Why Twitter matters... maybe
All it takes is 15% for a viral effect
Purpose of newsletter: The genesis of this newsletter came from several discussions over the years with my students, neighbors, friends and family members asking me one main question - where do I go for reliable sources and information? This is such a difficult question because I do not know of one place that might have everything one needs like a Walmart (or Target, if you prefer). Then, I spend the next 10 minutes trying to explain why or what I try to do to find reliable sources and stay informed. I will skip the boring 10 minute talk and just give you the highlights. Therefore, my purpose for this newsletter to you is to-
Highlight some current events
Give links to the sources
Explain why I find them helpful or interesting
My Dear Friend: The style of this newsletter is more like a letter correspondence to a dear friend. The inspiration for this came from a 19th century French economist, Frederic Bastiat, who had a close intellectual friendship with his neighbor, Felix Coudroy. They were opposites, ideologically, but worked well together as sounding boards for their different theories and ideas. Bastiat’s letters would begin, “My dear Felix”1. It is with this idea that these letters are written to dear friends who might not share the same ideologies as me, but my dear friends still inspire me to look at these topics from all angles.
My goal is to give you ideas and not to overwhelm with a bunch of stuff to read. Maybe you might find one thing in this newsletter that might be worth reading on your own. So, let’s get right to it.
Why does Elon Musk buying Twitter matter?
News: Elon Musk buys Twitter for $44 billion and will take it private. Some believe Musk decided to do this because Twitter banned a satire website (The Babylon Bee) for a tweet. Regardless if this is the actual reason, Musk has explained his reasons for buying Twitter in this tweet (notice the number of “likes”!)
Some reactions:
Distress on “the left” - These are all the ways Elon Musk could ruin Twitter for trans people
Jubilation on “the right” - Elon Musk is good for Twitter, journalism - and democracy (note - you will see far more articles about this being bad for democracy)
My favorite take:
Smart, practical, and clearly explained - How Elon Musk Can Liberate Twitter - (WSJ article behind a paywall, but I highly recommend subscribing)
Vivek Ramaswamy is one of the authors who has practical experience running a company and dealing with progressive activists within a company.2
Progressive activists = view that companies should make decisions based on the impact to “stakeholders”, or the people that might be impacted in the community by the companies product, etc.
Free market capitalism = view best defined by American economist, Milton Friedman, that companies should make decisions based on profits because of the vested interest of their “shareholders”, or people who directly put their own money into the company.
Stakeholder vs. Shareholder: This seems, to me, to be the main battle that has accelerated the “culture wars” (different social groups competing to have their values dominate). The “Stakeholder” view pushes companies to invest in values like social justice as their end goal. The “Shareholder” view pushes companies to drive for higher profits which does not involve social justice because that has never been profitable, until now.
How is “social justice” profitable?
Woke, Inc., by Vivek Ramaswamy, does a great job in answering that question.
The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy, by Christopher Leonard, holds the answer for me. In short, the FED pumped so much money into stocks that there has been a surplus of money since quantitative easing began under Ben Bernanke in 2011. When we have lots of easy, cheap and unearned money, we tend to not really respect it or use it wisely.3
The Big Question… what happens when (or if) social justice is no longer profitable for companies? The future is very hard to predict, but I am watching three things for answers.
If there is an asset bubble burst, will companies lower their social justice flags and focus on staying in business?
If inflation and interest rates continue to rise, will more public companies go private because of money?
With Musk taking Twitter private, will Twitter continue to focus on censoring ideas that hurt left leaning political and social justice agendas?
Twitter matters if it reaches the 15% viral effect
The “15% Viral Effect” is my own terminology that comes from something I read by a former CIA analyst, Martin Gurri, called The Revolt of the Public. Gurri explains the importance of the “awareness threshold” when it comes to setting agendas. This is when an idea hits a certain amount of awareness that it becomes “infected” into the network that allows it to go viral. It was estimated that message needs to infect only 15% of the network before it takes off.4
Here are some examples that I consider reaching the “15% Viral Effect” -
Progressive Activists are only 8% of Americans yet they set the political agenda5
“5 percent of the criminal offenders (not 5 percent of the general population) in a given city commit about 50 percent of that city’s violent crime.”6
Obviously these are not the exact number of 15%, but the number symbolizes that the viral effect threshold to cross is a small number even though the effect feels overwhelming and of the majority. In reality, we are feeling the momentum of a minority that could lead to a madness of crowds.
If Musk stems the tide of political and social censorship and focuses more on shareholders, will this create more momentum for other companies to follow? If so, will this have the effect of slowing down the culture wars so we can all breathe for a little bit? That is my hope, and I have turned this supposed newsletter of highlights into a boring 10 minute monologue. My apologies.
Sincerely,
Me
Dean Russell, Frederic Bastiat: Ideas and Influence, 1969, p. 23.
He has written a fantastic book on “Woke” ideology in corporate America properly titled, Woke, Inc. He explains the movement and the laws with the novice reader in mind.
The “wolf of wall street” made this point while at an extravagant party in this fascinating book - Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World, by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope.
Martin Gurri, The Revolt of the Public, 2018, p. 53.
This comes from one of my favorite substacks that I subscribe to, The Upheaval.
John M. MacDonald, Thomas Hogan, Concentrating on Crime, The City Journal Magazine, September 28, 2021