onlyfans is successful because you can pay for personalized actions and one can build something appearing like a relationship with the porn star. Before one would just passively watch them.

It’s still so one-way though.

I guess what’s remarkable is the collective unawareness of how artificial those relationships are. I get it, I know IRL loneliness and went down the engagement rabbit hole too.

But still, it’s remarkable. I still see articles from professional journalists, all the time, wondering what’s happening to relationships or democracy or whatever then end their post with something akin to a “like and subscribe!” and a busy Twitter profile.

It’s great for pushing enraging content though. I feel like the content itself has gravely affected the collective psyche, and so have influencer endorsements (which companies pay big bucks for), even if the explicit ads have not.

Look at her social media posting history. Look at her published book:

BRAVE Books and Ashley St. Clair partnered to write “Elephants Are Not Birds,” a Christian, Conservative children’s book that tackles the topic of gender identity. In the book, children will learn that boys are not girls, and Elephants Are Not Birds.

I retract/regret what I said… I didn’t mean to victim blame. This sucks for her and she doesn’t deserve one bit of it, nor does her abuser deserve any sympathy. She deserves empathy.

But she also appears to have made a living peddling (IMO) hate far and wide. I am struggling to express/process how I feel about that… it’s a tragic irony, I guess? And frustration at that whole ecosystem she was in (which Musk is at the very tippy top of).

Watch this video, ignore the clickbait sounding title:

https://youtu.be/Ufmu1WD2TSk

It completely changed my view on that.

Basically, without high birth rates, countries are totally screwed. Immigration (which skews young, from high birth rate countries), has softened that issue for the US, hence you don’t hear about it as much here. One can wave their hands and say “elder care and the economy will be automated in the future,” but that’s wishful thinking if you ask me.

Figuring out how to more efficiently house/care for a glut of humans farther in the future is way more practical. Honestly we’re ridiculously inefficient now; there’s a lot of low hanging fruit to pick. And we can use much higher technology to address that.

Yeah, at the very least she needs security and lawyers. 20K is little enough to endanger her life.

…On the other hand, she’s an influencer farming attention. And not in a good way. That cuts a lot of my empathy short.

It’s really not funny TBH, it’s all tied to his views on eugenics (or whatever euphemism is used) and frankly horrific visions of the future he shares with a few lower profile billionaires.

This is a known mindset among Silicon Valley uber wealthy.

TF, this guy is still getting millions of views on TikTok and Twitter.

Can we just burn engagement-driven social media? Please?

Yeah, it skips the religious purism (and the sometimes very real attempt at pondering deep morality), and goes straight to modern attention hacking mixed with timeless demagoguery and conspiratorial urges.

That’s what I’m getting at. I empathize more with old school religious communities acting this way… to some extent. Some transcripts in the article are not very flattering.

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Fair point. I’m a millennial, how about that :P

Yes, very true. I’ve kinda seen that in other states.

Mennonites skewed anti vax before it was trendy, like a long time ago. Old religious vaccine exemptions were basically for them, IIRC.

Like, I remember hearing about these folks when I was in school in Texas.

What I’m getting at is that they’re not quite the same as MAGA-zone vaccine skepticism. There’s some overlap, but they’re more old school and broad than that, with a more general technology-hesitant slant, while MAGA skepticism seems more driven by social media and influencers.