収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

I’m hanging out on YouTube live coverage of Hurricane Milton. One of them – a local station – has the chat window running.

It is a continuous, non-stop stream of disinformation. There’s literally nothing else in it. It’s a flood of lies calling the storm fake, calling the tornados fake, calling the tornado damage fake, calling everyone on screen paid actors, and belching out misogynist commentary whenever a woman is on screen.

Meanwhile, over on Twitter:

While they’re of a kind, the difference between these two things – YouTube livestream comments sections and “X” – is real. Most people know not to look at chat, not to open the comments. A local TV station left them open, and the bots flooded in. Normal. Ish.

Elon Musk’s “X” – né Twitter” – though… Elon’s pushing this into timelines. Intentionally. By design. He’s doing it himself, and leveraging “X” to do it.

And you have to understand, as I’ve said ever so many times – this is why Elon Musk bought Twitter.

The most important task of fascism – of any formal authoritarianism, really – is to create the reality the fascists demand. To get to their words equal the law – and not just the law of books, but the law of reality. And to get to that point, you have to break the idea of an actual reality. You must break the idea of actual, knowable truth.

In the extremis, it’s nonsense like this. There’s a lie floating around that says not only was the hurricane created by Democrats, it was done so in order specifically to target Asheville, NC, to kill as many people as possible to let “them” seize lands for lithium mining. Representative Greene – the “Jewish space lasers” lady – pushed this herself yesterday, somewhat famously.

This lie ties “the plot” into electrification, thus targeting electrification and the fight against climate change. I’m sure the oil company executives were very pleased.

At lesser levels, it’s Trump’s lies that the Federal government hasn’t shown up, that the Federal government is seizing property en masse, that FEMA hurricane recovery money is being spent “on migrants,” lies that people are getting minimal or no support, that people and towns are being deliberately abandoned to throw the election to Harris.

There are acres of fake pictures – the fake girl with fake puppy variants, the already-infamous “Trump helping the recovery” team fake photo.

It’s all – all of it – to make reality as unknowable as possible, to overwhelm people so completely they look for the simplest answers. These will, naturally, align with their political leanings, whether people want to admit it or not.

It’s what Orban does, it’s what Putin does, it’s what Stalin did, it’s what Hitler did. Lie, and lie, and lie, and lie, flooding the zone with shit – as my favourite jailbird Steve Bannon liked to call it – until most people no longer even know which way is up.

Then give them easy answers that blame someone, hook ’em, and reel them in.

And all of that – all of that – is what X is for.

You want to see into the MAGA future? It’s a raw “X” recommended feed. It’s fascism, racism, misogyny. It’s an unending torrent of unknowable, unlimited, all-pervasive fear, without trust, without compassion, about subservience to your “betters” and continuous politics to maintain your point in the pecking order.

It’s about them ruling, and you being ruled.

And they’re turning all these lies, all this disinformation, all this torrent of shit up and up through the election and through the inauguration, most likely, no matter who wins.

You’re seeing it in action. “X” will not change with Elon Musk at the helm. As long as people are staying on “X,” they’re cooperating. As long as people are posting on “X,” no matter what they post, they’re contributing.

All while Elon Musk is actively working to make literally everything worse as part of his broad attempt to tip the United States into Trumpian autocracy, where people like him will rule, and rule with an iron fist.

That’s what Twitter is for.

So be the beacon. Be the truth. Drag people off the X-site, drag people away from the lie fountain, the propaganda and fascist disinformation machine. Use the emotional connections you have with people where you can, how you can, to pull them back into the daylight of actual reality.

That’s what has to happen, one way or another.

Get out there, team. Kick some ass.

26 days remain.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.