Seriously. Just stop it already.
How do you “leave a Nazi megaphone”? Wtf even is that?
Look, I can’t be responsible for your lack of reading comprehension. If the school system failed you that badly, go complain to your teachers.
Took me a few reads, but I think they’re talking about Twitter, as in, amplifying Nazi voices
Amplifying, promoting, and endorsing.
Huh… I just assumed I was dealing with a troll. I’ll thank you for explaining what I assumed was glaringly obvious.
If you thought that was glaringly obvious then I have some thoughts on why your code sucks.
I COULD take this bait, or I could satisfy myself that 325 people had absolutely no problem understanding how a megaphone doesn’t need to be a LITERAL megaphone, and go about my day. I know which I’m gonna do, and wish you luck in whatever you’ve got on your plate, my needlessly confrontational friend.
I mean most likely if someone didn’t get it they probably just moved on and didn’t comment or even vote. So wouldn’t look into the votes too much as a source on how easy to understand the meme was
You know what? That’s a fair point, so I’m going to go ahead and use this as a teachable moment.
Let’s break this sentence down bit by bit.
Let’s take the word “megaphone”. Megaphone is a noun defined as a device that amplifies sound, particularly voices. It may come as a shock, but in the English language, a thing doesn’t have to LITERALLY be the the thing we call it, but we can assign a label to something because it shares certain relevant characteristics. (i.e. someone doesn’t have to LITERALLY be a troll to be called one, just horribly unpleasant and nasty).
Now as for the next step, we’re going to apply the word Nazi. Now, don’t get confused here! I know you’re sitting there saying “Nazi is a noun!” but here’s another neat aspect of English! Nouns can BECOME adjectives! (i.e. troll poster). So if we put both of those together, we get a meaning something like “An object that amplifies the voices of Nazis”.
Next let’s take a look at the right side. “run by an evil billionaire prick” is what we call a “relative clause”, more specifically a “reduced relative clause”, because I’ve omitted the “that is” that might have come at the head of it. See, In English, when we have a noun, we can use relative clauses or prepositional phrases to add more information to really specify the details of what we’re talking about.
So if we put it all together, we have “an object that amplifies the voices of Nazis that is run by an evil billionaire prick”. Now, at this point, I could give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you have no idea what I’m talking about. It would be an INCREDIBLE miss on your part seeing as how this is an Elon Musk community, but I’ll be charitable and spell it out and say this refers to “Twitter”, or “X” as the Musk fans like to refer to it. Let’s go ahead and replace that, and this is now our noun.
Twitter, in case you are unaware, is a social media platform delivered via the internet. In English, it is perfectly acceptable usage to use the word “leave” to refer to cessation of usage of an internet platform (i.e. leaving Facebook).
Now, stick with me here, because we’re going to put these elements together.
The best time to [stop using] [Twitter] is two years ago.
This does bring forward the first legitimate grammatical complaint here, which is that my choice of the present tense form of “be” with the '“two years ago” is a bit jarring if you read this as a single past tense event, but I decided the ongoing timeless nature of the original proverb was a better fit.
Not really all that complicated, but I get it. English is hard and not everyone is good at it.
I just want to let you know, you wasted a lot of time typing this all up, so I’m not wasting any more by reading it 🤗
You’re being weirdly hostile and demeaning about someone who isn’t a native speaker (talking about me) not immediately getting the meaning of your meme. Sorry it took me a few attempts, I guess.
Even the person you replied to said “Took me a few reads”. And another post was confused as well.
It runs fine on my machine
Twitter. I understood immediately.
You get a gold star! You’re so smart. 😁
It is a little hard to believe that someone couldn’t make the connection considering what the name of the community is.
How do you “leave a Nazi megaphone”?
What on earth are you talking about? Leave a megaphone? Leave it where?
Are you asking people to stop working at Xwitter? Stop using it?
I’M not asking anything. This is an ancient Chinese proverb. Interpret it as you will.
I like a good Chinese proverb as much as the next guy, but your code sucks, so …
…and it is not your turn yet. We’ll get to you after we’re finished with this customer.
Well, you see, here’s the thing. Chinese proverbs—let’s talk about that for a second. You hear people saying, “Oh, the wisdom of the East! Look at the deep knowledge embedded in these simple phrases.” But, really, we have to ask ourselves, “How valid is that?” Is this just some collectivist artifact? Because, and I mean this seriously, the Chinese culture, at least historically, has been dominated by this top-down hierarchical thinking. It’s all about fitting in, about the harmonious whole. Well, harmony is good to a point, but, if you go too far, it’s stifling. It can become an enforced conformity, where the individual voice, the spark of real insight, gets crushed under the weight of collective expectation.
Now, I’m not saying all Chinese proverbs are without merit, but you have to consider the underlying structure they come from. It’s like, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” Okay, so what’s the message here? Don’t strive? Don’t excel? Just blend in? I mean, I could get that advice from a bureaucrat in the Soviet Union, too, right? And it’d have the same problem. It’s inherently anti-individual, anti-exceptionalism. It’s saying, “Don’t rock the boat.” But, sometimes, the boat needs to be rocked, folks! Sometimes, the people who stick out are the very ones driving progress. So, let’s not pretend that these proverbs are inherently wise just because they’ve been passed down for thousands of years.
Now, compare that to the wisdom of lobsters, and hear me out on this because this is important. Lobsters—they’ve been around for, what, 350 million years? Longer than trees! And they live in this dominance hierarchy, right? It’s built into their nervous systems. A lobster knows when to stand up for itself, when to be assertive. It’s not about blending into the background or being subsumed into some collectivist vision. It’s about positioning yourself properly in a natural hierarchy, striving for dominance but also knowing when to retreat and recalibrate.
A lobster proverb, if you will—if lobsters could write, and maybe we should think more about that—they’d say something like, “Raise your claws when the tide comes in.” It’s a statement of strength. It’s a recognition of the natural ebb and flow of opportunity. When it’s your time to act, you seize the moment. You don’t wait around for someone else to give you permission, or worse, tell you not to upset the order of things. No, no—you act decisively, because life is competitive. It’s not about harmony—it’s about finding your place in the chaos.
Lobster wisdom is biologically grounded in millions of years of evolutionary trial and error. Chinese proverbs? Sure, they’ve been around for a long time too, but what are they based on? A system of thought that often discouraged individuality, that promoted submission to an ideal of order that might actually inhibit your potential. Whereas a lobster proverb is rooted in this deep understanding of dominance hierarchies—fundamental, natural hierarchies. It’s about knowing when to stand your ground and fight for what you need. And that’s real wisdom! That’s something practical. Something you can build your life around. So, why aren’t we listening to lobsters more?
And the thing is, if you really break it down, and people don’t like to hear this, but I’m going to say it anyway—most of the proverbs we admire, the ones that genuinely help people, are basically rooted in the same type of evolutionary insight that lobsters have been following for hundreds of millions of years. It’s not about harmony, folks—it’s about responsibility and action. It’s about standing up straight—literally and metaphorically. Like a lobster. Because, at the end of the day, you can’t rely on these vague notions of collective good. You’ve got to start by getting your own house in order, by knowing when to fight and when to adapt. That’s how you win in this world. And that’s what the lobsters know. That’s what the Chinese proverbs, well, they just miss entirely.
Your code might suck (people, look at the username before judging me!), but your proverbs most definitely do not! 😋
