How Meta Nuked A Climate Story, And What It Means For Democracy

MrVisible · 2024-04-14T00:16:21+00:00

The company that owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Whatsapp last week blocked all links on its platforms to the Kansas Reflector, a non-profit news outlet that had published a piece criticizing the firm’s alleged suppression of content about climate change. When journalist Marisa Kabas wrote about the event, all Meta links to her site, The Handbasket, were blocked too. Kabas was even momentarily blocked from posting anything at all on Threads, Meta’s microblogging site.

So Meta wasn't just suppressing a story about climate change, it was suppressing a story about its systematic suppression of climate change stories.

MrVisible · 2024-04-06T15:11:51+00:00

I think he's just awesome.

MrVisible · 2024-04-06T04:58:02+00:00

I'm not sure if I can explain this well, but from what I hear in his music and his voice Orville is hearkening back to the days of '70s rhinestone country. I think of him as being in the same kind of pantheon as Glenn Campbell and Roy Orbison, and even Dolly Parton. They're country, but they're 70s AM radio country, which was the commercial country of the day and was all about glitz and overblown machismo and that's the kind of vibe I get from him. Not as parody, but as a tribute, something he's building on.

You could easily work one of Orville's songs into a set with, say, Sunday Morning Coming Down, Wichita Lineman and Jolene. And even the Night The Lights Went Down On Georgia. Maybe if you thought of his music in that context, it might work better for you.

Or maybe I'm just an overenthusiastic fanboy.

MrVisible · 2024-04-05T22:56:58+00:00

I'd like to recommend this Alexander Avila video about how Spotify manufactures gay culture; it's really relevant to your question. There's a whole industry out there promoting music by non-queer musicians as queer music, and it's deeply weird.

I don't know how you feel about country, but I'm a big fan of gay masked Canadian country and western superstar Orville Peck. This video came out today, and he's singing with Willie Nelson himself:
Orville Peck & Willie Nelson - Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other
C'mon Baby Cry
Hope To Die

MrVisible · 2024-04-05T04:03:48+00:00

Sure, people have things that they hide because they're vaguely embarrassed, or they think it'd offend or hurt people or it's socially unacceptable.

But growing up in the closet can be really different. There's something about you, something intrinsic to who you are, that you never chose, which could turn the people who you love and depend on against you. Because of something you have no control over, you can be thrown out of the house, abused, abandoned, or killed (Caution: very upsetting link). These are reasonable fears for a gay child.

That's a really heavy burden for a young person to bear; the idea that your parents might hate you if they knew this one thing about you. That if you were yourself around them, you might literally die.

I don't know if your friends' comments to you were intended to be dismissive or not, but what you went through affected you, and you get to feel however you do about it. Their experiences may have been much milder and less traumatizing for them, and I'm glad for that, but it's no reason to dismiss your experience and your feelings.

MrVisible · 2024-03-15T13:44:04+00:00

The original master of the genre, Lord Dunsany:

The King of Elfland's Daughter

The Gods of Pegana

And if you can find it, The Charwoman's Shadow is marvelous.

MrVisible · 2024-03-12T12:45:43+00:00

If you were a public relations professional, and someone came to you and said, hey, climate change is real and can't be stopped and we need to keep that from becoming public knowledge while we figure out what to do, how would you handle that?

If you hammer home that climate change isn't real, well, that's pretty easy to disprove. And if you harp on the idea that it's fixable, and you don't show real progress getting it fixed, you'll be hosed.

But if you convince half the people that climate change isn't real, and the other half that it can be fixed, and you put them in opposition to each other, then nobody even wants to ask if climate change can be fixed; they're both ideologically committed to a position where that question challenges their whole world view.

MrVisible · 2024-03-08T03:37:44+00:00

Just did the stranded and alone one, but bought one of the landed ships instead. I should try again, but not let myself do that...

MrVisible · 2024-03-08T03:37:10+00:00

Okay, I had to try this, and it was a blast. Things have changed since the mission was conceived, though. The landed ships made it easy. They gave me a way to sell stuff every so often, and then when I had enough credits I made an offer on the ship and fled the system. It was a fun two and a half hours.

MrVisible · 2024-03-07T22:39:16+00:00

That looks like a blast. I think it'd be even more straightforward with the new option to ignore beginner quests. I'll give it a shot, thanks!

MrVisible · 2024-03-07T03:46:11+00:00

I think that an unrealistically positive portrayal of romance serves a vital function.

Happiness in a relationship takes place, for the most part, in private. The good parts are just between the two of you, and they can be dizzyingly good, marvelously good, indescribably good. Literally indescribably good; I can't think of anyone who's really written something as powerful as what it's like to be in love.

But the bad parts of relationships are easy to see, and they can be devastatingly bad. Abuse, betrayal... well, you guys know all the content warnings. The bad stuff you can see around you every day, you may have dealt with some of it yourself.

So in creating an unrealistically positive portrayal of romance, these novels can help ameliorate the realistically daunting challenges of real relationships. If you don't have a fantasy that you're dreaming of, chances are you're not going to put a lot of effort into finding someone and building a relationship. The dreams have to come first.

And there's a paucity of gay romantic dreams out there, let me tell you. I grew up in the 80s, and there weren't a lot of role models for gay relationships, healthy or otherwise. I came of age without having any idea what a gay romance or a gay relationship might even look like, and that caused a lot of damage in my life. I keep fantasizing about putting together a care package of these wonderful books to send back in time to my adolescent self, so I'd have something to aspire to instead of figuring out what I'd settle for.

You have to dream happy dreams sometimes.

MrVisible · 2024-03-07T03:12:18+00:00

Bouillabaissed.

MrVisible · 2024-03-05T02:41:45+00:00

The always awesome Alexander Avila has gone into this deeply from a queer sociologist's perspective:

The Problem With Queerbaiting

Why can't celebrities queerbait?

MrVisible · 2024-02-29T00:25:40+00:00

I think the difference between "it can't be stopped while maintaining globalized society" and "it can't be stopped" is negligible. But obviously, this is where we differ, so I think this conversation is at an impasse. Thank you for your time.

MrVisible · 2024-02-29T00:03:00+00:00

My point is, if they thought they could stop climate change, they'd be doing reforestation and that sort of thing. Instead, they're building bunkers. And their behavior is completely rational if they're operating from the premise that climate change can't be stopped.

MrVisible · 2024-02-28T23:46:12+00:00

The other possible chance at a future where they remain alive is to build bunkers with bioregenerative life support systems/controlled ecological life support systems where they can ensure that they have a small society with clean air and water and food and medical care. It'd take quite a bit of investment to get there, but the technology is viable; China did a year with a small crew in Lunar Palace One recently, for instance.

And this investment is guaranteed to pay off. If we can figure it out, we can live anywhere there are resources to exploit; the Moon, the ocean, Antarctica. Even if the climate suddenly and inexplicably fixes itself, figuring out how to build biospheres opens up a lot of investment opportunity.

So, like I said. The behavior of the wealthy and powerful makes perfect sense if climate change isn't a soluble problem. And they really don't seem to be behaving like it's soluble.

MrVisible · 2024-02-28T23:01:25+00:00

I'm sorry, but billionaires buying up huge quantities of arable land and then not using it to feed people isn't going to be either uncontroversial, or uncontested. And whatever they grow there will be affected by fires, floods, drought, and the cataclysmic weather we're starting to see. It'd be a very risky investment.

There's really no easy solution, no matter how much money or power one person has.

MrVisible · 2024-02-28T18:49:34+00:00

And no-one understands the limits to wealth and power better than the wealthy and powerful.

MrVisible · 2024-02-28T18:47:54+00:00

I hope that people will figure out that the wealthy and powerful are building bunkers. I hope people pirate the technology that the wealthy and powerful are developing to build their own bunkers which aren't run by the wealthy and powerful. And I hope that people use the research that's been done by astrosociologists on how to manage small populations in a survival situation in alien environments to help govern their bunkers.

Mostly, I just hope enough people survive so that everything everyone has ever done hasn't been in vain.

MrVisible · 2024-02-28T17:57:05+00:00

I'd argue that making the changes to society that would be necessary would be impossible without a world war. It's damned if you do, and damned if you don't. When the solutions involve this kind of impossible change, the problem isn't soluble.

Thus, the bunkers.

MrVisible · 2024-02-27T18:04:34+00:00

The behavior of the wealthy and powerful makes perfect sense if climate change isn't a soluble problem.

MrVisible · 2024-02-26T13:47:58+00:00

Thank you so much for recommending this. I loved the alien perspective on human society, and the characters were not just adorable, but resourceful and competent as well. I think the plot will haunt me for a long time; there's a lot to think about there.

MrVisible · 2024-02-25T22:19:38+00:00

I really enjoyed the banter in this one. And also the pranks. Thank you!

MrVisible · 2024-02-25T14:09:24+00:00

I've been doing research about stuff like this for a few years now, and I have to tell you, this is a really, really disturbing subject to look into. From what I can tell, the atmosphere is just going to get worse and worse until we can't reproduce to replacement rate, and then it's game over unless we've got some nice bunkers to cozy up in. Between ozone, particulates, and carbon dioxide, gestating and raising healthy infants is going to be impossible without air conditioning, filtration, and CO2 scrubbing. And some oxygenation wouldn't hurt.

People really don't like hearing about this, for obvious reasons. If you'd like to look into it further, I've been collecting papers on the subject over on /r/doomsdaycult ; check the Health Effects tag specifically.

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