Welcome to the third week of The Runback. Have you been enjoying The Duckpin? Do you have comments or suggestions? Do you want to write for us? Let me know at theduckpin@gmail.com. And please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Thanks in advance.
News and Politics
Here We Go Again: How Democrats May Really Come For Maryland's Flag This Time
Time for Maryland to Embrace Online Education: As the state’s schools plan to reopen, Maryland should stop being a hold-out, and give parents and their children the option to use tuition-free online education from charter providers.
Do I Have COVID-19? Does it even matter?
The Times They Are A-changin’: Aunt Jemima Is Just The Beginning
Sports
Playing For The Natty: How five chuckleheads from Maryland (including me) are going to try and win a competitive Wiffle ball championship.
Breaking Down the Rule Changes: Baseball* is Back! If you can still call it that.
Looking forward to the Post-Brady Era: Tom Brady is gone, but the Patriots are forever
College Football's Lifeblood: It’s The Hatred (and a list where Justin Ready did not rank Alabama at the top)
Kaminski Wins 2nd Straight Greater Baltimore Mini-Golf Tour Event: One of New Jersey’s top players continues domination in the Greater Baltimore Tour.
Entertainment
Avoid The Suck Zone: Don’t reboot classics like Twister.
A bad prescription for drug commercials: Every one of these commercials is an unfortunate place.
We Could Be Heroes…: An attempt to identify a very critical aspect of sports. Which famous athletes are which superheroes?
Cheap Plugs
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The Monday Thought
This week’s thought is pretty short.
But do you live in a bubble? Are you sure you don’t live in a bubble?
If you are a liberal who is on social media, you may truly believe that Donald Trump is the worst President in history. You may be taking the COVID-19 pandemic extremely seriously. You may think that Governor Andrew Cuomo is a hero for the way that he has helped New York through this pandemic. You may think that it was foolish for states such as Florida and Texas to reopen so early on in the process. You may think that those gathering to protest pandemic-related lockdowns was a dangerous and foolish thing to do given the scope of the pandemic. You may believe that protesting in support of the Black Lives Matter or in participating in a Pride is an important thing to do, regardless of the risks.
If you are a conservative who is on social media, you may truly believe that Donald Trump is the greatest President in history and a conservative thought leader. You may be incredibly skeptical of the COVID-19 pandemic because you don’t trust the government and don’t dare ever trust “experts.” You may think that Governor Andrew Cuomo should be prosecuted for his mismanagement of New York during the pandemic that led to the deaths of hundreds of New York nursing home patients. You may thin that Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and Governor Greg Abbott of Texas are heroes for reopening their states based on the data that was in front of them. You may believe that the people who protested in opposition to pandemic-related lockdowns were patriots who were standing up for the Constitution. You may believe protesting in support of the Black Lives Matter or in participating in a Pride is being done by hypocritical liberals who see the world only in shades of political motivation.
What if I told you that there’s truth in both of those statements?
The problem that we are having here today is the fact that so much of the political conversation is being driven by social media. I’ve got news for you: Twitter ain’t real life. Facebook ain’t real life. Instagram ain’t real life.
Here’s a thought experiment. Find the “cause du jour” on Twitter today and ask five people about it. How many of those people have any clue what you’re talking about?
Approximately 10% of Americans are on Twitter. An even smaller percentage of those people are “power users” who use it on a daily basis. If you are focused solely on what’s going on there, you’re only seeing the opinion of a tiny fraction of people within your own county, much less the entire country. And often it’s a tinier fraction of that because we so often self-select who were are following and what opinions we are being exposed too.
It’s roughly the same on Facebook too.
What’s even more insane is the number of “conservatives” who are threatening to abandon Twitter to head to Parler. Parler is a similar social network, except it doesn’t have nearly the standards of Twitter for content and there’s a way to grift off of readers and friends there as well. It’s no wonder the professional Trump supporters are going to Parler in droves.
But for people who go to Parler, what are they going to get? They are going to get exposure to an even smaller cross-section of views on news and issues. They’ll have self-isolated into an echo chamber. And what good is really that?
We already see people who think that President Trump is a shoo-in for re-election based on all of the support they see for him on Twitter. The data showing that Trump trails significantly in every swing state is not nearly as persuasive to them.
The divisiveness of the modern political age partially exists because people have self-segregated on social media into ideological camps that are incapable of interacting with one another. They’re bubble people and they’re helping to destroy the country.
Whatever you do, do whatever you can to not be one of the bubble people….
Good post..... I have tried the cause du jour experiment and you are correct in your most don't have a clue. Parler... I thought someone misspelled where we used to sit when we went to someone's house 🤣. Have a great day!
Brian, Re: Parler, I think you forget why we're not using MySpace anymore. It's because MySpace stopped meeting the wants and needs of its users. Twitter has self-selected into a bubble of its own, and evicted dissenting voices, much as Facebook is doing. Not a lot of people realize that Louis Farrakhan was cancelled at the same time Alex Jones was. The voices being silenced cover a much larger area than anyone wants to admit. Even if you don't agree with the opinions of the people being cancelled, erasing them outright from the internet shouldn't be the way a democratic society handles the conversation.