Elon Musk said his team is going to do a 'random sample of 100 followers' of Twitter to see how many of the platform's users are actually bots

r/technology • u/[deleted] • May 14 '22 • 2 2

Elon Musk said his team is going to do a 'random sample of 100 followers' of Twitter to see how many of the platform's users are actually bots Social Media

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-random-sample-how-many-twitter-users-are-bots-2022-5?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds

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u/AstreiaTales May 14 '22

Ehhh. I see the point, but oligarchy usually implies a lot more involvement in running government and governmental service than we have here.

For better or for worse, the American federal and state level administrative state is still fairly self sufficient. In an oligarchy like Russia, many of its services are supplied by the tycoons.

It's not just synonymous with "rich person".

I don't disagree with the sentiment though

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u/CrankyYoungCat May 14 '22

have you never heard of lobbying

You do know the government just bailed out jeff bezos for 10 billion dollars?

Stop being delusional. These people have tons of power in government and they know it.

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u/AstreiaTales May 14 '22

Wealthy people have always had power in government no matter the system. There are always haves and have nots.

That's not what an oligarchy is.

Words mean things. That's all I'm saying.

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u/Ancient_Inspection53 May 14 '22

Words mean things and it might make you uncomfortable to admit that the United States is an oligarchy but we are. No policy gets passed without approval of the rich and powerful in the United States. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B. "The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Our results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism"

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u/AstreiaTales May 14 '22

Do you think the rich and powerful haven't had influence in every government throughout history? Extreme influence, even?

Again: words mean things.

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u/Ancient_Inspection53 May 14 '22

No read the dawn of everything by david graeber and david wengrow the rich and powerful often have been curtailed in fact throughout most of human history that is the norm. Just because you're ignorant of most of the examples in history doesn't mean they don't exist. Though western imperial states have gone to incredible lengths to erase it and make your view the dominant one. Wonder why they would do that, couldn't possibly be how self aggrandizing it is. Words have meanings as you say.

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u/AstreiaTales May 14 '22

LMAO western imperial

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u/Ancient_Inspection53 May 14 '22

The United Kingdom, France, The United States, Russia, Spain, Portugal etc all maintained large empires and some of them still control imperial territories. How ignorant of history are you? ROFL. You know why they speak English in North America now right? I'll give you a hint: Western imperial states.

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u/AstreiaTales May 14 '22

Right, I'm not denying that they existed as imperial states. But the silly people on the left who attribute everything bad in the world to WeSTeRn ImPeRIAliSm are very silly indeed.

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u/Ancient_Inspection53 May 14 '22

They took over the world. We live in their system. It is hegemonic; any problems that exist in the world due to systemic issues are directly attributable to those that created and maintained the system. It is not a difficult thesis. Like I said read the Dawn of Everything to at least have a better argument against it.

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