Rules of Engagement
Jul 23, 2018
My dear friends,
As I approach 2000 people following my tweets, I have noticed a huge upswing in the amount of low-quality noise that is introduced by ceaseless conflict. Twitter is not a great forum for heated debates; it lends itself to truncated statements which predictably often results in missed interpretations, and tends to wash out congeniality in an effort to cram in meaningful information. Those with sensitive egos often become offended when no offence was intended. I have always been a concise glib personality with powerful conviction behind my words, and this draws its own audience, but repels another. This was fine with a limited following, but now results in a quagmire of dozens of hurt egos all battling for a chunk of my flesh. I've come to understand why typically many popular Tweeters have no interest in frequent Twitter interactions.
I absolutely and most sincerely apologize to you, my audience. Not for anything I've said, not for offending anyone, not because I made mistakes, not because I'm an arrogant prick, and certainly not for trying to share my knowledge... but I apologize for not stepping up to improve my Twitter content to be more learning/educationally focused instead of letting my lizard brain constantly engage in directionless conflict, the difference between selfless and selfish. I have increasingly failed to help spread knowledge as I dove head-first into confrontation after confrontation, wasting everyone's time. This will change starting today.
I've been thinking about what's next, and how I can continue being useful on Twitter without allowing the quality to drop. What I came up with is this:
1) I will no longer reduce myself to admittedly childish FUD battles with those that exhibit venomous hatred towards XRP. I might post a pertinent link or two to my blog, but I really don't want the typical vitriol (mine and theirs) passing over the eyes of my audience, any more than I would want to read it. Sure, I did enjoy tweet-wrestling when I was a relatively unknown Tweeter, but enough's enough, I don't want to drag thousands of people through it.
2) I necessarily have to start actively muting/blocking people that are BOTH offensive AND stupid, even if they support XRP. If someone is just somewhat offensive but intelligent, there's always something to learn from them, so I'm more interested in pulling that out than pushing them away so I'll do my best to deal with it without reciprocating. Or if someone is pleasant yet perhaps not the brightest candle in the room; it will be my pleasure to answer their questions, no matter how mundane. However, I do find the combination of offensive and stupid to be the largest detractor of quality content, and there's SO MANY FUCKING IDIOT SMARMY ASSHOLES out there, it's time to start proactively pruning participants in my threads.
3) We all get hot under the collar at times, so going forward, when some quality person becomes confrontational towards me, I will withdraw instead of engage, until such a time that we can resume intellectually. Time-outs. No more Twitter pissing contests. Period.
In summary, I'd like to clean up my tweets to increase the density of meaningful information, and purify the content of ad hominem attacks. Not because I'm trying to be better than anyone, I'm still a goofball with a bad attitude, but Twitter isn't the best venue for my personality; it's a public forum, and with increasing audience comes increasing responsibility to be worthy of that audience. I want the audience I attract to be intelligent and civilized with a touch of narcissism, not a stadium full of screaming moron wrestling fans.
Also, If you are a fan of my blog, I absolutely will not be changing my character and content style. In fact, the blog is my personal space, my one true outlet of freedom of completely uninhibited speech, and I intend to maximize that potential there. I will continue to be glib, potent, intelligent, and educational. I will remain..
truly yours,
galgitron
Comments welcome on Twitter