- Snow day
- Is crime correlated with crime?
- A new kind of link in bio
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Rise of the Coconut Queen |
Yesterday, in yet another surreal update to the 2024 election, Joe Biden succumbed to pressure from his party, and dropped out of the race. Notably, and confoundedly considering he seems to have lost that trust due to his dementia, he has not stepped down from office, nor will he, which he made clear in the statement announcing his decision. But the most interesting thing about that decision was probably where he dropped it: Elon Musk’s X, at 1:46PM ET (followed by Instagram and Facebook a few moments later). The press was neither involved in the announcement, nor alerted. Biden’s team is clearly feeling bitter, and they have good reason following the coup. Still, he endorsed Kamala and told us all to give her money, so I guess we’re not doing democracy this season. Buckle up, the party of “norms” is about to announce a bunch of new rules you never knew existed.
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Is crime correlated with crime? |
Crime is down over 40% at the North Hollywood metro station in Los Angeles, two months after LAMTA implemented a pilot program requiring passengers tap in and out to ride. Strange, right? For years we’ve been told that Studies™ show fare evasion is a mere “crime of desperation,” uncorrelated with any broader propensity for criminality. Now, it appears the academics were wrong, and common sense — which tells us that people who evade fares aren’t doing it because they’re too poor to pay, but because they’re (literal) free-riders who take pleasure in violating social norms — was right. Guess it’s time to wrap up that national experiment with anarchy, folks. Still not convinced? I’ll let you in on a little secret. All those assholes blasting music out loud on the train? 9 times out of 10, they didn’t pay either :)
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A new kind of link in bio |
A London High Court found computer scientist Craig Wright is not in fact Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, after he failed to provide proof of his claim. In a master stroke, the court ordered Wright to pin a tweet to his X profile that begins with “DR CRAIG STEVEN WRIGHT IS NOT SATOSHI NAKAMOTO,” and explains in 300 words why his misrepresentation is “a most serious abuse.” As one reply-guy put it, “this is the modern-day version of being put into a public stockade,” and they’re right. This is a leap forward in social technology, and a chance to restore social order through shame. For a certain type of guy, fines and community service are academic concepts, but a pinned confession that you can’t unpin for six months? This could be the missing piece in criminal justice reform. Let’s empty our jails and expand the pin-itentiary.
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Trump Assassination Attempt and a Report from the RNC |
this week, we’re joined once again by comfortably smug who gives us a live report from the republican national convention. plus: we talk the trump assassination attempt, jd vance being selected as vp, elon’s donations to trump, and more. |
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The Conflict of Interest at the Heart of CA’s AI Bill |
dan hendrycks, an executive at a firm that co-sponsored scott wiener's ai bill, co-founded an ai safety compliance company that launched on tuesday |
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Thoughts and Prayers for “Literally Hitler” |
pirate wires #123 // attempt on trump’s life, mainstream discourse in the crosshairs, the blueanon distraction from accountability, and thank god for conspiracy theories: the price we pay for truth |
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