15 Comments
User's avatar
Tania Mysak's avatar

THANK YOU for this. It’s a bit wild to watch how all of these “independent thinkers” out there share such similar thoughts. And how they align with the interests of China, Russia, Iran, etc. Your take down of the “just asking questions” crowd was chef’s kiss. Well done.

Expand full comment
Andrea Allais's avatar

I'm doing my part: I subscribed to Infinite Scroll

Expand full comment
Jeremiah Johnson's avatar

The hero we all need

Expand full comment
Jawn_Quijote's avatar

Without disagreeing with anything of substance here, I am compelled to point out that "Texian" was what the revolution-era Texans called themselves. So maybe this account just got so much in character that they decided that their Texan separatist would use the ancestral terms for his people.

Expand full comment
Max Marty's avatar

Agree on the Russia and China part, but Iran is funding plenty of propaganda here in the US as well. Our relatively open and free media environment has made us into a battleground for foreign adversaries of all sorts to test and refine their propaganda arms.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way around this. There are ways to mitigate it but this problem will be a part of any free society.

Expand full comment
A Special Presentation's avatar

The cultural and economic dominance America and the West had in the 90s and 00s blinded a lot of pundits and policy makers to the fact that the internet wasn't necessarily a one-way conduit for Western democracy and values. We're paying for that today, big time.

Expand full comment
Jessica Drew's avatar

Please stop telling people what they “need” to think and worry about. It's a huge turn off.

Expand full comment
Michel de Cryptadamus's avatar

the fact that the chairman of trump's transition team is the guy who manages money that's responsible for billions of dollars worth of shenanigans from russia, china, and iran is probably not helping the situation .

https://cryptadamus.substack.com/p/trumps-transition-team-is-tethered

if you're skeptical about some anon on the internet here's the WSJ just a few days ago: https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/tether-crypto-us-dollar-sanctions-52f85459

Expand full comment
davwundrbrrd's avatar

rad post. thank you for your work

Expand full comment
Space Egg's avatar

As a counterpoint, this article: https://www.normalisland.co.uk/p/us-politicians-whove-received-100

I’m not half as concerned about Russian infiltration as I am about the dismal state of the US mainstream media in their supposed role as truth tellers.

Expand full comment
MashStars's avatar

Add in the capabilities of AI/ML. Increased data storage & cloud servers. Untraceable crypto currency tornados(?). Deepfakes & AI videos. That AI can ML how to manipulate you off of failures, just like with passwords.

Even you aren't afraid enough.

On the bright side—it's very motivating for getting out of bed and trying for once—personally.

Expand full comment
Alex S's avatar

The current generation of AI can't do online learning and retraining it costs tens of millions.

I find it very easy to spot a ChatGPT bot; it always mentions everything the tweet it's replying to says.

Expand full comment
MashStars's avatar

True not AGI.

You should write a paper then. Detection on well designed bots are flawed.

Expand full comment
Alex S's avatar

Bit tautological because of "well-designed", but if you blocked anyone who uses hashtags in replies you'd get rid of ChatGPT Twitter bots. It likes to tweet like it's 2010.

Spam detection mostly doesn't work on text though, it relies on being able to see the user's entire patterns in context. Since bots mainly do things like copy other people's replies.

Expand full comment