This post treats the constant stream of "new public intellectuals" as some kind of organic, natural phenomenon. It's not, these people reach the top of your YouTube feed because someone wants them there. There's nothing organic about Eric Weinstein or Lex Fridman.
People on this site are quick to call something "enshittification" when there are some obvious cash-grabs by megacorps, but are reluctant to admit that the algorithm feeding you content is manipulating you in a similar way.
> And take note when one doesn’t fall, study them the hardest.
I did, and they subsequently got banned from every social network, and even their website isn't linkable from Facebook or X or YouTube.
There's nothing organic about Eric Weinstein or Lex Fridman.
Do we know how this was done before? Let’s say you are a hit broadcast network, and you have these new hit shows called Friends and Family Matters. What’s your plan as a broadcast company now?
Should the TV company organically wait to see what kind of TV shows audiences want to see? Or should they create 10 shows that copy Friends and Family Matters, each targeting a different demo (you know, like black people, or women).
So, if you want to build a loose network of content creators, with your fulcrum being like a Rogan for the general demographic, with a contrived character like a Friedman being the “nerd”. So the loop here is you cast a wide net with Rogan, then niche them down to your Jocko’s, Friedman’s, etc.
Rogan doesn’t disclose when he does Ad drops anymore either. So he’s a really bad actor at this point.
Like yeah Joe, you just talked about McDonalds for 10 minutes for free again on an episode with 10 million listeners huh? Oh, talking about the latest movie in theaters again? As if that’s not a 5 minute ‘hey McDonald’s, we can leave this 7 minutes in about how your Coca Cola tastes better than regular Coca Cola, or we can just edit it out. I’m sorry? Did we say edit out? What we meant was, how about like 30 million for 6 month campaign? No? Okay, see ya. No, we never recorded anything about McDonald’s soda tasting better.
What makes you think Eric and Lex are not organic? Certainly both are well connected, but do you really think someone at youtube tapped them to be famous?
Idk where the line between organic and inorganic is, but I highly doubt youtube sat down in a meeti g with Lex and said "youve been chosen, were gonna blow your channel up"
We know that Youtube can put their fingers on the scales of their algorithm, and that they do. It's probably a single variable like `multiplier` in their hotness formula that is a default of 1.00. Lex Fridman gets insane reach beyond the quality or popularity of his content.
But it's not about a single person. It's that these midwit pseudointellectuals (Peterson, Weinstein) can constantly get churned through the top of the algorithm. People like the guy who wrote this initial post, in turn, think that there are no political discussions going on deeper than dumbed down, often misused regurgitated political philosophy from much smarter thinkers of the past.
It really seems like Lex Fridman was boosted as a "safe Joe Rogan", a stoner/intellectual/macho podcaster guy, but one who won't lead his audiences into conspiracy theory territory. Or maybe it just seems that way to me because Lex obviously idolizes Joe Rogan and either smokes too much weed before his interviews or acts as if he does.
I really can't wrap my mind around how he managed to get so many high profile guests so fast, except to guess that his father's connections had a lot to do with it. Every part of his meteoric rise seems inorganic to me.
Lex started out as an AI guy if I'm not mistaken.
Also - as an aside - he is legitimately one of the worst interviewers of all time. He is so insanely bad at asking good questions. but he has really interesting people on his show so it doesn't matter.
Why not? Sans the actual sitting down with the person, that seems entirely unnecessary.
We know the reverse is definitely true, people actually do get deplatformed, so why is it unreasonable to think at least some winners have been picked?
What do you think they do with the stolen cars, just keep them for themselves and use them to commute to their day job? The fences buying the cars (or ones leading the crime rings) sure have money.
Why isn't it the city's responsibility to prevent criminals from being able to commit crime? There are plenty of cities in the world with less than 1% of the car theft rate of these cities suing. It's hilarious to blame an auto manufacturer for a rampant crime problem.
> The safest business decision would be to remain neutral, respond to law enforcement requests if presented with one, and otherwise do the job you're paid to do.
Have you considered that it might not be about money? What if the decision-makers and operators of Hurricane Electric just have certain people they just want to censor, and use their position to do it at the expense of money. Money is just a means to the end, and if they're getting to that end by foregoing money in business rather than spending it, that seems logical enough to me.
And if the government is ideologically aligned with the operators of the company, you won't find any protection from them. And in many cases it's just the government and large companies working hand-in-glove to get to their ends. Some political outsiders threatening your political monopoly? Pull some strings and have their social media accounts removed and banking taken away; but there's no recourse since "muh private company" even though they're getting direct orders from government officials.
So a good reason to be on the side of "free political speech" is that we don't want the people with the most money controlling what we can and can't say, and we don't want the government to have free reign to shut down criticism or challenges.
I want to propose a way it can be both money and ideology.
Let’s say you were the governor of a very large state. You have a ton of influence if not sold discredtion on how your state’s $500 billion pension fund is invested. You are an ideologue puppet put in place by people desperately trying to reset the world in their image.
Now… let’s the banks and companies don’t care about your cause - but you have disproportionate sway over them. It can be about money if that is your leverage.
If they choose not to host a platform that they don't like, isn't that free speech? Ironically, appealing to authority to enforce an internet service provider to provide speech they don't want to transmit seems like an imposition on a private entity operating freely.
> Ironically, appealing to authority to enforce an internet service provider to provide speech they don't want to transmit seems like an imposition on a private entity operating freely.
They get to make that choice when I get more than 0-1 alternative choices on which ISP I can use the access the internet in my area.
Until then, saying their actions are "free speech" isn't too different from the days before water and electricity were owned by private corporations. I strongly believe primary ISP tubes should be a public service instead of owned by private corporate interests.
This isn't a consumer ISP like Comcast where there's an effective monopoly over the underlying physical infrastructure. Hurricane Electric is a wholesale IP transit provider. Any datacenter worth its salt is going to have several independent IP transit providers on-site, competing for your business.
People on this site are quick to call something "enshittification" when there are some obvious cash-grabs by megacorps, but are reluctant to admit that the algorithm feeding you content is manipulating you in a similar way.
> And take note when one doesn’t fall, study them the hardest.
I did, and they subsequently got banned from every social network, and even their website isn't linkable from Facebook or X or YouTube.