Daily review 07/03/2025

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, March 7th, 2025 - 22 comments
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Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

22 comments on “Daily review 07/03/2025 ”

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  1. joe90 1
    7 March 2025 at 6:14 pm

    Who woulda thunk it?

    /

    Elon Musk has been forced to release a list of shareholders who helped him buy Twitter, and it makes for some eye-opening reading.

    After a federal court forced his hand, X Corp has disclosed a list of shareholders for its parent company, which includes entities linked to Sean “Diddy” Combs, Bill Ackman, Larry Ellison and Marc Andreessen.

    The disclosure stems from a lawsuit filed by former Twitter employees accusing Musk of violating their arbitration agreements by failing to pay them certain fees after he bought the site.

    It lists nearly 100 groups with a stake in the company, such as Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud, as well as his investment vehicle Kingdom Holding Company, and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

    Petr Aven and Vadim Moshkovich are also among those listed, suggesting, as Guy Verhofstadt points out here, that Vladimir Putin’s henchmen could have been among those who helped Musk acquire Twitter.

    https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/putins-henchmen-helped-musk-to-acquire-twitter-reports-381664/

    https://xcancel.com/DenisDanilovL/status/1827282706574537013

    • joe90 1.1
      7 March 2025 at 7:24 pm

      Cracking piece on what is actually happening in the US.

      .

      When someone talks about “free speech” while actively working to control speech, that’s not a contradiction or a mistake — it’s the point. It’s about consolidating power while wrapping it in the language of freedom as a shield to fool the gullible and the lazy.

      This is why it’s been the tech and legal press that have been putting in the work, getting the scoops, and highlighting what’s actually going on, rather than just regurgitation administration propaganda without context or analysis (which hasn’t stopped the administration from punishing them).

      Connecting these dots is basically what we do here at Techdirt.

      One of the craziest bits about covering the systematic dismantling of democracy is this: the people doing the dismantling frequently tell you exactly what they’re going to do. They’re almost proud of it. They just wrap it in language that makes it sound like the opposite. (Remember when Musk said he was buying Twitter to protect free speech? And then banned journalists and sued researchers for calling out his nonsense? Same playbook.)

      […]

      If you do not recognize that mass destruction of fundamental concepts of democracy and the US Constitution happening right now, you are either willfully ignorant or just plain stupid. I can’t put it any clearer than that.

      This isn’t about politics — it’s about the systematic dismantling of the very infrastructure that made American innovation possible. For those in the tech industry who supported this administration thinking it would mean less regulation or more “business friendly” policies: you’ve catastrophically misread the situation (which many people tried to warn you about). While overregulation (which, let’s face it, we didn’t really have) can be bad, it’s nothing compared to the destruction of the stable institutional framework that allowed American innovation to thrive in the first place.

      There’s something important to understand about innovation. It doesn’t actually happen in a vacuum. The reason Silicon Valley became Silicon Valley wasn’t because a bunch of genius inventors happened to like California weather. It was because of a complex web of institutions that made innovation possible: courts that would enforce contracts (but not non-competes, allowing ideas to spread quickly and freely across industries), universities that shared research, a financial system that could fund new ideas, and laws that let people actually try those ideas out. And surrounding it all: a fairly stable economy, stability in global markets and (more recently) a strong belief in a global open internet.

      And now we’re watching Musk, Trump, and their allies destroy these foundations. They operate under the dangerous delusion of the “great man” theory of innovation — the false belief that revolutionary changes come solely from lone geniuses, rather than from the complex interplay of open systems, diverse perspectives, and stable institutions that actually drives progress

      https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/why-techdirt-is-now-a-democracy-blog-whether-we-like-it-or-not/

    • weka 2.1
      7 March 2025 at 9:29 pm

      some good news. Anything that slows the tech bros down at this point we can take as a win.

  3. weka 3
    7 March 2025 at 9:36 pm

    YouGov poll in the UK about Briton's attitudes towards transgender rights.

    https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51545-where-does-the-british-public-stand-on-transgender-rights-in-202425

    I'm going to post images of the summary from 2020 and 2025, because it's striking. If the UK is simply getting more conservative and/or transphobic, why have the numbers of people that support people changing their gender identity remained stable? Instead, more likely, is that many more people now are aware of what the trans umbrella covers and how this impacts on women in particular. They've also included questions about the transitioning of children this time.

    Note the big shift in women’s attitudes by question.

    • weka 3.1
      7 March 2025 at 9:36 pm

      2020

      https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/inlineimage/2020-07-16/Transgender%20attitudes%20summary-01.png

        • Visubversa 3.1.1.1
          8 March 2025 at 9:53 am

          Unfortunately, they are still using the term "gender" when they are actually meaning sex. What is "recorded at birth" is your sex. In fact, your sex is detectable before birth by way of scans and/or genetic testing.

          Sex means something – it is a scientific reality and is easily testable. Almost every cell in your body tells the truth about your sex.

          "Gender" means whatever you say it is.

          Gender ideology requires the substitution of "gender" for "sex" to get around the awkward fact that in humans, like most mammals, sex is bi-modal and immutable.

          • weka 3.1.1.1.1
            8 March 2025 at 12:12 pm

            yes, but they probably mean gender as in sex, not gender as in gender identity. Which is probably still how most people gender tbh. I agree there are problems with this and this will increasingly confuse issues so they need to sort it out, but in the meantime, I think the results are useful to see the trends.

    • tWig 3.2
      8 March 2025 at 10:39 am

      Yes, by all means, let's follow the UK, where the media and people like the owner of Mumsnet have pushed anti-trans sentiment for a decade. From Katie Baker, a journalist and mother who shifted to the UK from the US, and was shocked by the amount of anti-trans propaganda.

      "The more I learned about Mumsnet, the more the forum reminded me of my past reporting on the ways men are radicalized by the toxic online “manosphere,” where pick-up artists (PUAs) and men’s rights activists (MRAs) recruit followers by exploiting real fears (such as economic anxiety) and blaming marginalized outgroups (women, people of color, Jews) for societal failures. As people get drawn into these communities, they become obsessed with a misguided sense of victimization and start to focus single-mindedly on their newfound worldview. "

      • tWig 3.2.1
        8 March 2025 at 10:45 am

        In the UK Press, for example,

        Research "suggests that UK media has published an average of 154 articles on trans issues every single month over the past seven years. That’s a total of 13,500 articles focusing on a minority group that makes up just 0.1% of the population."

        • weka 3.2.1.1
          8 March 2025 at 12:03 pm

          maybe they're making up for all that time when Brit MSM wouldn't cover the issues hardly at all.

      • weka 3.2.2
        8 March 2025 at 12:02 pm

        I agree that Mumsnet is a place of radicalisation, but my analysis runs like this,

        1. when women have babies they run hard up against institutional and community sexism often in ways they've never experienced before. They lose big chunks of their lives. The thought of losing even more around things like women's single sex spaces is intolerable. They also have increased inherent bias towards protecting children.
        2. if as a result some women on Mumsnet are being radicalised towards conservatism and/or populism, this is a direct result of No Debate and the suppression of progressive voices that sought to find common ground between the needs of women and those of trans people. That suppression led to many women going yeah, nah get fucked, we're going to prioritise our own needs.

        It's worth noting that the left wing gender critical feminists faced some of the worst misogyny in my lifetime, did amazing grass roots activism that impacted on policy and law, remained left wing, fought back against the far right co-option of women's issues, and are now as we speak turning their attention to fighting fascism.

        An easy entry point if people want to see this in action, follow Jane Clare Jones.

        • weka 3.2.2.1
          8 March 2025 at 12:06 pm

          going back to the yougov polls. The left needs to pay attention to the shift in attitude, especially in women, if we want to win elections. For many women this isn't a fringe issue, losing single sex spaces is central to their politics and they will go to the parties that promise protection. I think this poll probably reflects this, although I'd like to see specific research on women and why they have changed.

          • Shanreagh 3.2.2.1.1
            8 March 2025 at 2:04 pm

            For many women this isn't a fringe issue, losing single sex spaces is central to their politics and they will go to the parties that promise protection.

            Being a little cynical of the ability of the Left to reflect, let alone 'do' on women's issues and the centrality to many women, I predict that this may be the response

            yeah, nah get fucked, we're going to prioritise our own needs.

            I have view, being a cynic, that the trans issue garners more sympathy, 'I mean they're guys..aren't they?' than women's issues.

            I feel that many men have an inbuilt sympathy to other guys, even guys behaving badly and affecting the rights of others. (I said I was a cycnic)

            How else to explain the utter weirdness against women at Let Women Speak in March 2023 at Albert Park that involved the rushing at women and the bashing, by men, of a number of them.

            I would be a millionaire if I had a $1.00 for every time I have read heartfelt pleas for a tiny, tiny proportion of the population against a emphatic denial that women's issues affecting 51% are important or that safety is fundamental to women.

            While there is the spectre/concern of women voting to the right, if the right promises to hear them and to do the basic re safety and decency, the bigger concern to me is that this issue will turn women off from voting at all. The right then reaps the actual votes and the non votes for any party. Then the longer the inability of the Left to 'see' the issue then the more the probability that non voting may be entrenched for the future.

            That the trans issue is (still) powerful was shown to me in the response to an only slightly tongue in cheek post I made when a local pedestrian crossing was painted in trans colours. My suggestion was that we could take it in turns and paint the crossing in women's colours Purple, green and white for International Women's Day, today, and red, black and white around Waitangi Day etc. I then moved on to suggest that a large 'cutting' on one of our roads with concrete sides could be a huge and multi-changing canvas for this activity.

            I could just about hear the intake of breath and the collective hissing coming off the page. Though the woman who painted the trans colours seemed unphased by the thought of painting it in womens colours but pointed out more or less that women's issues were now mainstream. I wish.

            ETA: But on the changes in attitudes in the polls, long may it continue. Sympathy and care for groups in society who may be marginalised is not rectified by removing the rights or protections of other groups.

            • weka 3.2.2.1.1.1
              8 March 2025 at 2:24 pm

              I feel that many men have an inbuilt sympathy to other guys, even guys behaving badly and affecting the rights of others. (I said I was a cycnic)

              How else to explain the utter weirdness against women at Let Women Speak in March 2023 at Albert Park that involved the rushing at women and the bashing, by men, of a number of them.

              Same. Lots of progressive men will support women, but only on their terms. When feminists disagreed over gender/sex war issues, leftie men could have supported feminists to sort it out, form the principle of supporting women to have our own politics and to be competent at doing feminism. Instead, many picked a side, not just with trans people but actively against feminists and other women. That went as far as using terf as a slur and thus sanctioning overt and direct sexualised violence against women online as a form of punishment and suppression. It took feminists at great cost to stand up and push back against this.

              I saw this dynamic on TS before the gender/sex wars came to TS, and it's why there aren't any regular feminist authors here writing feminism. So it's inherent in progressive men I think, it's just that the gender/sex wars are so bizarre it's much more obvious. And they did double down.

            • weka 3.2.2.1.1.2
              8 March 2025 at 2:25 pm

              the problem with women tracking rightwards isn't that so much (that would eventually be relieved by the left coming to its senses). It's that it's happening at the worst possible time, when fascism is rising in the same countries that the gender/sex wars are happening. It's incredibly dangerous.

              • Shanreagh …
                8 March 2025 at 2:51 pm

                I agree, the worst possible time and really difficult to undo – of course the Left could take steps now/soon to forestall this………..

                I'm tempted to write the great NZ response of 'yeah right' but I really, really, really do hope we get some thinkers and do-ers to influence the Left not to go down an anti women path particularly when fascism is on the rise.

                The convergence will be deadly for both men & women and less powerful people everywhere.

                • weka …
                  9 March 2025 at 12:04 pm

                  did you see Ash Sarkar's latest? That gives me some hope, I'm seeing other examples and have to admit to a fair amount of shadenfreude over this one,

                  A woke spa in San Francisco is having difficulty navigating the natural consequences of their policies. They held a "women's only night" and so many bepenised ppl showed up that even the SF Wokes revolted and now, they're having alternating "phallic" and "non phallic" days

                  They beg their clients to understand that "requesting a phallic-free space is not about exclusion"

                  https://x.com/Rob_ThaBuilder/status/1898111652123623556

                  Click through for the spa's announcement.

                  Maya Forstater has some more here

                  https://x.com/MForstater/status/1898131121226805414

                  • weka …
                    9 March 2025 at 12:07 pm

                    I guess I have to point out as well, that women's space is now called phallus-free space.

                    does this also mean no trans men with phalloplasty? (and no, TRAs, it’s insufficient to claim that TM wouldn’t want to go, because there are destrans people with phalloplasty. Getting it yet?

                    It's fucking insane.

  4. Joe90 4
    7 March 2025 at 9:45 pm

    I hate it but there are times when you have to agree with Mr. Frum.

    Well worth thirty minutes of your time..

    Leading author, journalist and thinker David Frum and The Hub’s editor-at-large Sean Speer discuss Trump’s tariffs against Canada, the President’s antagonism towards Ukraine and Zelensky, and what they tell us about his administration’s underlying view about America’s new place in the world.

    https://thehub.ca/podcast/video/the-decline-of-the-american-empire-david-frum-on-trumps-tariffs-and-americas-place-in-the-world/

  5. tWig 5
    9 March 2025 at 2:22 pm

    The NZ Fabian Society is hosting environmental economist Marjen van den Belt in an online seminar about taxation vehicles for managing industrial polluters. – Pollute and Pay at 6 pm on 12 March. She has been a Chief Economist at MPI.