Thanks, Zac. ... I'm curious, though, do you really still like Twitter, as it is today? My experience took a nosedive around the beginning of November.
I have issues with SpaceX too, although not at the same level.
Twitter seems to have gotten worse since the Musk takeover. But I had cultivated a feed that I found compelling, and it’s still more compelling than my Mastodon feed, even though things have declined.
Interesting. It took me about a month of building up my Mastodon feed, through a combination of migrating former Twitter follows and actively seeking new people, until I felt the inverse was true for me. There are a few specific holdouts I miss, but those are more than compensated for by the lack of algorithmic bullshit and ads.
Thank you for the really wonderful essay. I agree that there is a LOT of harm done by defining "intelligence" so narrowly and rewarding such a small slice of the characteristics that make for happy and successful human beings.
Hello, this is Scraps. You might think that I would find this essay Very Interesting, and if so, you would be right.
Also very hard to process, ten minutes out. I'm impressed with your bald, critical self-examination through the haze of awful brain injuries. (I hope that doesn't come off as condescending; I mean it.) I don't know if you've tracked any of my life in the last twenty+ years, but I have had a similar Exploding Brain life. Cheers, anyway.
Hi Scraps. I did hear many years ago about your stroke, and I'm sorry that happened to you. Beyond that, I'm pretty out of the loop.
It's unclear to me whether you meant 'awful brain injuries' to refer to autism as well, but just in case, let me clarify -- autism is not an injury and I don't think it's inherently awful. It is a significant disability in our current society, but there are a lot of things about being autistic that I actually quite like.
It was pretty 🤯 when I figured it out, though -- a cascade of understanding my entire life in a different way. Have you had that kind of experience?
Yes, that was a right bad way to put it. Sorry. I'm sometimes bad at putting things the way I would like, unfortunately. Since my stroke, my communicative life has been compromised. At first completely -- I knew what I wanted to say, but my brain didn't form words. (This led me to firmly believe that thoughts came first, words second.) It's still like that; I hesitate, both speaking and writing, and I'm frustrated, especially I can't come up with the specific word, which I =know=, but my mind can't grasp it. It's sorry-making, if I let it, because I used to be very good at writing on-the-fly. That's gone. (Boo-hoo! Of course, it was a gift, and I always knew that. Like the gift of spelling: I had that, but I never felt smug about that, because I never worked at it. Now -- and this is weird -- sometimes I can't get the correct spelling of the word, =but= I always know it's spelled wrong. So I dick around at several spellings of the word and I finally get it right without looking it up.
Anyway, that's just one or two things that my fucked-up brain is like. I'm disabled, living in a disabled-people house.
I don't know if I brought it up when I talked with you, but I was intrigued by autism, had read Temple Grandin, etc, so I'm embarrassed that I used 'awful brain injuries' when describe carelessly your history. I know autism is not an injury or not necessarily awful. That's my not-good expression. I haven't had an autism-related (or asperger's, etc) as far as I know; but maybe I've had 'that kind of experience', because the stroke -- but a brain scientist might shake her head, so, I dunno. I also have experienced constant pain (in my whole body) that keeps me distracted. (Oh, that.)
I wish there were a way to like Twitter and SpaceX without supporting Musk.
I really enjoyed reading this.
Thanks, Zac. ... I'm curious, though, do you really still like Twitter, as it is today? My experience took a nosedive around the beginning of November.
I have issues with SpaceX too, although not at the same level.
Twitter seems to have gotten worse since the Musk takeover. But I had cultivated a feed that I found compelling, and it’s still more compelling than my Mastodon feed, even though things have declined.
Interesting. It took me about a month of building up my Mastodon feed, through a combination of migrating former Twitter follows and actively seeking new people, until I felt the inverse was true for me. There are a few specific holdouts I miss, but those are more than compensated for by the lack of algorithmic bullshit and ads.
Thank you for the really wonderful essay. I agree that there is a LOT of harm done by defining "intelligence" so narrowly and rewarding such a small slice of the characteristics that make for happy and successful human beings.
Hello, this is Scraps. You might think that I would find this essay Very Interesting, and if so, you would be right.
Also very hard to process, ten minutes out. I'm impressed with your bald, critical self-examination through the haze of awful brain injuries. (I hope that doesn't come off as condescending; I mean it.) I don't know if you've tracked any of my life in the last twenty+ years, but I have had a similar Exploding Brain life. Cheers, anyway.
Hi Scraps. I did hear many years ago about your stroke, and I'm sorry that happened to you. Beyond that, I'm pretty out of the loop.
It's unclear to me whether you meant 'awful brain injuries' to refer to autism as well, but just in case, let me clarify -- autism is not an injury and I don't think it's inherently awful. It is a significant disability in our current society, but there are a lot of things about being autistic that I actually quite like.
It was pretty 🤯 when I figured it out, though -- a cascade of understanding my entire life in a different way. Have you had that kind of experience?
Yes, that was a right bad way to put it. Sorry. I'm sometimes bad at putting things the way I would like, unfortunately. Since my stroke, my communicative life has been compromised. At first completely -- I knew what I wanted to say, but my brain didn't form words. (This led me to firmly believe that thoughts came first, words second.) It's still like that; I hesitate, both speaking and writing, and I'm frustrated, especially I can't come up with the specific word, which I =know=, but my mind can't grasp it. It's sorry-making, if I let it, because I used to be very good at writing on-the-fly. That's gone. (Boo-hoo! Of course, it was a gift, and I always knew that. Like the gift of spelling: I had that, but I never felt smug about that, because I never worked at it. Now -- and this is weird -- sometimes I can't get the correct spelling of the word, =but= I always know it's spelled wrong. So I dick around at several spellings of the word and I finally get it right without looking it up.
Anyway, that's just one or two things that my fucked-up brain is like. I'm disabled, living in a disabled-people house.
I don't know if I brought it up when I talked with you, but I was intrigued by autism, had read Temple Grandin, etc, so I'm embarrassed that I used 'awful brain injuries' when describe carelessly your history. I know autism is not an injury or not necessarily awful. That's my not-good expression. I haven't had an autism-related (or asperger's, etc) as far as I know; but maybe I've had 'that kind of experience', because the stroke -- but a brain scientist might shake her head, so, I dunno. I also have experienced constant pain (in my whole body) that keeps me distracted. (Oh, that.)
Thanks for writing. Cheers.