williamlweaver 🇺🇲 @williamlweaver@qoto.org

@ainmosni@octodon.social

The difficulty I have with this is Wil's position against Alex Jones' continued use of Twitter (I don't agree with Jones either) and then being surprised when Wil is banned.

The cure for bad speech is more speech, not silence. The world is large enough for both an Alex Jones and a Wil Wheaton.

@freemo Definitely "Be Excellent to Each Other" =]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGErt4CfLD0

@freemo @wilw
The @federationbot reports 12K toots per hour yet decides to push a single toot my way from a user describing how @wilw is transphobic...

The bots appear to have stopped being impartial and are now playing the game.

Social Media is on the brink of destroying Social Justice. The SJWs should stop chasing shadows and start sharpening their swords.

@freemo

@wilw

Social has definitely crossed an inflection point. Either the Russian Bot story is true and there is a coordinated attack to silence all thought, or our Algorithms have discovered that engagement and advertising are maximized by amplifying vitriol, or humans spend every waking hour as nomadic rage mobs salting the Earth as they roam...

I tend to think the second option is most likely and we need to press a global reset before the Algorithms approach singularity.

#onebillionhappy

@writetome Sounds great! The Fall semester has started so my desk time will arrive in spits and spurts... =]

@alpheus
The largest problem with text-based social media is the loss of inflection and color commentary.

As we are having a political discussion, I purposefully use the term "minority" in that context, as in "Minority Leader", such as Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer.

Unlike the current Majority/Minority political balance of the US Senate at 51 / 47, the Majority/Minority balance in academia is around 95% / 5%. As you know, in statistics, that means the 5% is not significant to two levels of standard deviation. The imbalance is a bit more than arithmetic.

Political Ideology is not popular opinion, it is reasoned philosophy. I don't claim status as a member of oppressed social minority, however, the automatic epithets of liar, racist, homophobe, and misogynist correlate strongly with those used by a majority to bully and suppress any minority.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply and I hope this is helpful.

@realmattseymour
Maybe it would be helpful to define conservatism in 2018...

https://youtu.be/nTqUhUJOBiU

Hi, @alpheus

Do you have experience with academia? Published studies report that political conservatives among college faculty are at best 5%.

How do you define "minority"?

@realmattseymour What if conservatism *is* populist and the alternative is a minority approach that must consistently control culture to retain its power and influence?

@Printsi Good luck with Atlas Shrugged. You can choose to read it like pages full of words or as a font of philosophy. One is quick. One takes a lifetime. =]

@wilw
Being your own harshest critic is the fastest way to learn and improve. That being said, the happy little evergreen on the right is objectively kick-ass awesome. =]

Hi, Folks!

I am a tenured Associate Professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia, PA, USA. I have my B.S. Degree with a Double Major in Chemistry and Physics and my Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry with specialties in Ultrafast Laser Spectroscopy, Instrument Design, and Automation Software Development. I teach in an interdisciplinary undergraduate program called Integrated Science, Business, and Technology in which our students study the process of developing scientific discoveries into new products and services using collaborative business practices. I develop and teach courses in Energy, Materials, and Informatics, and have personal research interests in Robotics and Machine Intelligence.

After joining Facebook as soon as La Salle was added to the Facebook servers in 2005 and Joining Twitter in 2007, I created the Facebook and Twitter accounts for the University as I was unable to convince our IT department that it was important for the University to have a presence on social media.

After openly sharing my personal Political positions as a Constitutional Conservative and my support of Donald Trump, the backlash on Facebook and Twitter was so severe that I no longer use those networks.

As a Conservative Academic, I understand and deeply experience what it means to be a minority. I'm giving Mastadon a spin in search of respectful conversation. #introduction