Yesterday was the 12th day of Christmas so it seems time to ask some hard questions, like have you taken down your decorations, what’s the point in such festivities anyway and are there any reasons to be cheerful in 2023?

Here’s someone who was feeling optimistic back in the sweltering heat (I’m imagining) of US Indendence Day in 2020:

But if you click on the date (or time) you’ll see something strange. Conversation interruptus one might call it. This may give a clue to the alert Cliscep reader that this post can be seen as a sequel to Bit Rot. It is. But when I penned those initial thoughts in February last year I had no idea that Elon Musk was going to take over Twitter. And for me that makes the question about plausible cheerfulness this year a highly interesting one. Listen for example to these four opinions:

How about the Covid vaccine debate in the legacy media today?

Would this breakthrough in the Daily Telegraph have happened without Dr Malhotra’s sterling work on Twitter recently under the liberal, free speech-loving regime of the Tesla owner? I wouldn’t be doing this post if I didn’t think there was a connection. (And I didn’t think this issue itself, and others like it, were extremely important.)

But I’m interested in anyone’s view. Musk-haters. Pessimists. Covid vaccine trusters. I’m sure you get the idea.

That’s it for now. I will add to this post in the coming days. When I make an addition to the main body I’ll add a comment to that effect.