> Hence neither a man's contemporaries nor the man himself can form any final estimate of him or of his fitting position, because their knowledge is too imperfect. History often reverses the decision of contemporaries.

Probably true about Elon.

But I think mainly in the direction of demotion. Offhand I can't think of examples of someone ... oh, wait Van Gogh.

Baruch Spinoza is another. He was excommunicated.

Yes, that is when I stopped reading. I left Twitter recently, but I would not call it a Nazi bar. It is just not for me, any longer.

Crikey! The dude can't even write a maths article without delving into tribal politics garbage halfway through. This is depressing.

Curiously that made the thread better for me and the author's opinion about Twitter is exactly as true as the opposite opinion, that it is now the unfiltered source of objective truth. Or do you believe your opinions on the threads value or twitters reputation is special?

I also found it extremely helpful that the author virtue signalled to agree with me, so I know whether I am supposed to like it or not.

What's more likely: (i) famous mathematician expressing his frustration regarding how his previous internet community is now full of Nazis, or (ii) famous mathematician casually saying Nazis suck so to be perceived as morally superior by some random readers?

To me the second option is an extremely bizarre take and I cannot imagine why anyone would even consider it.

Interpretation 1 is more likely and made the dry mathematician more relatable/human which made the writing better imo.

It’s a metaphor (ironically originating _on_ Twitter, not _about_ Twitter, pre-Musk); essentially, once you allow Nazis in a bar, they metastasize, and pretty soon you’re a Nazi bar. It’s perfectly applicable to the current state of twitter.

I absolutely agree, a dead 1920's German nationalist movement is exactly why we shouldn't allow free speech online.

Twitter already contained a lot of hateful speech before Elon acquired it.

Those tweets would typically be demoted instead of promoted.

It's not at all applicable. Makes me wonder if you even use Twitter if you're making claims like that. More likely you're just parroting nonsense from your echo chamber.

Nobody uses twitter these days.

What a daft claim to make. A simple web search would have informed you that Twitter has over half a billion monthly active users.

Hmm you mean X right?

Same thing.

I was a Twitter user from 2007 to late 2022. That idiot wasted no time in ruining it; by Dec 2022 it was very clearly time to go.

what metaphor was it called back when they allowed far-left hate speech but censored, shadow-banned or otherwise slowed stories that their secret thought-control departments didn't like? what would you call that?

Since it's an "evil twin" should we not expect to find it in an alleged Nazi bar?