Man Bites Mouse

Sick with a nasty fever, Jonah approaches today’s Remnant not as an emergency podcast, but ...

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Sick with a nasty fever, Jonah approaches today’s Remnant not as an emergency podcast, but a podcast imbued with a sense of emergency. His guest is David French, who returns for a lengthy discussion of Ron DeSantis’ feud with Disney and what it reveals about American polarization. Also on the docket is what we can expect from Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and how Jonah and David would change the site if they were given control. Stick around until the end for obligatory discussion of TV, movies, and other items of nerdy miscellanea.

Show Notes:

– David’s page at The Dispatch

– The Morning Dispatch breaks down Florida’s plan to annex Disney World

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  1. Avatar photo
    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    Mr. French, I have what you've been searching for, the six-minute remedy for your commendably self-acknowledged Twitter compulsion (although you don't really need the whole six minutes unless you're the sort of stubborn person depicted in the video). It is a very concise action plan: https://youtu.be/Ow0lr63y4Mw

    Totally safe-for-work link, by the way.

    Twitter delenda est.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Al Arcy

    I think Elrond told us how to best reform Twitter:
    "Cast it into the fire! Destroy it!"

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  3. Avatar photo
    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    Those readers whose childhood memories include Tinkerbell racing across the sky sprinkling pixie dust to turn the Disney castle from black & white to "in LIVING COLOR!" will recall that Disney often made its own self-promotional films — basically, documentary-style "look how great Disneyland is! Look how great our cartoons are!" pieces that would fill five or fifteen minutes at the end of a re-broadcast of "Daniel Boone" with Fess Parker.

    I'm almost sure that at some point, during the early planning — before they broke ground — on Disney World in Orlando, Disney broadcast one or more such self-promotional films about its plans for the new, bigger, more fabulous Magic Kingdom in Florida. And IIRC, these "special district" arrangements were not just revealed, not just disclosed, but positively trumpeted as "great news for everyone, a win-win for Florida and Mickey and everyone we'll employ!"

    If I were more clever and diligent, I'd do the web research to find a link to some such. But I'm confident this is a genuine memory, and wonder if anyone else out there finds this ringing a bell.

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  4. Kevin H

    David & Jonah - Since you won’t be able to change Twitter can everyone at the Disoatch use it as a collector of information but you share it through a closed Dispatch system like the NR Corner which you (Jonah) helped create. I only follow a handful of people on Twitter but they are all ones I trust their judgement on filtering.

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  5. Derek Drizin

    Hope you feel better soon, Jonah

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  6. Avatar photo
    The Bell Tower

    Not sure I agree that the problems at Twitter are intractable. Kevin Williamson’s point about fallen man being able to prove our falleness 2 million times per second is well taken but there are some low hanging fruit at Twitter. Two examples:

    1. Transparency. I get the point here about the algorithm but just clear, concise, easy to recognize rules about moderation would go a long way. The rule of law binding moderators who interpret it vs arbitrary authorities who fully control the rules like local commissars in China would be an improvement.

    2. War on bots. Musk has said he’s going to make everyone on Twitter an actual someone. I’m not sure he can do this but credit companies do it, so why not? This would be a huge improvement.

    It won’t be a panacea and Twitter is still bound by the Internet’s law of all stupidity rising to the top. But I think these efforts can help.

    Now, will Elon do these things? Can he? Hard to say but everyone on the right and left who believe this guy just spent 44 billion dollars to own the libs and bring Trump back will be in for a rude awakening.

    I know he’s said this isn’t about “economics” but there are 44 billion reasons to be suspicious of that declaration. I don’t know how he thinks he’s gonna make money but if there’s one thing he’s demonstrated that he can do better than anyone else on earth, it’s make money.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Get well soon, Jonah!

    As far as opening up twitter’s algorithm goes, it will result in some business opportunities for people who 1. Try to game the algorithm to sell stuff or 2. Try to teach (or pretend to teach) other people who to use the algorithm to their advantage to sell stuff.

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  8. Tom and Robin Moore

    Dang, Jonah. Feel better!!

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  9. John Townson

    Get well Jonah, we need you!

    When I hear David's " they are banning things that aren't happening in their states" argument I am reminded of the " oh, those silly snowflakes in college, when they get to the real world, they will get their comeuppance" conclusion; fast forward and the snowflakes have taken command of the media, universities, corporations , and so on. Cant wait for those Yale law students to sit on Supreme Court. Movements move; that's what they do. I don't at all blame folks in FLA banning actions they see taking place elsewhere; be a fool to assume it won't spread to your own state.

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  10. Matthew Stein

    If you are interested in a show that deals with England and early Vikings, watch the show “Vikings”! The first four seasons were twice as good as the Last Kingdom and they had a fascinating (and one that did not fall into the modern trap of glorification) portrayal of the Vikings’ paganism.

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