We're in Seattle. I went to go pick up my script from the local Walgreens. When we stepped out of the Uber, we were greeted with a freshly-shattered window and a freshly-closed Walgreens.
It's one thing to know "unrest is happening" in the abstract, but it's quite another to see it in person. So we walked through the business district and snapped some photos.
Business after business was boarded up, sometimes literally, sometimes with whatever they could use. Chairs, or shopping carts, for example.
More than that, the whole district had a remarkably different feel. Just a few months ago, it was humming and bustling with the usual energy of a semi-big city. Now it's like people are preparing for... well, nothing good.
I'm not sure there's another platform where you can tell a story like this, is there? Not with photos and text, anyway. Sure, I could put up a website and call it "My stroll through Seattle," but why? I suppose Imgur would work, but it doesn't really feel like a community to me. On Twitter you get a few "Be safe!" shoutouts from the people you know, at least.
I guess my point here is that Twitter doesn't need to be read-only. Go participate! You don't even have to post anything noteworthy.
The platform has also helped change my mind about some things. For example, it helps to consider the situation from the point of view of someone who's afraid to call 911. I was pretty far in the camp of "Let the police do their jobs" before this was pointed out.
A lot of VCs do good work on Twitter too. For example, Patrick Collison is starting to gather some info about which organizations might be effective in reducing police violence: https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1267516891330838528
pg donated $1M to coronavirus efforts, but unfortunately I can't find the tweet right now. It was quite something seeing someone drop $1M on a cause they care about, though. And I only heard about it indirectly, due to the front-line workers thanking pg for his donation.
It's true that there's a lot of hate on the platform, and a lot of sadness, and disinformation. But I wanted to try to highlight some positive aspects, for whatever it's worth.
You could maintain a blog and create a new post with your pictures.
You don’t need twitter to do this. There’s lots of free services, but most importantly you can host a blog yourself for a few dollars a year.
Twitter removes the autonomy to moderate comments made on my content.
With my blog, I can remove a comment I don’t like. Or I can engage the commenter.
I think the biggest factor is that the random comment on my blog is not piled onto all other comments with a reward system that promotes loud, low value posts. Not as many people see my blog, so jerks being jerks doesn’t provide as many eyeballs.
Here's my small thread: https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1267631457792479237
We're in Seattle. I went to go pick up my script from the local Walgreens. When we stepped out of the Uber, we were greeted with a freshly-shattered window and a freshly-closed Walgreens.
It's one thing to know "unrest is happening" in the abstract, but it's quite another to see it in person. So we walked through the business district and snapped some photos.
Business after business was boarded up, sometimes literally, sometimes with whatever they could use. Chairs, or shopping carts, for example.
More than that, the whole district had a remarkably different feel. Just a few months ago, it was humming and bustling with the usual energy of a semi-big city. Now it's like people are preparing for... well, nothing good.
I'm not sure there's another platform where you can tell a story like this, is there? Not with photos and text, anyway. Sure, I could put up a website and call it "My stroll through Seattle," but why? I suppose Imgur would work, but it doesn't really feel like a community to me. On Twitter you get a few "Be safe!" shoutouts from the people you know, at least.
I guess my point here is that Twitter doesn't need to be read-only. Go participate! You don't even have to post anything noteworthy.
The platform has also helped change my mind about some things. For example, it helps to consider the situation from the point of view of someone who's afraid to call 911. I was pretty far in the camp of "Let the police do their jobs" before this was pointed out.
A lot of VCs do good work on Twitter too. For example, Patrick Collison is starting to gather some info about which organizations might be effective in reducing police violence: https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1267516891330838528
pg donated $1M to coronavirus efforts, but unfortunately I can't find the tweet right now. It was quite something seeing someone drop $1M on a cause they care about, though. And I only heard about it indirectly, due to the front-line workers thanking pg for his donation.
It's true that there's a lot of hate on the platform, and a lot of sadness, and disinformation. But I wanted to try to highlight some positive aspects, for whatever it's worth.
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