Yesterday, hundreds of “yay Hamas” activists shut down bridges and airports across the country, including the Golden Gate Bridge, where several of my colleagues were trapped for hours (incredible day on Slack). The purpose of activism like this is not to persuade the masses so much as to harvest attention, and I hate to break it to you but it works, which is why the shutdowns are increasing in frequency. So, how do we end the cycle? Obviously, everyone wants way more of these idiots in jail, but that would only martyr these people, and further spread the meme. The better thing to do is invert the implicit story here — that these are fearless soldiers willing to serve time for their political beliefs — by publicly mortifying them. Long story short, it’s time to bring back flogging. Let’s televise these people crying while they’re literally spanked in front of giant, cheering crowds and see how long the protests last.

Last week, the Biden administration announced the recipients of $830 million in grants as part of a program to “make transportation infrastructure more resilient to climate change.” Predictably, the grant database is filled with municipalities finding creative ways to say that potholes are caused by the weather, but one project in particular stands out: Brooklyn will “receive $15 million to replace the 121-year-old Grand Street Bridge that was severely damaged during Superstorm Sandy.” When a society needs to replace a bridge that was built a few months before the airplane was invented, that's not a climate change problem; it's just physics. It's okay to admit that things break when they get old. And it's dangerous to teach every grant writer in the country that the only way to get federal funds is to lie. If that's how we're doing this, give me a minute and I'll figure out how Newark’s Terminal B is bad for the environment.

Last week, a retrospective in First Things on Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich, who was ousted from the company a decade ago for donating modest amounts to campaigns against gay marriage, sparked a chain of mea culpas from bystanders to tech’s yearslong crusade against wrongthink. On X, after Marc Andreessen apologized for “not doing more to support Brendan,” former Oculus CTO John Carmack expressed his regret for not publicly opposing Facebook’s witch hunt against Palmer Luckey, who was chased out of the company for supporting Trump in 2016. It was a watershed moment in the industry’s drift back to openness. Yes, fanatical authoritarians remain embedded in many companies. But the goal was never to sway them. The goal was to signal to the legions of cowardly conformers, the rank-and-file majority who follow wherever the pioneers lead, that thought policing is out, and free expression is in. Cowards, take note: This is your permission to dissent.

you can’t live on the internet, and if you could it would be bad; illusion of the 'global perspective,' 'exit' as the path to failure, and paul graham delves into war with nigeria

on this weeks pod, the pirate wires crew offers writing advice, including on the proper use of the world ‘delve’

earlier this year, river wrote about how the arab resource and organizing center wreaks havoc on san francisco drivers on the taxpayer’s dime

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