Twitter is a Private Company

I'll admit to being in the category of people who have serious reservations about Amazon yet find it has become too entwined into daily life to cut it out. If I scope it down to "how can I help promote competition" rather than "how can I withdraw my support from Amazon," though, it's a bit more tractable, with some concrete and achievable actions.

For books, a couple of options I've successfully been making more use of in recent years are:

- the local library. West Orange, and I'm guessing South Orange and Maplewood as well, belong to the BCCLS library system, and I've had good success requesting books online and then picking up at the local library

- If buying, I try to buy local and independent. Words bookstore offers online shopping, for instance, and I also am partial to Powell's.

paulsurovell said:

Smedley said:

drummerboy said:

Smedley said:

This is a good piece that captures the dilemma (or lack thereof) of musk-hating Twitter users.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/sunday/amazon-boycott.amp.html

Making sound analogies is an important part of critical thinking.

This is unsound. Unsound.

uh, we're gonna need a little more than that. Mmmkay?

I have to take @drummerboy's side here. This is one of his most profound rebuttals. He actually said "unsound" twice. Do you really want him to say "unsound" three times? This could go on forever . . .

Apocalypse Now reference.

sheesh

DaveSchmidt said:

Smedley said:

I think it's so analogous that if the column were written today, Twitter and Elon Musk would probably be the first company mentioned.

The column is about the difficulty of boycotting things we like. Twitter is about the difficulty of boycotting a service we think we need to inform or to be informed.

as ml1 would say: meh

drummerboy said:

paulsurovell said:

Smedley said:

drummerboy said:

Making sound analogies is an important part of critical thinking.

This is unsound. Unsound.

uh, we're gonna need a little more than that. Mmmkay?

I have to take @drummerboy's side here. This is one of his most profound rebuttals. He actually said "unsound" twice. Do you really want him to say "unsound" three times? This could go on forever . . .

Apocalypse Now reference.

sheesh

Good thing you didn't say, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning", because that would have taken up a page and a half as they explained to you that you meant it literally.

"Being woke" was discussed on this thread.

Those Who Decide These Things say that environmentalism is "woke", fyi. 

Add "field" to the endangered word list.

https://nypost.com/2023/01/11/usc-will-no-longer-use-the-word-field-over-racist-origin/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow

Smedley said:

Add "field" to the endangered word list.

https://nypost.com/2023/01/11/usc-will-no-longer-use-the-word-field-over-racist-origin/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow

I really have no opinion on the claimed language change. I find the story interesting in the dynamics within conservative media it illustrates, though.

The NY Post article says "The department specifically decided to remove the word “field” from its curriculum and replace it with “practicum,” according to the letter, which was dated Jan. 9 and shared to Twitter.". The link, though, goes not to the USC twitter account, but to the account of someone named David Houman, who shared a screenshot of the letter and said "Today, @uscsocialwork sent out this letter announcing that they will no longer use the word “field” (as in “conducting field work”) because it’s perceived as racist. Is this with merit or empty virtue signaling? @elonmusk@IngrahamAngle"

I couldn't find that letter on the USC social work twitter account, nor on their website. Maybe it's genuine or not, I couldn't say, but it's certainly not prominent.

All of which is to say, this really looks like people going out of their way to find something to be outraged over, and then trying to amplify that outrage.

I guess this is useful and/or profitable to someone (well, the @IngrahmAngle does have this sort of thing as its business model, so definitely a profit angle there). Personally, I think it's just another example of how social media is stupid and even deleterious to society as a whole. Existed before Musk, of course, but he's certainly not part of any solution to improving things (unless, of course, one believes the problem with social media is insufficient stupid culture war nonsense).

USC Comms office has been at work for 2.75 hours and still haven't managed to formulate a statement confirming or denying this memo, which isn't a good look. Hard to say what my department would be doing right now in this situation, but I feel bad for them. The memo is probably real, as Houman Hemmati is an Adjunct Professor at USC, and if it was a fake it would be very easy to put a statement out to say so.

But in the real world, this is a nothing burger. 

Well I think it's pretty ridiculous, and from that perspective it's a good sign that USC doesn't seem keen on putting out a press release and doing the morning talk show rounds, because maybe even they're embarrassed about it. So maybe the pushback on excessive 'wokeness' plays a useful role in society after all.

ridski said:

USC Comms office has been at work for 2.75 hours and still haven't managed to formulate a statement confirming or denying this memo, which isn't a good look. Hard to say what my department would be doing right now in this situation, but I feel bad for them. The memo is probably real, as Houman Hemmati is an Adjunct Professor at USC, and if it was a fake it would be very easy to put a statement out to say so.

But in the real world, this is a nothing burger. 

Eh -- whether authentic or not is largely beside the point for those sharing the story. Otherwise, they would have linked to the actual memo itself. So yeah, likely authentic, but also clearly not of concern for all the people sharing this whose primary goal is seeking out and amplifying outrage.

this is one of those issues that is really of no importance to anyone outside of USC. Whether that school uses "field" or "practicum" is essentially irrelevant to anyone else. 

seriously, who cares?

But what do we do 

with other words 

that contain "field"?  

Such as, but not

limited to, the following:

afield

infield

outfield

fielder

midfield

hayfield

airfield

leftfield

brownfield

RealityForAll said:

But what do we do 

with other words 

that contain "field"?  

Such as, but not

limited to, the following:

afield

infield

outfield

fielder

midfield

hayfield

airfield

field

brownfield

I don't know. Are you a social worker training at USC?

RealityForAll said:

But what do we do

with other words

that contain "field"?

Nothing, even if we are part of the USC School of Social Work. That’s because the reported policy applies to “field” when it’s synonymous with “practicum” — that is, an area of toil or study.

DaveSchmidt said:

RealityForAll said:

But what do we do

with other words

that contain "field"?

Nothing, even if we are part of the USC School of Social Work. That’s because the reported policy applies to “field” when it’s synonymous with “practicum” — that is, an area of toil or study.

I mean, considering it's obvious from the memo that it refers to the portion of study where students take the theoretical work they've learned in the classroom and go out into the real world to learn how it applies, "practicum" is a perfectly cromulent word. It's "supervised practical application of previously studied theory", not a plot of land.

You did read the memo RFA, right?

RealityForAll said:

But what do we do 

with other words 

that contain "field"?  

Such as, but not

limited to, the following:

afield

infield

outfield

fielder

midfield

hayfield

airfield

leftfield

brownfield

Since the article indicates that they weren't using it for phrases such as "field work" or "out in the field", then you don't have to worry about anything in your list.

Link:  https://mobile.twitter.com/houmanhemmati/status/1612635584539033603

In general I'm in favor of changing language to take into account modern sensibilities, but this really looks like a stretch.

Nowhere in that memo does it say they're replacing "field" in general usage. It says they're replacing it in the curriculum and in practice, and gives two practical examples of the type of usage that will be replaced. This is such long a stretch even my dog would be impressed by it.

nohero said:

RealityForAll said:

But what do we do 

with other words 

that contain "field"?  

Such as, but not

limited to, the following:

afield

infield

outfield

fielder

midfield

hayfield

airfield

leftfield

brownfield

Since the article indicates that they weren't using it for phrases such as "field work" or "out in the field", then you don't have to worry about anything in your list.

I believe the fourth sentence of the first paragraph of the USC memo is contrary to your assertion that "they weren't using it for phrases such as "field work" or "out in the field."

RealityForAll said:

I believe the fourth sentence of the first paragraph of the USC memo is contrary to your assertion that "they weren't using it for phrases such as "field work" or "out in the field."

No, the sentence says they're not going to use those phrases any more, which is what I said.  The words in your list have nothing to do with what they said they were changing.

nohero said:

RealityForAll said:

I believe the fourth sentence of the first paragraph of the USC memo is contrary to your assertion that "they weren't using it for phrases such as "field work" or "out in the field."

No, the sentence says they're not going to use those phrases any more, which is what I said.  The words in your list have nothing to do with what they said they were changing.

To be fair, that use of "weren't" confused me, too.

ridski said:

nohero said:

RealityForAll said:

I believe the fourth sentence of the first paragraph of the USC memo is contrary to your assertion that "they weren't using it for phrases such as "field work" or "out in the field."

No, the sentence says they're not going to use those phrases any more, which is what I said. The words in your list have nothing to do with what they said they were changing.

To be fair, that use of "weren't" confused me, too.

Ditto. But rather than credit nohero’s track record and, after brushing myself off from stumbling over the past tense, give his comment a little more thought, I like RFA’s reliable alternative: Put Gordian effort into making a granny knot.

When I see these sort of stories I just think there are a lot of people out there who would probably benefit from taking up a hobby. Anything that can occupy the brain space they're using to care about what words USC is using to describe an academic discipline. 

ml1 said:

When I see these sort of stories I just think there are a lot of people out there who would probably benefit from taking up a hobby. Anything that can occupy the brain space they're using to care about what words USC is using to describe an academic discipline. 

Agreed, but I'll also further highlight what I pointed out earlier -- that this didn't just accidentally come up, but was actively sought and and pushed by people and institutions with a profit motive to do so. The NY Post wrote a story sourced on a tweet that was making an effort to drum up outrage.

I'll agree that most readers of the NY Post would be better served spending their time fishing or working on model trains or just about anything else, but these outrage incidents aren't just floating into the public consciousness on their own.

If it makes you "I'm not not a right winger"'s feel better, I saw the trailer for HBO MAX's new Velma show trailer and it looks horrendous. It's 2.34 minutes of "woke stuff", and I only laughed twice. And both of those times were right at the end. So ...

PVW said:

ml1 said:

When I see these sort of stories I just think there are a lot of people out there who would probably benefit from taking up a hobby. Anything that can occupy the brain space they're using to care about what words USC is using to describe an academic discipline. 

Agreed, but I'll also further highlight what I pointed out earlier -- that this didn't just accidentally come up, but was actively sought and and pushed by people and institutions with a profit motive to do so. The NY Post wrote a story sourced on a tweet that was making an effort to drum up outrage.

I'll agree that most readers of the NY Post would be better served spending their time fishing or working on model trains or just about anything else, but these outrage incidents aren't just floating into the public consciousness on their own.

yes. There is a whole industry based on riling people up over trivial stuff. The "War on Christmas" was probably the worst, most idiotic version of phony outrage. The war on "wokeness" is just as stupid, and many of the same suckers in the audience fall for it.

There are people who get worked up about "wokeness", and there are also those who apparently believe there can never be too much wokeness and get worked up about any pushback on wokeness. On this board at least, I see more lather from the second group.     

ml1 said:

yes. There is a whole industry based on riling people up over trivial stuff. The "War on Christmas" was probably the worst, most idiotic version of phony outrage. The war on "wokeness" is just as stupid, and many of the same suckers in the audience fall for it.

I remember in the 1980s UK tabloids would rail against the "loony left" for deciding to change blackboards to chalkboards.