Pints With Aquinas - Deleting Twitter LIVE! (An argument against Twitter + Deleting my account)

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

I'll be giving an argument for quitting Twitter, then deleting my account live. Who's with me? https://mattfradd.locals.com Read the Summa style article: https://mattfradd.locals.com/post/2913938/whether-it-is-a-good-idea-to-quit-twitter

All right, we're live. So the real point of quitting Twitter is to shame those who are still on Twitter so they know I'm better than them. Matt, we're live. Crap. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Pines with Aquinas. I've been speaking about getting off Twitter for a while and I've been discerning and thinking

it through and I've decided that today is the day. The reason I wanted to stream this deletion of Twitter is to encourage you if Twitter is getting in the way of your spiritual growth or even just your bare bones happiness, you might consider doing this along with me. I'm not saying that people can't use Twitter appropriately. I'm just saying for many people, it seems to be, including myself, a very hard thing to do, which is the reason I'm excited to delete Twitter. So yeah. Me and Trent Horn had a conversation recently about different types of social media, and he had a really interesting insight, as he often does, that the more a social media forces

us to truncate the message we're putting out, the more problematic it is. I think that's a good point that people go on Twitter and they try to make these cases that are often politically or morally charged, but they only get, is it 240 characters? I think that's right. And then- Apparently, yeah. Yeah. And it's just, it's like humility rarely goes viral. So people are snarky and slam dunk on each other. That's the thing. Remember when the quote tweet came out, the whole point of the quote tweet

is to slam dunk over somebody. And if our blessed Lord says to us that, you know, you'll be judged by every idol word. It's like Twitter is an idol word generator. And yeah, I'm excited personally to get off of it. All right. Any thoughts before I read my summa article that I wrote? No. Cool. All right.

All right. So for those who aren't familiar with a kind of to mystic article, what Aquinas does is offers arguments against the position he wants to make. He then makes his position and then responds to those arguments. What I'm going to do is give four objections to quitting Twitter. And this doesn't just apply to me, it applies to you as well.

And then I'm going to share some possible responses to these objections. I want to thank Father Gregory Pine because him and I have been going back and forth over email thinking this through and he helped in the formulation of this, you know, of my thought on this. All right, we good? Can they see it? Oh, yeah. Objection one. Christians are called to become part of public discourse to elevate everything for the glory

of God. But today, much of the public discourse takes place virtually on Twitter. To retreat from a place of virtual discourse would be to fail in one's duty as a Christian to evangelize. Therefore, a Christian should not quit Twitter. That feels strong, doesn't it? That's what people seem to say is they, you know, when you're on Twitter, you're you're just an evangelizing force on there.

Yeah, I mean, again, just so people are aware the point of a to mystic article is to steal man your opponent's positions and. I think the fact that i'm a christian the sort of objections i get from people about putting twitter. And the objections that i myself think of are going to be peculiar to the christian but that's certainly one thing that people say so here here's my response to that. Let me know what you think in below below. And that is that evangelization actually ought to take place in the settings to which God calls us. God promises never to try us beyond our strength. But and tell me this isn't the case for you. One is often tried beyond his strength on Twitter.

This may suggest that God is not calling us to evangelization on Twitter. Huh? No? All right. Second objection. If a Christian can reach only one soul and help him reject falsehoods and convert to the Christian faith, then his time on Twitter is well spent. Therefore, a Christian should not quit Twitter. This is a kind of like an emotionally rhetorical argument, but I don't think it's a good one. Here's why because temptation often says to us that there are no other means to the attainment of a good end than the proposed course of action, namely that a good end justifies a bad bad means. So you'll you might hear somebody say like the if the only way to save the the Jews during the second world war is to lie then it's okay or.

I for the good of my family and my own mental health I need to have an abortion or something like that now obviously there's a much graver situations than getting off twitter as I said in the beginning you don't have to get off twitter. those are much graver situations than getting off Twitter. As I said in the beginning, you don't have to get off Twitter. I don't think you're a bad person. You know, I think people can use Twitter effectively. Honestly, it probably says more about my own weakness than anything else that I'm choosing to get off it. That's not true. That was me trying to be humble, but I actually don't think that's true.

I think Twitter sucks as a platform. No, I think you're completely right. Yeah, it's not. I don't think it's a sign of weakness to leave somewhere that's, yeah. All right. Well, yeah, was I? OK, so first recognize this. I think this is kind of like a sign of pride in a way to think like I have to reach that one person, or at least it can be. First, in the proclamation of the gospel, our Lord Jesus Christ is the sole mediator of salvation.

He has no need of further mediation. Rather, his choice to include Christians as mediators is itself a mercy as such It is unthinkable that this mercy would necessitate Our use of potentially deleterious means to the attainment of a good end rather our pursuit of that end should itself be sanctifying In fact the scriptures testify that all our brothers and sisters have at least sufficient Testimony to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to accept or deny it Even if that proclamation need to be communicated by the angels thus our role is Subordinated and dispensable and will only come to a successful issue provided it does so virtuously

Okay, so obviously Twitter is not the same thing as strolling through a porn conference I guess they have these big porn conventions in LA obviously not a porn conference. I guess they have these big porn conventions in L.A. Obviously not. But you could imagine someone saying something similar like we need to be you need to be going to porn conventions because if you're not there, there will be no one to proclaim the gospel. And sure, maybe ninety nine point nine percent of people will reject what you're having to say. But there might be that one person that you could convert. So you really should go there. I think all of us would recognize like, yeah, well, if you have the heart of St. Joseph, then maybe, but most of us don't and therefore shouldn't expose ourselves to that sort of temptation again, not equating Twitter necessarily with a porn convention.

But Twitter also can be, I think a cause for sin. And if that's true in your life, again, this is something I want to ask you. Is it true in your life? If it's not, ignore me, but if it is, that could be a reason to quit Twitter. I think people often use the example of like a saint going into some place that it's like, oh you're not supposed to go there to evangelize, but I think that the opposite here is there's absolutely kind of no question of why the saint is there and like whether he wants to be there for any other reason.

Yeah, that's a good point. It's obvious why they're there versus if you're on Twitter and you're saying, well, I should stay here because I'm evangelizing. But you think like you're actually just kind of getting the something out of Twitter. Yeah, that's not. That's a good point. Like a comparison. Like if a saint said he was going to evangelize in some city part of town and took delight in seeing the depravity, a sort of sinful glee, then you'd be like,

dude, you're clearly not a saint. And I think likewise, yeah, if you're going into Twitter to evangelize and to respond with charity to those who are in error, that's one thing. But I would say that for many Christians, we go there and we, it's like the sin of curiosity, right? So Thomas Aquinas distinguishes between curiosity and studiousness. He says curiosity is a sin. It's this desire for information for the sake of information, right? Not for our betterment. And so that's a really good point, Neil. What's happening? Nothing? Okay. You look you looked interested in what people are saying. Oh, it's just various interesting takes. Yeah. Wow.

It's amazing. All right. Here is the third objection. Okay. Someone might say just because Twitter steals your piece or just because Twitter steals a Christian's piece, this is not a compelling reason to quit it any more than it is a compelling reason to quit prison ministry or outreach to the poor because such ministries can also produce anxiety If we get anxious we can pray that God brings us peace. Therefore a Christian should not quit

The twits twits which I'm gonna refer to it as Just to respond to what Thursday was pointing to somebody was saying like oh Matt's this is just to make money I think that make money as someone involved in the pints channel this is not a good business decision that's not what this is I mean I'm all about making money baby I want to make I want to make a lot of money but I think the the summary of the of the comment was you can't make money on Twitter so if Matt quits Twitter he can focus on places where he can make money and it's like that's yeah that's just like that's just like a cynical take from someone who sounds like they're speaking

out of their woundedness even if that was the plan again this is not the best this is not a business decision yeah because I mean like even though YouTube is the place in which we make revenue Twitter funnels people towards YouTube yeah so it is effective in that regard yeah but I always find it funny when people critique others for wanting to make money It's like yeah, no, I definitely do we want to expand we want to keep growing. I think you know Anyway, whatever. Here's the third objection Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?

Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah the peace one Human communication takes place in many different settings and circumstances, even one such as Twitter. The question is whether it is an effective setting. Engagement on Twitter often produces, tell me if this is not true of you viewer, tell me in the comments below. Maybe I don't know you at all. But engagement on Twitter often produces anger, outrage, sadness, and anxiety. Not to mention just a sort of sneering attitude where we look down at our ideological opponents. Not everything that produces a strong emotional response should be shunned,

but one should ask whether there are more effective means for assessing the pertinent goods at stake. And in this instance, critics of Twitter rightly point to the benefits of in-person interaction like telephone. No one uses that word anymore. No one has ever used that word in the last week in any country. I don't know.

Or email, you know, as opposed to social media in excess. All right, here's the fifth or the fourth and final objection. Someone might say a large following and of course course large is so relative, isn't it? But a large following is a sign of God's blessing of a Twitter ministry. And to quit Twitter would be to abandon what God is blessing. And so to that, I've said post hoc ergo proptohoc, which is that fallacy that says, you know, just because something results from something else, it doesn't mean it's being caused by that thing so just because the rooster makes a sound or

Cockadoodledoos when the Sun rises it doesn't mean that it's causing the Sun to rise So we might have it completely backwards Katy Perry is as far as I could tell the third most followed person on Twitter Her stardom seems to be premised on a rejection of her Christian faith. So popularity doesn't prove much. How about that? I'll say it like that. Any thoughts before we look at the said contra? Am I convincing any of you? Because I know a lot of people are way cooler than me and they've quit Twitter years ago. Like, oh my gosh, you're on Twitter. Why would you be on Twitter? But if you're watching right

now and you are on Twitter, is this something you're like, would you be open to quitting as well? And if so, why and if not, why not? All right, so Aquinas in this in some articles after he kind of offers objections against the position he wants to make, he has what's called his said contra, which is Latin for on the contrary where he cites usually some authority figure or scripture This is a direct quote from Aristotle from the Nick and McKeon ethics Twitter is a cesspool. Okay, that's not really from Aristotle

But it would be cool for us Twitter is a cesspool and the occasion for distraction, dispersion, emotional turmoil, temptation and sin. There are good uses of Twitter. Hear me say that, okay? There are good uses of Twitter, but one must be so disciplined about his use of the platform in order not to waste time. Like, that's a big thing. It's not just saying mean things and taking delight in people sneering at each other, but it can be a waste of time.

Right. Of course, many other things can be as well. But I know when I logged back onto Twitter and was using that for a period of time, it just sort of sucked all of my emotional intellectual energy into it. And anyway, you're going to be so disciplined. And it's not clear to me, that that it's really really worth it Here's here's my main response All right And again this comes from a kind of Christian perspective and it's a response to kind of my own objections to myself thinking well

This is a platform that you can use for good. So just stay there and that's this We have to acknowledge the concrete setting and the limitations of human life It may be the case that you reach someone through Twitter and that Twitter is the only setting in and through which you reach that person. But by choosing to engage on Twitter, it could be that you fail to reach other people whom you may have met otherwise in person or through other media. I want to pause for a moment just say too, like if the objection is like you could reach that one person, that seems to be an argument for why you should join every conceivable form of social media and desperately try to build a platform there so as to reach that one person. Further, if

Twitter poses an obstacle to your spiritual integrity or growth as it has mine, it may in fact keep you from becoming the evangelist God is calling you to be. It's not just a matter of using every means available. Some means make you less fit to use the other means to which God is calling you. We should let God's providence be our guide for God calls each of us to know love and serve him in a particular way. Our vocation is to seek out that way as best as best we can using the right means at the right time with the right people and for the right purpose. While the

potential efficacy of engagement on Twitter is a consideration, it is not the only consideration and certainly not the most important consideration. Effectively, God is acting in and through the evangelist. He loves those to whom we are sent better than we do. If we want to step into the role of evangelist, it means being honest before the reality of our lives. And part of that reality may be that one experiences Twitter as a hellscape and doesn't want to touch it. And that's been my personal experience.

Like I've seen how this has led me to sin, right? Either because I'm looking at what other people are saying and I'm taking delight through curiosity and the back and forth. Sneering, I think, is the big one. Or tweeting things that I then regret, you know, tweeting something and then wondering what people are saying in response and just having it steal my intellectual and emotional energy away from people who have a right to it.

And surely this is true of all social media. You could say that this is true of YouTube. You can say this is true of Facebook. But I think in many people's experience, Twitter is particularly pernicious. And again, I think it has to do something with the truncating of the message. It's kind of why I think a lot of serious people don't have much respect for

TikTok. It's not because you can't do good on TikTok. It's not because you can't do good work on Twitter. It's just when they force you to say what you want to say in a short amount of time, it seems to lower the discourse

significantly. That's been my experience. It's probably been your experience as well. Now, I am over on locals, matfrad.locals.com. Here's what I love about locals. We have a community of people from all around the world who, in order to participate in that community, have to pay monthly to be a part of it and want to be a part of it. And the thing that I love about that is people don't pay to troll people if they're invested financially are typically there to give people the benefit of the doubt.

And what's great about locals is it's not just me posting everyone in that community is also posting and then people are responding to those people. And the experience that these people have relayed to me is that this has been such a refreshing experience that it's the way social media was meant to be, namely social. So if you're interested, go over to matfrad.locals.com because that's where I plan on spending most of my time, all of my time, except YouTube, matfrad.locals.com. We're also over on Rumble, of course, if you want to search Pints with a Qantas over there and subscribe to us for the perhaps likely day when YouTube bans me for being a heretic.

Anyway any thoughts before we do this? No. Any pushback? Any feedback? Any nothing? I mean the comments are definitely mixed bag. I think a lot of people are very what would you say sensitive and feeling feeling judged yeah well like you said you're not prescribing for people to do

this yeah and I don't care if I honestly if they feel personally attacked I think that says way more about them than me like that's something you should look at I don't need to look at that for you if you feel personally attacked, I think that says way more about them than me. Like that's something you should look at. I don't need to look at that for you. If you feel personally attacked by me quitting Twitter and saying to you, you don't have to, but here's what I think is a good idea. I really think that's something you need to, you need to work through. I personally make really excited to do this. I don't even know how to do this.

So are you looking at my screen right now? The three dots. 56.6. Here's the other thing, right? Like 56.6 thousand people. But like I'll post things and you'll get like five likes. So this idea that well you could, you're reaching that many people is just nonsense, you know? Alright. This one? Probably down by your face.

Yeah, it's the three dots by your face in the bottom left. Okay, and the busy now I want to check what people are saying. I Am live on TV. Hi mom. You're welcome. Anybody else want to say anything before I delete this account five? Actually, that could be really dangerous At known it's not bad more maybe Yeah Let's see. Settings and support. Yes. Settings and privacy.

Deactivate your account. Cool. Time. Let's see what. OK, this will deactivate your account. You're about to start the process process. Why does it have to be a process? Is this going to be like, you know, if in five weeks you still want to come back, it'll be here. Yeah. You're about to start the process of deactivating your Twitter account,

your display name, username and public profile. So exciting will no longer be viewable on twitter.com. That just reminded me, I have a pints with Aquinas Twitter handle. We'll delete that one after. But I don't even know the password for it because it just self populates whenever something comes out as a podcast I think it just shows up there. Anyway, we'll delete that later You can restore your Twitter account if it was accidentally or wrongfully deactivated. Yeah, not gonna do that. All right, let's Deactivate oh Man, this is a long password, and I don't even know it. I gotta look it up. Don't say it out loud

Oh Matt reactivated his account That would be the weirdest Twitter hack of all time somebody login to into your account and reactivate it. That would be super cool. I'd have respect for that. I'm not going to lie. All right. Maybe take me off the screen off the Twitter screen while I do this. And if you want to say something entertaining for the folks at home while I do this, that could help because there are a ton of dollar signs at signs, all sorts of signs. Here we go. I think the main reason, and you didn't mention this Simon, I think the main reason you should quit Twitter personally is that if you're a practicing or believing Catholic or Christian, the people who run Twitter hate you and you make them money and support their kingdom and grow a kingdom contrary to the kingdom of God when you use it.

What do you mean hate me? Like they don't obviously hate me directly. No, but they hate like the like if they met you and knew you. Yeah, they would. That's right. And it's there's one thing to love your neighbor, but it's another thing to actively build a kingdom That's contrary to the kingdom of God and I think when you enable and help these mega companies that are actively pushing for the breakdown of Christian societies and a Christian society then you make that easier. So I don't don't do that Yeah

I think a good response to that which I've heard from Matt Walsh when he was on the show and I kind of pushed him On that is he said that seems absurd That's what they want. They want me to get off their platform What I'm gonna do is continue to use their platform against them until they finally bear me Which I think is that is also a cool kind of response, but that's a that's a more Justifiable thing but he might not be having the same issue of like it's stealing peace and just yeah Yeah robbing you of your mental energy. All right, I think I'm ready Yeah, put it back up

I've probably put in the just for everyone saying Neil made a really good point. That was that was not me. Oh, yeah All right, here we go, can I click the activate? Oh, yeah. Boom. Error. Something went wrong, but it's but don't fret. It's not your fault. Let's try again. Oh, come on. Take me off the screen. Take me off.

OK, it's just your face. Oh, no, it's done. It's done because if you show it again, go click it. Oh, there you go. Yeah. It's done because if you show it again, go click it. Oh, there you go. Yeah. So that's what went wrong. What went went wrong was you deactivated like no one's done that reactivate your account. You deactivated your account on October 19, 2022 on November 18, 2022. It will no longer be possible for you to restore your Twitter account if it was accidentally or wrongfully deactivated by clicking yes

I'm not gonna reactivate. It's gonna click cancel ready set Ah that was good now. I bet you I'm still on there though right until 30 days goes why if you open it incognito It doesn't exist. That's awesome See that you're gone. That's that's terrific. So to kind of sum up what I was saying here from the get go, especially if you're just joining us. This wasn't me saying that no Christian should be on Twitter. I think, though, for a lot of us, Twitter is an impediment to our spiritual growth and even to evangelization, which is ironic because maybe we set up Twitter to begin with in order to have a platform for evangelization.

So I'm not saying everyone needs to get off Twitter, but I'm just saying like I've been wanting to do this for a while and I've been wrestling with objections as to why I shouldn't and I express them today in that article that I shared. I'm going to put a link in the description below if you're interested in seeing that Sumer type article that I put up. So certainly not saying you need to get off Twitter, but if you're like me and you're like, you know what, I just think it's about time I did the same thing. And as I say, I've spoken to so many people who are like, are you kidding? You're only now

getting off of it. So if that's you, good for you. You're cooler than me. But if that's you and you want to get off, let me know in the comments below. If, if you deleted your account, I wonder if we can get people to do that. Um, and let me know in the comments below if if you deleted your account. I wonder if we can get people to do that and let me know. That was deleting their account. It sounded like as we were doing this. Yep. Sydney. Maybe.

Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, that's cool. Like I know as you to your point earlier Thursday and feel free to push against this too. You know, I know that just like the execs of Twitter, if they got to know me would be against everything or many things that I held to be true and important. The same thing is obviously true of Google.

I find YouTube to be an amazing platform, which I love despite their worldview and despite that the fact that some of them may hate me or hate my opinions and I find it a really constructive way of... My long form discussions are like the polar opposite of tweets, right? I sit down for two, three, four, five hours with people and hash things out. So I'm really happy to remain on YouTube while they'll let me yeah, I think I think that's a good I think that's a good argument I think that when people say that oh that argument also applies to YouTube It's hard to say that you can do you in your ministry Matt can do as much good on Twitter as you do on you

Yeah, I think that you ought to somebody sent a super chat and I don't remember exactly what it said But thank you so much Ray about paraphrase of it was that Christ didn't exhaust all of the possible means of evangelization even himself He picked the ones that were the most effective and so if in your ministry This is the most effective means then there's no problem Yeah, if you saying that this other one is less effective and I'm not gonna waste peace on it And again, I know this stream has been about me deleting my Twitter account, but it really wasn't meant to be a solipsistic video

It's really meant to be an invitation to others if they feel the same way I feel if they've been struggling with this it's it's kind of meant to be an encouragement To other people to maybe do the same thing and it is a good point that we can learn from our Lord's life I mean he spent 30 years in Nazareth. Like if you were to guess what the second person of the Blessed Trinity would do, wouldn't you think that by the age of reason, he'd be touring the countryside and evangelizing? But he didn't do that. He waited till he was 30 and then spent three years in public ministry.

And so yeah, I think that kind of goes to what we've already said. Yeah. What would be the second most crappy social media? I think TikTok is probably the crappiest. Yeah, TikTok is worse than Twitter. I say Twitter is a second because TikTok is the worst. Yeah. Just, I mean, Twitter has porn, right?

Yeah, it's really bad. Yeah. TikTok doesn't, I don't know. Still well defined porn. And then what's third? What would be the third Instagram or maybe Facebook? I was chatting with Jackie Francois yesterday and I think we agreed that

it might be particularly difficult for women to be on Instagram in a way that it might not be for men. That seems to be the conclusion her and I came up with. She said that women often can compare themselves to the lives of others and that's never been my experience on Instagram. I usually use it just to post beautiful pictures of churches and things and. Yeah I deleted it the other day did you. Instagram yeah cool why didn't delete my account but I deleted the app so. Did you Instagram? Yeah. Cool.

Well, I didn't delete my account, but I deleted the app. So I just didn't think that I think that the it's become so much like TikTok with their real thing that I was getting sucked into a TikTok like experience. And I hated it. It's just like I don't like it is something I enjoyed enough for the amount of time I was losing. Good for you. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, this is something I said a while back when I talked about Distancing ourself from the internet and from smartphones is what level of inconvenience? Am I willing to embrace to live a more peaceful life? Like at some point there's a threshold that's crossed where okay I don't want this level of inconvenience because it actually has the opposite effect now my life's really crazy So like when I travel

I'll take a smartphone, because it's really annoying when you've got to go places and they have QR codes and tickets, you know. But that's really cool. I love how you put that, like you were investing so much time into it, and it wasn't worth it. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just not what I had it for anymore. Yeah. Sweet, anything else, or should we just wrap up? I guess just congratulations to everyone who has been wanting to delete Twitter and done it during the stream. It seems like a couple people in chat were doing that. That's really cool. Cool for them.

And I'd love to know their experience in the comments. Please let me know. I'd love to pin your comment to the top or one of your comments at the top if it's really heartfelt because that was my hope. I've been thinking about this for a while I was sitting down last night with my wife and my friend Jackie and we were talking about and I just came to the conclusion like yeah like this is not only is it a source of anxiety for me and an obstacle not just that but it actually doesn't have nearly the reach unless you play the game right that

you might assume that it does when you have 50,000 plus followers. Like you would think if you had that many followers that everything you put out there would just, you get tons of retweets, tons of likes. But unless you're playing the game, the kind of outrage game, then you don't really get that. So it's not even that I'm losing a lot there either. Anyway, so I thought about that last night. I decided I wanted to quit and I thought it would be cool to do a stream to encourage people if they

feel the same way that I do that they don't have to be on Twitter either. So that's it. Sweet. All right. Tomorrow we have a debate on Purgatory. Show up for that. It's around two o'clock Eastern standard time thereabouts. This Saturday, I interviewed Dr.

Peter Craeft in our cigar lounge. And man, I love that guy. I'm so excited to have him in, well, in the cigar lounge. We're doing a book signing too there in the cigar lounge at 1230 p.m. If you live around Steubenville. So, yeah, subscribe, click the bell button. Thank you so much for being here. And thanks to everybody who's commenting. God bless.