I legitimately believe "silicon valley" would do us all good if they'd just respond (entirely within their legal right when talking about content on their platforms!!) "uhhh actually yeah we can. bye bitch"
I had a very lengthy and mostly reasonable conversation with (generally conservative leaning) siblings a few weeks ago that was particularly illuminating, personally. when I brought up that capitalism's property rights pretty clearly indicate that privately-owned platforms are completely free to be modified by their owners however they wish, they were... confused.... bringing up "letters" sent by "senators" to "Twitter and Facebook" which led to "bans." when I responded by insisting that hypothetical would also not only be entirely within the law, but a pretty classic practice in American capitalism, they responded "that's not right."
separately but with the same assumptions, they really got angry with me when I insisted that private businesses have every right to require potential new employees be vaccinated before they onboard, and that their business incentive (customer safety) actually represented a great example to cite in an argument for the free market's positive societal outcomes, they were just like no, it's socialist.
I guess I realized all at once that the right's basic assumptions about what Capitalism is/was ~~have been~~ are fucked. which is annoying.
while I feel this is definitely reflected now, I have some trouble with has always been. I've been thinking a lot about my late stepfather (who died in 2014.) he was very much a card-carrying Republican who spent most of his career working in management/consulting for big oil companies, but (as I remember him, anyway,) he spent a lot of time looking for new perspectives and was genuinely curious/a good listener.
specifically, I watched him go through what was for him a very arduous process in accepting climate change as a consequence largely of the industry he put so much of himself in. like... painful. I would come home after school and he would pop out of his office and bring up el nino... I'm sure basically his entire social circle was assaulting him both directly and indirectly with denial in all its oughts forms... but he never condemned anyone or refused to listen to anything. the facts truly bothered him and he chose to face them. he finally gave in around 2012-13 and was relatively vocal about it.
I wonder what he would have to say to his party every day now, basically.
(apologies for the verbosity I guess most of this wasn't entirely relevant lol.... it's becoming clear to me that I should be writing about him elsewhere.)
I swear there was more dignity there at some definitive point in the past... maybe not.