As the Biden Administrationâs Department of Justice attempts to jail the opposition partyâs frontrunner presidential candidate, Americans have naturally been distracted by the largeness of these questions: did Trump âdo itâ (whatever âitâ is (thereâs a new thing every month or so)), will justice be delivered equally among the rest of our crooked politicians, and what will actually happen â just technically speaking â if Trump is both convicted of some crime or other and triumphant in the next election? The subject is important, if nebulous, and Iâll be covering it in greater detail as the election season heats up. But today, with federal norms so fundamentally altered in the name of âpreserving norms,â I find myself much more captured by a question for the Industry. What will happen to private citizens of political utility under this overtly politicized DOJ regime? The prosecution of a major presidential candidate is a huge, easy target, and for good reason. Trump will have many defenders, whether he deserves them or not. But what about the rest of us?
Last week, to broad industry shock, Bidenâs DOJ filed a lawsuit against SpaceX for âdiscriminatingâ in favor of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Only hiring Americans? Not in this country, asshole (this country is America). As Alex Tabarrok reported for Marginal Revolution, the SpaceX story was a strange case for many reasons, the governmentâs own policy ostensibly in conflict with the lawsuit most importantly among them. On Twitter/X, Elon argued the decision to hire American citizens wasnât his choice. It was the law, which by the way our government was also following.
At its most basic, the conflict between SpaceX and the DOJ appears to be rooted in confusion over terminology. Space companies are ITAR-controlled, which means they can only hire âUS Persons.â The phrase âUS Personâ apparently includes refugees and asylum seekers waiting for their day in court, while the phrase âUS Citizenâ does not. The government has itself used the phrases interchangeably, I guess by mistake, for years. Nonetheless, the DOJ is taking Elon Musk to court, and the reason is obvious: the Democratic Party considers him an enemy.
Elon is a proponent of âfree speech,â and regardless of how perfectly the value has manifested on his platform, itâs undeniable the spectrum of acceptable politics on Twitter/X has broadened. This, for a certain kind of radical political creature, is intolerable. Kristen Clarke, head of the DOJ Civil Rights Division leading the lawsuit, not only appears to be quite racist (all âsatire,â she has since alleged), but is a committed proponent of limiting speech online. Her repugnant view is held in the name of combating âhate speech,â a purposely ambiguous term that can, by design, be applied to âpolitically incorrectâ opinions on almost any polarizing topic from immigration to welfare. âMisinformation,â another concern of hers, has similarly been weaponized by the state.
For the DOJ, none of this is about SpaceX. This is all, obviously, about Elonâs stated intention for Twitter/X to remain politically neutral, which is to say this is all about the next election. Obviously. Elon is being warned: fall in line, or we will make your life a living hell. He will have to choose, as will the rest of the industry over the coming year.
The most dangerous aspect of our last election was the broad alliance between political power (including unelected political power), media, and the technology industry â the early shape of an indomitable One Party State. But that alliance, while still loosely intact, has slightly eroded over the last year. In tech, specifically, it is less socially acceptable to be so openly authoritarian. The Washington Post is therefore now preparing readers to blame Twitter/X, Meta, and YouTube for a Trump victory following a general (if very slight) relaxing of draconian, pro-DNC speech restrictions. One such horrifying liberalization: Meta now allows users to opt out of seeing fact checks on Facebook posts. This story will carry on for many months to come, likely reaching its zenith sometime around the next âstolenâ election. (Washington Post)
For the last six months or so Iâve written about the cultural vibe shift, and that perspective informed a bit of my recent interview with Peter. Anyway, maybe it hasnât entirely shifted: turns out three quarters of the companies on the S&P tie ESG to executive bonus pay, and more than half maintain DEI incentives associated with compensation, the Financial Times reports. In other words: an actual example of systemic racism. In one case, Southwest Airline CEO Robert Jordan saw his pay go up 76% last year despite the fact that his airline canceled 16,700 flights in December. Nonetheless, âwith respect to ESG initiatives, including DEI and sustainability, the [board] determined that the company performed above target-level expectations.â
It is almost literally âthis business is failing, but employees are increasingly of the correct race.â Who are the bigots again?
Our boys are building a city. With progress across the Bay Area largely hindered by powerful bureaucrats committed, generally, to a philosophy of chaos and decay, involvement in local politics has increasingly become a major aspect of tech industry identity. But opinion sharply divides among a few distinct strategies: 1) entrance into San Franciscoâs Mad Max local politics, 2) exit to a new region (with entrance into local politics there), and now 3) Walt Disney World 2.0 â what if we just built a new city in the Bay Area, and ran it in a sane and reasonable manner? Investors in the project include industry titans Reid Hoffman, Michael Moritz, Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Laurene Powell Jobs, John and Patrick Collison, and Nat Friedman. Naturally, the press has already attacked the project for imaginary slights against the âlocal farmers.â Weâll be following the story closely. (WSJ)
Timnit Gebru, my favorite âAI ethicist,â asserted she was âunequivocallyâ and âdefinitelyâ fired by Google in a recent podcast (in fact, she submitted a letter of resignation, which Google wisely accepted). Read the transcript if you like, but not before checking out our coverage of Timnitâs work, in which she seriously posits Bay Area tech nerds are building AI for the purpose of genocide. Media absolutely loves this woman.Â
In yesterdayâs heartwarming tale of grace under fire, a heroic battalion of Nevada rangers cleared an activist groupâs highway blockade. âWeâre non-violent,â one woman cried as her fellow terrorists were arrested one by one, âweâre environmental protestors.â The blockade may or may not have had something to do with Burning Man, though we will not, on principle, be exploring the issue further, for fear of inadvertently âgiving them what they want.â Enjoy the soothing video. Nature is healing, etc.
Finally, the cherry on top of this weekâs Clown World Sundae. Behold, the dumbest controversy over race and video games from the craziest people alive since the last controversy over race and video games from the craziest people alive. River Page, who is very much on the âdumb controversies over race and video games from the craziest people aliveâ beat, I am realizing, concludes this weekâs letter with the following, vital report:
Baldurâs Gate 3 is a new RPG video game set in the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Since its release on August 3rd, the game has already sold 5.2 million copies on Steam alone, making it one of the biggest games of the year. Itâs also racist, apparently. On X, in a now-deleted-tweet (or whatever we are calling them now) one user complained âThe racism in Baldurâs gate is genuinely so fucking hard on me. Playing as a Tiefling as a black person is brutal, the game antagonizes you, and the plot positions you as the bad guy if you donât help the druids calling you slurs.âÂ
Like that tweet, playing as a Tiefling â a horned demon-like race â is completely optional, so the least resilient could simply play as another race. Right? Apparently not. For some, just witnessing anti-Tiefling racism against NPCs is too much. âThe Fantasy Racism in Baldurâs Gate 3 Affected Me More Than I Thought It Would,â reads a headline from The Gamer. The author says she was triggered by hearing an NPC call one of the Tieflings â again, a horned demon species â a âfoulblood.â
This is just the latest in a years-long campaign to get D&D to âGrapple with the Racism in Fantasy,â as a 2021 Wired article put it. In the article, the author scolds D&Dâs âgenetic determinism,â the sort of thing which says elves enjoy poetry and dwarves are good at mining, or whatever. In the game, certain races have skill bonuses, which lead to âstereotypesâ about intelligent gnome wizards, for example. Of course, if you work hard enough, you can be anything you want in the game â a half-orc scholar, say. However, the author believes this is exceptionalism is âanother trap.â By the time the Wired article was written, Wizards of the Coast, the company which owns the license to the D&D Franchise, had already promised to hire sensitivity readers for their guidebooks, and to make changes to deal with the âracial reckoningâ sweeping the country.Â
In Baldurâs Gate, it appears that some of this âreformâ has already been implemented. In Dual Shockers, one writer cites a scene where you can tell off an NPC for insulting a Gur, members of a gypsy-like race of nomads. I suppose that wasnât enough. So far as I can tell, what the very vocal minority here wants is a completely different game, in which âracesâ are just skins that have no bearing on the story, skills or anything else. They want to completely upend the basic mechanics and lore of D&D. That, or they just want something to complain about. Considering theyâve paid $60 for the game, and continue to play it, I suspect the latter is true.Â
0 free articles left
case in point: the diversity lotto gives visas to 55,000 foreign nationals each year, regardless of whether they can contribute or assimilate, to increase the number of immigrants from Africa
River Page
for years, mayor breed has presided over massive budget increases to a now-$100 million a year DEI clientelism scheme
Sanjana Friedman
the high speed brightline train now connects miami and orlando, but california still has not laid a single mile of rail. what's the difference between these two projects?
River Page
