BC SOCIETY
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

Alright, time to stop ignoring the J6 discourse...

It is necessary to confront the Proud Boys because the Proud Boys are only coming to DC to fight "antifa," and if there are no antifascists there, they will simply assault whoever they determine is "antifa."

 Because the Proud Boys are racist, sexist homophobes, this generally ends up being racial, ethnic, or sexual minorities.

This happens and the police allow this to happen. Some form of pushback is necessary.
The Proud Boys exist only to create violence. They are not a drinking club, they are a militant political wing of the Republican Party, and their mission is to generate a cultural notion of right wing immunity.
This is the violent obverse of the same coin that has the Republican Party's other immunities on the reverse: the ability to tamper with elections, engage in financial fraud, ignore the Constitution, and in general participate in corruption.
However, while the Proud Boys must be confronted, we must also recognize that their entire raison d'être is that antifa also shows up to face this confrontation.
Therefore, we can hold two positions simultaneously:

- that it is necesssary to confront the acute, instantaneous threat the Proud Boys represent;
- that the sustained, cumulative threat is not mitigated by these instantaneous confrontations.
For the past three+ years people have been fighting the Proud Boys from Charlottesville to Portland and everyplace in between.

While this helps safeguard those communities in those moments, there is no outcome-based lens in which this represents sustained progress
Progress is not represented as a sum of parts. Fighting off the Proud Boys one day does very little to discourage them from coming back another day, despite it being necessary to fight them off in the first place.
Proud Boys and their affiliates have been fought, arrested, stabbed, shot, and killed at events, but this has not dampened their enthusiasm to commit more violence.

And, as I said, not showing up will also not dampen that enthusiam, either.
What we need is a more comprehensive strategy for addressing the threat of fascist street violence that exists in the moments in between their actions.

Some of this exists--doxing campaigns and other activism does have some effect, but it is not enough.
So we cannot claim the threat is gone if antifascists don't show up. That would be catastrophic.

But also we cannot claim that showing up is winning, even when that moment is won.
The Alt-Right was devastated partly because people showed up to oppose them in the streets, but also partly because of numerous arrests, doxes, and immense lawsuits.
The Alt-Right also found the idea of dominating their enemies fun, but it turned out a bunch of pencil-neck twenty-somethings couldn't dominate so much in the street.
It stopped being fun for them when their crows of 12 attendees didn't meet their vision of grandeur AND they went and got their asses kicked anyways and then got arrested for doing a terrorism, and then got sued to oblivion.
For the Proud Boys, they enjoy the street combat. So to fight the Proud Boys we need not just a strategy for J6, but a strategy for J7 and beyond.
Anyhow, the Proud Boys have changed very little since I covered them and their violence a couple years ago for PRA:

https://t.co/bgSaceID4i

More from Emily of the State

Emily G
Emily G
@EmilyGorcenski
Having spent a lot of time over the past several years thinking about and studying ethics in technology, the more I am convinced that the discussions about ethics in technology have a major, irreconcilable blind spot.

“If you are neutral in the face of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor,” as Desmond Tutu summarized.

Our discussion about eliminating bias in AI is an aggressive march towards neutrality. Our measure of fairness is a line drawn too early.

Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to eliminate bias in AI. Maybe we should be designing for bias in the favor of the oppressed. Worth thinking about.

Should we be eliminating power dynamics or inverting power dynamics? If we try to scrub power dynamics from a system too early in a neatly bounded space, we just let those power dynamics to creep back in, or we need those boundaries to be impenetrable.

My next ethics talk may just be a single slide that says REVOLUTION
ALL
Emily of the State
Emily of the State
@EmilyGorcenski
I know we’re all enamored with the new Christmas tradition of blowing up an entire city block on Christmas Day, so I must join the chorus of concerned folks who worry that if we don’t provide a forum for people who want to blow up city blocks, a vital Xmas tradition will be lost.

If we don‘t let angry white men blow up city blocks, then we will lose so many other vital liberties. How can you connect with other people exploring gender, if your city blocks aren’t blowing up?

I’m here today to honor those dead in the latest Target mass shooting, a tragic but necessary cost of our freedoms, without their sacrifice we might not be able to express displeasure at our cable companies.

^ this is what y’all sound like

The digital freedom movement has not proposed a single solution for dealing with Nazi murder and has essentially decided that that is not its problem.
SOCIETY
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Emily of the State
Emily of the State
@EmilyGorcenski
Here's the challenge with disrupting militia plots: most militia dudes are Dunning-Kruger levels of incompetent, but not Dunning-Kruger levels of dangerous.

So the problem is that militia culture is wrapped up in this sort of virtue signalling nonstop. It's all around trying to project yourself as a leader, a military expert, a tactical master, based entirely on what you've read in Tom Clancy novels

So a militia might say things like, alright, here's the plan. We're gonna get 1000 guys, and we're gonna set up a barricade at each of the three entrances to the statehouse, and then we're gonna neutralize the security forces.

Super scary stuff! Just one problem.

Where are they gonna get 1000 guys? How are they going to implement a Command and Control structure for 1000 guys? What are they gonna make the barricades out of?

This requires a high-level of coordination and logistics support that they really just don't actually have the talent or network for. Let alone that the number of guys they claim is always a factor of 100 larger than the number of guys who actually guy.
SOCIETY
Emily of the State
Emily of the State
@EmilyGorcenski
This is premature, but I want to walk you though why some of the charges coming through are incredible significant. This is one of the recently unsealed complaints.


1512(b) is a very, very strong crime. Section 1512 is about obstruction of the administration of justice. The statute is supposedly about disrupting court proceedings, but it's broader. The way it's written, Congressional Proceedings count.

The statutory maximum for a single violation of 1512(b) is 20 years in prison. That's a lot. Most related federal crimes—231 civil disorder, 2101 riots—are only 5 years on the top end.

But that's not all.

See, federal sentencing is done via a complicated formula that computes sentencing guidelines.

Sentencing guidelines are based on the statute, the elements of the criminal offense, and the defendant's criminal history. It also factors in things like if the defendant takes responsibility, and takes a plea deal, etc.
ECONOMY
Emily of the State
Emily of the State
@EmilyGorcenski
Ok so there’s a conspiracy theory going around that this woman was faking her injury with an onion.

This is likely false. Onions are a folk remedy for pepper spray.


The theory, which has some merit, is that since onions make you cry, it helps flush the irritants from your eyes with natural tears.

However, this is not recommended as a treatment for pepper spray and is ultimately not very effective.

Pepper spray, tear gas, mace, CN, HC, and other agents are best removed with a flush of water or, if you have the proper mixture, saline. Nothing else.

We do not do chemistry in our eyeballs. We are not putting chemicals in our eyes. We are not putting produce in our eyes. We are removing the chemicals with safe, neutral water.
CRIME

More from Society

KeyserSozeBro
KeyserSozeBro
@KeyserSozeBro1
My little Jacob Wohl story: August 2016, we're sitting around the trading turrets at my office on a bored to tears slow day. Our receptionist said someone was here for his 2pm appointment. None of us had an appointment on schedule. Who is it? we ask? Some guy named Jacob Wohl 1/

Jacob Wohl, for those out of loop, gained quite a bit of notoriety for becoming the youngest guy to ever get himself barred for life from the financial industry. Now he's waiting in our lobby to pitch something. We're a large merchant bank. 2/

Send him in, we said. In walks young Jacob asking to be seeded with $25mm to start a new hedge fund in exchange for an ownership stake in it. Oh, & he needs an office. And a Bloomberg station. And needs to borrow staff until he can hire some guys. And he needs a leased car... 3/

And he needs an answer today. Right now. Because there's a competing offer from Izzy Englander's firm Millenium (we know those guys well). We fight the urge to literally start laughing, but do ask him...hey, you the same guy who got banned by regulators? He didn't even flinch 4/

He went on about that being untrue & handed over a letter he said was from his lawyer who had confirmed he was not barred, had been vindicated but it 'just wasn't in the system yet at the SEC, CFTC'...whatever that means. 5/
SOCIETY
UN Watch
UN Watch
@UNWatch
Wow! Rare moment of truth at the UN as Miss Iraq Sarah Idan calls out Hamas terrorism, antisemitism taught in Muslim countries, and biased media.

THREAD: "Two years ago, I represented Iraq at Miss Universe. I posted a photo with Miss Israel on social media..."


"I was told to remove it and forced to denounce Israeli policies. I received death threats. Since then I can no longer return to my homeland.

Why did the Iraqi government fail to condemn the threats, or allow my freedom of speech?"

"The issue between Arabs and Israelis goes beyond policy disagreements. It’s deeply rooted in the belief systems taught in Muslim countries, which are anti-Semitic."

"Sadly, hatred & intolerance are reinforced by biased media. When I watched the news last month, why did they never report that the Hamas terrorist organization fired nearly 700 rockets at Israeli civilians in one weekend or that Hamas used Palestinians in Gaza as human shields?"

"Why do they never condemn Hamas for initiating the attacks? Instead, they only show those killed by the response, in self-defense, and blame Israel."
SOCIETY
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Matthew
Matthew
@Matthew94091812
COVID Masks: Mechanistic View: Part 2: Fine Aerosol Emissions:

Masks may increase fine aerosol emissions from: 1) nebulization of large droplets into fine aerosols, or 2) friability of certain mask materials creating "aerosolized fomites."

Please share:

Here are the studies:

The question is whether facemasks are actually a source for viral aerosols by:

1) Masks get saturated by large "respiratory droplets" containing viral molecules. Air turbulence against trapped droplets may create aerosols that eventually diffuse around edges. Continued...

Trapped droplets potentially get pushed through the filter media of the mask, getting nebulized into aerosols.

Particles don't always stay in the mask:

Study: Ha'eri 1980

Title: The efficacy of standard surgical face masks: an investigation using "tracer particles"

Albumin tracer particles put inside a surgical mask were dispersed into the room by breathing.

Viral molecules can get airborne from air turbulence.

Study: Liu 2020
Title: Aerodynamic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 in two Wuhan hospitals.
SARS-2-COV sub-micrometer aerosols not tightly bound to surfaces, get airborne when PPE is taken off.
SOCIETY
Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF)
Internet Freedom Found...
@internetfreedom
THREAD: We filed RTIs on behalf of @no2uid asking the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare questions about how your personal data will be protected while you're using CO-WIN, the COVID-19 vaccination registration platform.

We got answers... kind of. Here's the new info.

1/n


Just like with Aarogya Setu, many Indians are worried that about the potential CO-WIN has to leak your data or threaten your privacy in the name of dealing with a pandemic. So, we asked the MOHFW some questions about data protection under the Right to Information Act.
2/n


In the responses we received, MOHFW said that it cannot provide us with a privacy policy on CO-WIN (?!).

Thankfully it was clarified that Aadhaar is not mandatory for registration on Aarogya Setu or CO-WIN, and that physical vaccine certificates will be provided to everyone.
3/n

The data it says it will collect will be your name, gender, date of birth, photo ID, and number.

National, State, and District level admins will have access to use the app, but there is not much further clarity on this point.

But most importantly...
4/n

The responses (or rather lack of them) related to your data privacy and protection are completely vague. We received no clear answers on which Ministries/Depts will have access to your personal data, the permissions provided, etc. This is a failure in terms of transparency.
5/n
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sexnotgender.info
sexnotgender.info
@Sexnotgender_
Hi @officestudents @EHRC @EHRCChair @KishwerFalkner @RJHilsenrath @trussliz @GEOgovuk

The Equality and Diversity section of your job application has 'gender' in what appears to be a list of the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.

However...

1/15


However, 'gender' is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and is not defined in the Act.

https://t.co/qisFhCiV1u

Sex is the protected characteristic under the Act, but that is not on your list.

2/15


You then ask for the 'gender' of the applicant with options:

Male
Female.

3/15


Again, 'gender' is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and is not defined in the Act.

https://t.co/qisFhCiV1u

4/15


Sex is the protected characteristic and the only two possible options for sex are 'Female' and 'Male' as defined in the Act and consistent with biology, but you don't ask for that.

https://t.co/CEJ0gkr6nF

'Gender' is not a synonym for sex.

5/15
SOCIETY

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Vibhor Varshney
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On the occasion of youtube 20k and Twitter 70k members

A small tribute/gift to members

Screeners

technical screeners - intraday and positional both

before proceeding - i have helped you , can i ask you so that it can help someone else too

thank you

positional one

run - find #stock - draw chart - find levels

1- Stocks closing daily 2% up from 5 days
https://t.co/gTZrYY3Nht

2- Weekly breakout
https://t.co/1f4ahEolYB

3- Breakouts in short term
https://t.co/BI4h0CdgO2

4- Bullish from last 5

intraday screeners

5- 15 minute Stock Breakouts
https://t.co/9eAo82iuNv

6- Intraday Buying seen in the past 15 minutes
https://t.co/XqAJKhLB5G

7- Stocks trading near day's high on 5 min chart with volume BO intraday
https://t.co/flHmm6QXmo

Thank you
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foone
foone
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It is 2018 and this error message is a mistake from 1974.
This limitation, which is still found in the very latest Windows 10, dates back to BEFORE STAR WARS. This bug is as old as Watergate.


When this was developed, nothing had UPC codes yet because they'd just been invented.
Back when this mistake was made, There was only one Phone Company, because they hadn't been broken up yet. Ted Bundy was still on the loose. Babe Ruth's home run record was about to fall.

When this bug was developed, Wheel of Fortune hadn't yet aired. No one had seen Rocky Horror. Steven Spielberg was still a little-known directory of TV films and one box-office disappointment. SNL hadn't aired yet. The Edmund Fitzgerald was still hauling iron ore.

WHEN THIS STUPID MISFEATURE WAS INVENTED, THE GODFATHER PART II HAD JUST OPENED IN THEATERS.

So, why does this happen? So Unix (which was only 5 years old at this point) had the good idea of "everything is a file" which mean you could do things like write to sockets, pipes, the console, etc with the same commands and instructions.
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Lu_lu\U0001f498
Lu_lu💘
@luciame16
Some thoughts on episode 53 of #Hercai

Love,that is not real,has no passion. Its fire turns into embers, it doesn’t not smell. The day, the night, the moon&year burn without sun, light, comfort&sleep.
Ömer Hayyam

#Reyyan #Miran #ReyMir #EbruŞahin #AkınAkınözü
#HercaiThoughts


1
PRAISE
The praise in this episode goes foremost to Ebru because she portrayed Reyyan so realistically like a woman who truly lost her unborn child. I was in awe and pain watching her along the episode, all her breakdowns and tears were so real.
#Hercai

2
Of course also Akın took his part and did his part masterfully, but he rightfully was the one who stood aside in this specific episode that needed to be about Reyyan’s pain and thus concentrated on Ebru.
#Hercai

3
And last but not least, if I say thank you to something that B gave us this year, then it’s to have Ali as our director. Also in this episode we saw the artistic eye behind every shot and I loved it.
#Hercai

4
OVERALL COMMENT
I don’t know who wrote ep. 52 but ep. 53 was going strong once more on symbols: roses, stones, fire and trees were incorporated and especially the ReyMir dialogues were written very well. I truly loved every ReyMir scene.
So let's get into it.
#Hercai
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Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
It’s underremarked upon that stablecoins accomplish basically all of the original design goals for Bitcoin qua a transactional mechanism (instant free value transfer anywhere), but that nobody cares about this because nobody ever cared about that part of the pitch.

“Why do people care about stablecoins then?”

A mix of “they encourage dollar-denominated liquidity in the cryptocurrency ecosystem and discourage withdrawal of the same” and “they’re good for money laundering.”

“But they make value transfer between exchanges much faster!”

This was a solved problem in traditional finance, too, mostly through the extension of credit. (It doesn’t matter how long settlement takes if there is sufficient trust to enable credit.)

The Bitcoin ecosystem is *positively allergic* to credit, so you have to call it a coin for them to accept it. And after you call it a coin they ignore everything the world has learned about credit, like risk management.

“Stablecoins aren’t credit!”

They’re pretty much exactly credit? A tether is a zero-coupon Bitfinex bond with a non-functioning call option. I
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Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
Most software founders, particularly in B2B, need to get radically better at sales. @Steli , who is the best person for explaining the scrappy stages in the beginning and then building out a team with scripts and processes, wrote a guide to:

For technical founders it is irrationally, obscenely hard to reverse years of programming (ba dum bum) that sales is a value-destroying activity. Sales is CLEARLY a value-creating activity, contingent on you have a value-creating product.

The world will not drop what they are doing to adopt your work. This is particularly true in B2B, where simply building a better mousetrap won't overcome the activation energy required to get people with additional non-mice problems to prioritize changing mousetraps today.

This is very non-obvious for founders because founders are not often people who *want* to be sold to. We often come from a background where trying out tools is a bit of a fun hobby. We like looking at all the options, making charts, and ripping out partially complete tests.

"This week I unsuccessfully trialed four software options for automating that thing that has been killing us. Our actual production process remains the same as last week. Don't worry; this was a great use of time." is not a thing you want to write in a progress report to manager.
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