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.

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.

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

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.

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.

So much #FactCheckBait being put out by IT Cell today and so many people biting.

What is #FactCheckBait? Fascists putting out tweets or messages with very obvious rebuttal properties. So non-fascists are distracted by rebutting or fact checking them. And the fascists get more name recognition. What have the top sanghi twitter accounts done other than provoke?

Why are so many sanghi bigot handles famous & well followed on Twitter despite having no notable quality other than getting called out by liberals? Cos that's all it takes. If they can fool liberals into QTing or even screenshot-ing them, they become heroes and then are like

Another example of #FactCheckBait. This sanghi wants you to identify them while pointing out the very obvious flaws in their logic. This sanghi is counting on it to improve their visibility. Don't give them that oxygen. Call them out like this, without IDs, if you must.

As pointed out by @bongopondit, peak #FactCheckBait was Ted Cruz saying rejoining the Paris climate agreement was about appeasing Paris not Pittsburgh. He knows it's BS. He's an evil psychopath but not dumb. He wants you to QT him and distract from his insurrection efforts.

1/ The “I Have a Dream" speech is one of the most extraordinary speeches in American history. You should read it again. First, a few thoughts about the common American heritage Dr. King relied upon in calling Americans to rededicate themselves to the unfinished work of freedom.

2/ Dr. King delivered his speech in what he called the “hallowed spot” of the Lincoln memorial. More than a picturesque backdrop, King relied on America’s reverence for Lincoln and the common celebration of Lincoln’s words and acts, especially the Emancipation Proclamation.

3/ “Five score years ago…” King echoes the words of the Gettysburg Address. Like Lincoln, King invokes the Declaration of Independence and the fundamental principles of American freedom, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Every person in that crowd knew these words.

4/ The Declaration, Constitution and Emancipation Proclamation declared and established the fundamental American principles of freedom that all Americans knew and believed in. But these principles and promises remained unfulfilled for black Americans.

5/ Lincoln’s audience knew the history of slavery and many had suffered personal loss in the ongoing war. Dr. King’s audience knew the history of violent racism, segregation, and unequal economic opportunity. The Proclamation freed the slaves, “but the Negro still is not free.”

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/

Yesterday I refused unsafe work. This is how it went.

#onted #onpoli #osstf

1st, to the haters. Since when is it "normal" to go to work scared for your health, your life, and your family's lives? It is our right not be scared at work and our employer (in my case, the gov) needs to put measures in place so we aren't afraid. That is law, not just words.

There were 2 steps to the refusal. Refusing to work to my employer, and refusing to work to the Ministry. If my concerns were addressed in Step 1 - to my employer, there is not need to go to the Ministry. We went to the Ministry.

Involved in my refusal were my administration team, a Health and Safety Inspector from my employer, a Health and Safety Inspector from my union, and later in Step 2, a Ministry of Labour Inspector.

I first stated my specific concerns to my adm. They were so supportive in doing everything in their power to address my concerns. I want to thank them for that. They took my concerns seriously. My concerns were all tied to the increased contagiousness of the new variants: