, though well-intentioned, but if there is a good, valid argument for renaming, that article doesn't give it.