Comment by Theodores | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Theodores | Hacker News Reader

I do find that there is something surreal about Twitter and the U.S. election, it has become a primary communication channel. We used to have 'I have a dream' speeches, nowadays it is lol txt tweets. Donald Trump's contribution to this tweet-thread is an example:

"Wow! @wikileaks admits its supporters are engaged in anti-American cyber-terrorism. No wonder Wikileakes loves me so much! #ImWithPutin"

Is that really from a presidential candidate? With a misspelling and a hashtag that is not what you would think would chime with the electorate. Plus some narcissism thrown in, just to make you cringe.

As for the tweet itself, I am amazed that Wikileaks thinks Assange is that much of a hero that they think that some anonymous fan would take down the internets in response to Assange's internets being taken down. There is some conspiracy minded thinking going on there, warranted or not, it is not the sort of mindset that Wikileaks need to be in if they are to function as an organisation. For instance, if some real conspiracy was going on, e.g. the U.S. military were running a 'cyberstorm exercise', then Wikileaks would have taken the bait. In so doing this takes discussion away from what Wikileaks seek to publish and towards the ethics of hacking.

Don't be too nostalgic. How much of the "I have a dream" speech can you directly recall beyond the first 140 characters? How much of our politics has been sound bites, misinformation, and trumped up ideology for the past few decades. There are villains in this age, but communication in 140 characters is not it.

Perhaps, then, twitter is not a malady but a symptom. The idea that we can whittle all of our ideas down to 140 characters has been building for decades, as you say, and only now manifests itself explicitly.

I don't think it's too nostalgic to pine for longer, epic exhortation of ideas. People still give memorable speeches (cf. Obama's "More Perfect Union"), and people still memorize the speeches of old. They give context to the soundbites and give depth when we want to go beyond the misquotes. But yes, blaming twitter goes too far, because it certainly has its place, too. It's just another tool of communication that has its benefits and pitfalls.

Not to mention the utter cruelty that set the backdrop for the I Have a Dream speech.

We get moving speeches when issues hit so close to home that the words serve as kindling for our deeper emotions. Every speech is inextricably tied to its own context.

Malcolm X, "The Ballot or the Bullet" Ronald Reagan's Space Shuttle Challenger address LBJ, "We Shall Overcome" JFK, "Ich Bin Ein Berliner"

None of these speeches would have been as meaningful in a different time, with different events and feelings and happenings.

That's a parody account.

That's clearly not donald tump's real account. "#imwithputin"? really?

As fjarlq said, that supposed Trump quote is from a parody account, @realDenaldTrump. Note the 'e', Denald.

You pine for the days of long form communication and yet you can't even correctly determine who the source of the tweet you quote is (hint: not Donald Trump).

Prediction: There will come a time in the not so distant future when even 140 characters will be beyond the alt-right's attention span.

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